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I'm a pretty much laid back but very outgoing girl that loves leisure. By day I am a jewelry salesperson, in my spare time, if I'm not spending time outdoors or hanging out with my friends, I'm sitting in my room drawing, on the computer editing HTML, pictures, and reading comics, or watching cartoons.
 
I've been drawing as long as I can remember. My comics reflect my life, what I like to do, what I want to do and even my misfortunes [of course, exaggerated for humor]. All throughout my life I've always watched cartoons, especially the classics like the Looney Tunes shorts, which are my absolute favorite cartoon to watch, as well as shows like Ren and Stimpy, Sonic the Hedgehog, the Powerpuff Girls, and Family Guy. I've always had a love for animals, especially the domesticated ones like cats, dogs, and other small ones like weasels, rabbits, and even skunks, thus, all my characters are anthropomorphic beings, or as I like to call them "humane" beings.
 Life in general is the biggest inspiration for my comics. Things happen...why not make it funny? I have a very positive outlook on life, and I try to reflect this attitude in my comics. I also like to avoid the typical political party comics, trying not to lean left or right. In the off chance I do happen to make a comic related to politics, it would more than likely have a Libertarian perspective.
My all-time favorite comic is Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog series. I have a thing for the cute walking, talking, butt kicking animals, and the Sonic the Hedgehog series has just that. I also enjoy reading other non-famous comics created by every day people like myself online. It impresses me to see other people's ideas, drawing styles, and things like that.
My main comic World 2 was created in around July 2001 when the character "Mustela" was drawn. Her stories were simply drawn on notebook paper [mostly because I was still in high school and drawing made time fly]. There was really no story behind her just then, and even now, the comic is just a day to day thing based on my own life.
 Out of all my characters, Mustela is definitely my favorite, mainly because she's the comic version of myself, personality and all! After her creation, she needed friends, starting out with the romantic interest, which is how her boyfriend Hobby was created, but his creation was based on nobody, so his personality was pretty much based on my idea of the "ideal" boyfriend. Then he needed a friend, and Joe Dee came along, Cynthia as Mustela's friend, ex girlfriends/boyfriends, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, so on and so forth. All of the characters are already created and all have already appeared in comics, but some of those will probably never be posted online. Some people would look at the names of my characters and wonder why anyone would name characters like I do, like Hobby. Well, it just so happens, a male ferret is called a Hob. Mustela is the genus of ferrets, weasels, and animals like that, and some of the last names, like Frenata [Palina's last name], is the last part of the scientific name for a long-tailed weasel. Some of the names will tell you what the character is.
 When I get an idea, I write down a small sentence in my PDA to remember, because sometimes, you can't just get an idea and sit down to draw it. I've lost so many ideas because I didn't write them down! When I get free time, I usually just grab my binder, pencil, eraser, and inking pen, and begin to draw in my bed, since its the most comfortable place TO draw, because honestly, sitting in a chair makes your butt hurt.
First, I find out how many panels its going to take by writing what is going to be said on a separate piece of paper. Then, I draw each picture with pencil to my liking. Most of my comics are drawn on one page of 8x11 piece of paper. When I am done, I ink it, erase the pencil lines, and scan the picture on to my computer. [I use the Epson brand for scanning. I've tried HP, but it doesn't clean up the way Epson scanners do.] I add the separating lines digitally, then begin to color them with the simple fill bucket. It usually takes 3 hours for me to finish a computer colored comic with no interruptions, start to finish, and for just pencil, it takes as little as 30 minutes.
As for the comic in general, I have no real future plans other than to keep drawing it until something happens. What something, I don't know, other than it becoming something like a real cartoon series, and due to content, would probably have to be aired late at night on something like Adult Swim. Now that would be cool!
All images Copyright Diane Harrell: 2001-2007
No reproduction of any material is allowed in any format without written permission.
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