Paperback cover & book. For fun.

Made a little paperback and cover in the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style.  100 pages, filled up with scans of a bunch of stuff from my sketchbooks as well as more recent digital work.  Printed out masters of the interior pages at home, then copied those double-sided pages at the local copy place, with decidedly mixed results.  Oh well.  Original cover painting & layout, printed onto cardstock and the whole thing perfect-bound and trimmed.  4.25 x 6.75", roughly.
...and a build video on youtube on the SleepyOni channel.

 https://youtu.be/ykJu1HKP_K0

2014: Year In Review

   So here's the output for 2014.  More than in previous years, certainly.  And more physical stuff made than in previous years as well.
   4 pieces made for professional publication(!)...may seem pretty weak, but it's fairly huge for me.   Made a life-size R2 minus the dome.  Made a foam Mjolnir.  Also drywalled/painted my workshop AND built ~16ft of workbenches, and 8' of 6'-high workshop shelving.
   Ran a kickstarter campaign that succeeded, allowing me to make some pretty nice prints for Monster Women Mag, as well as the 12-card packs for backers.  Feel really good about the color quality of these;  my confidence regarding CMYK conversion is vastly improved.  Produced a 12-page sampler from MWMag completely solo over the summer - around 60 spot illo's, plus period-style articles and adverts, and also a photoshoot that was then vintage-ized.  The KS was my first attempt doing anything with video editing and/or cut-rate fake animation.
   The MWMag KS also let me produce 100 lil' 5-card packs for self-promotion, and MWMag postcards & stickers.  Attended  Pulpfest (meh) and GenCon (huzzah!) handing out said promo materials.  Got to pass stuff to Jordan Weisman(Shadowrun creator), Wil Wheaton(!), Dennis Detwiller(Delta Green creator and artist, nerd-hero), Steve Prescott(SR 3rd Ed artist, also nerd-hero), and a bunch more.

   Had a rough year personally, but still better than 2013.  Had the advantage of lots of projects to dive into, without the initial shock of diving into the freelance life.  
   Overall. pretty okay starter year.  On to the next.

Digitizing the old stuff

So I realized some time ago that I am an absolute freak when it comes to collecting/cataloging. Anything I've drawn or doodled that has any redeeming value at all, I will save. Not only that, I'll cut it out & stick it in a binder. 1st image above is a regular page from just such a monster. In the interests of preserving this crap, I've been taking photos of pages, and these were a few of the highlights. Some of 'em have been through PS - just to get rid of excess nonsense surrounding the image.
I have a lot of crap. Not counting the multiple volumes of inspiration/research images. Damn you, genetic-predisposition-towards-collecting!

1 year ago

Two more from last summer, right around the start of me trying really hard to accept that my artistic output will never be what I want it to be. Trying to embrace it for what it is.
I used to do the whole lightly sketched pencils/refine lines/pen & ink/erase pencils routine. It was a pain in my derriere, and I found it really difficult to maintain consistency between pencils & inks. So I ditched the pencil. Started using a light grey prismacolor marker for rough shapes, and straight to pen over the top. Mistakes are still visible, usually even after I try to hide them. This doesn't really bother me (certainly not like I thought it would). This is just how I draw. Sloppy & sketchy.

More from a couple years ago...

Looking back over my drawings from the last few years, I'm kind of troubled by how much it's changed. Consistency has always been an issue for me; some days everything works just as I want, other days nothing works at all. I was obsessed with having very strong lines, very graphic-style work for some time. Unfortunately, making that happen is a real struggle for me, considering that my most comfortable working method is sketching with a pen.
That being said, I'm pretty proud of these pieces. Each was something better than I though I was capable of at the time.
p.s. Top left is yet another shot of Zoetica Ebb, top right is Katie West, another source of inspiration.

Time for the Old

Sheesh, these are two really old drawings...the one on the left is from '96, maybe? A drawing of Fairuza Balk from some magazine of the time. The one on the right is from '94, drawn from the back cover of the very first tattoo magazine that I ever purchased. That drawing was actually the first time that I ever used chalk/charcoal on a black surface. Aahh, college.

The trip down memory lane will continue throughout this evening. You have been warned.