The Frugal Geek
Monday, April 12th, 2010I am routinely bewildered by how much my friends spend on games. Games are not cheap. Perhaps I have become so, and that is the problem. Still…cheap, I feel, is the wrong word to describe someone who is careful with how they spend their money. Let’s look at the definition of an alternative word, frugal:
Economical in the use or appropriation of resources; not wasteful or lavish; wise in the expenditure or application of force, materials, time, etc.;
I think a great many of us fall under this description, especially these days while the world economy is in the toilet. Game publishers regularly put out $50 hardback editions, $50-60 board games, $20-$35 expansions. Computer games routinely cost $30-$60 dollars. Going to the movies is going up again, and comics aren’t getting any less expensive. Beyond that, time itself is at a premium, especially for those of us with one or more jobs, families, and other commitments. What’s a cost-conscious geek to do?
This is the question I’ll be exploring in the next several articles. Welcome to The Frugal Geek.
The inspiration for this is series is my own frustration from years of being utterly stunned at how much people spend on their habits and their passions, being envious of their wonderful toys, yet being reluctant to drop the cash necessary to keep up because something in me says that I could be spending that money more wisely.
A little background for new readers: I am a geek in my very, very late thirties. I have a full time job, a wife, three kids, rent to pay, two cars, insurance, etc, etc, etc. I’m a family guy who has to make budgeting decisions about ,y hobbies in terms of feeding my kids and keeping the roof over our head, just like many folks out there. And like many of you, I would go completely mad in a dealer room at a convention if ever let loose to buy whatever I wanted.
The purpose of this series is to explore how to deal with lack of funds with tricks, alternatives, and common sense. I’ll be exploring all manner of geekdom, and I welcome your own thoughts on how you manage your own funds, how you control your spending, and how you reward yourself.
Next column: The Frgual Geek and Games.
I was sitting at my desk this morning, pondering whether I ought to deploy a squadron of shock troops to 
Working from the script, I first go about creating a rough sketch of the comic. Sometimes this happens on actual slaughtered trees, but most of the time it’s directly in Photoshop.
After the sketch phase, I create a new layer to start drawing in the ink. I use a slanted brush with pen pressure dynamics turned on to allow for line weight variety when I draw.
Once the ink is down, I go over the image one more time with the ink brush and thicken up the outline of the characters, giving them more depth.
Now that the ink is finished, it’s time for color. To speed up the process, I go through and select like colored areas and fill them all in at the same time on a different layer. I go through this select and fill process until everything is filled in. I then go over the image one more time and touch up any spots that may have been missed.
At this point, I create yet another layer, set at something like 30% opacity, and with a black colored brush, I add some shadows. If the situation calls for extra depth, I may go in a do the same thing with a white brush to add highlights.
Finally, the text from the script is added. I spend a little bit of time moving each dialog around to make sure everything fits, checking for spelling errors, and just making sure the script is good to go. Once I’m satisfied with the text positions, I take my slanty black pen again and add dialog bubble outlines. Then these get filled with white. The “Spiffy Title” gets changed to the actual spiffy title and additional authors get added to the credits.
