Welcome!
Project “BC” Huge announcement! My wife is pregnant! I’m gonna be a dad! Right now she is ~15 weeks so “Baby C” is approximately the size of a pear. I am excited about all the crazy adventures to come. |
Completed Projects
| “Paw the Claw” I did 5 test pages for a comic I am creating and pitching to publishers. It is a short semi-autobiographical story about a boy named Toby. Toby is scared of his grandfather, but he ends up having a fun day at the beach with the infamous Paw the Claw, and they become close friends.      My grandfather is the inspiration for Paw the Claw and he is just as wise witty and crotchety. Good memories. I will be pitching this to several publishers, stay tuned for updates. Radical Racer I took some time between projects to work on an art challenge. This is my entry for the DeviantArt Radical Racer OC (Original Character) Design Contest. I don’t draw very many vehicles so I wanted to take this as an opportunity to draw something very technical.  Moon Girl This is an illustration I did for fun with my wife as the model. It was an opportunity to study folds and rendering techniques. I also really wanted to go nuts with the colors and not use any local color. (LOCAL COLOR is the color that something is under normal light. for example, most paper is white under normal light, but under green light, it looks green.) I plan to get prints of this soon for my online store.  Animation I completed the animation project. wow, that was a bit of a bear but it was a fun ride and though it doesn’t really push me in the direction I want to go as an artist it was encouraging to learn how adept I was. PREVIOUS POSTS If you missed the previous newsletters you can find the entire back catalog here on my website. DRAWING CONCLUSION ARCHIVE |
Current Projects
| This section has been on a bullet point list for previous newsletters, I’m switching it to a simple list… why am I telling you this? #SmaugustHere are some highlights from the month of Smaugust 2020     And here are some of my favorites by other users on Instagram    TOTMore script! I just got the script for issue two and beyond. I am super excited to continue working on this project and see it grow. The Green Flamingo I have an offer from an agent to represent my book The Green Flamingo! I am super excited, I am finishing up the paperwork this week and will keep you updated on the progress of this project. Civil War Guerillas I got hired to work on a really cool project about guerilla warfare in MO during the Civil War. I can’t share much more now but I am super excited about this, here is some concept art. Look for some big updates on this in the coming months.  Sketchbook I filled my previous sketchbook #15 one year after I started it. I reviewed my goals with my wife for the quarter and I was reminded that it is a goal of mine to fill 3 sketchbooks this year so I really need to pick up the pace. Also, I have a certain number of heads, hands, figures, and other exercises that I need to do in these sketchbooks before the year is out. I have a lot ahead of me.  I started My new sketchbook #16 and it already covered in stickers  |
Upcoming Projects
| Painting I have been trying some really fun painting techniques that I plan to apply to a large scale project outside of my sketchbook. Stay tuned. Teaching I will start my third year of teaching this fall at a local Homeschool Co-op I teach an Intro to Comics class and Character Design class. I had a hard time making the decision between online and in-person classes. Online is obviously safer, however, I believe that the teaching is half, if not less, as effective. Specifically for art. Last school year I was able to transition my classes online at the end because we had already acclimated to a schedule and process as well as attained a certain artistic prowess to make up for the different teaching methods. The co-op is taking as many precautions as possible to keep all the students and teachers safe, including temperature checks, mask requirements, and physical distancing in the classrooms. Despite the complexities and disruptions that this will bring to the classroom, I am very excited to be teaching again and I look forward to sharing my students’ progress with you. |
Art Lesson
| Speaking of teaching… That comment I made about local color on the moon girl project has inspired me to include an art lesson section to this newsletter where I actually teach you some art. What a novel idea… we will start with an overview. I will go in-depth on each of these in the future. Here are the 7 Elements and Principles of art.   You can think of the Elements as musical notes and the Principles as how you play the notes. The instrument is your media: paint, ink, pencil, sculpture, basket-weaving… |
Philosophical Rant
Sunk costs. I spent a fair bit of money at the beginning of this year on some products that I planned to sell at comic cons this year. I got some stickers and a few prints. Little did I know that ALL the comic conventions would be canceled for good reason. Now, this really isn’t a big deal. It is a huge bummer and I actually have had a few sad dreams where I was actually at a comic con only to wake to the sad truth that it is not so. Honestly, I am devastated. I was really looking forward to a year of cons and networking. I have not let myself be sad because I have been so busy. But angsty artists gotta angst so I’ll probably listen to “Come from Away” the musical and have a good cry this week. Most of the sadness comes from not being able to go to the Cons period. But… there is an additional annoyance for me… I also bought some Pins to sell this year. These pins are joke election pins. I think politics are important but not the end-all and I want to try to bring some levity to the chaos around us by making some funny parody election pins for November. And since pretty much all my cons would be before the election I figured that these would sell like hotcakes. Well, here they are.  I’ll explain the jokes (I hear it’s funnier that way.) The Vision is a superhero from Marvel comics and I like puns so Vision 2020 President badges made sense. Cthulhu (ki-thoo-loo) is an eldritch god of H.P.Lovecraftian lore and since I have a very pessimistic view of any politician being anything other than a squid faced creature it seems fitting. These pins target my two audience markets of fans of comics and fans of monsters.  BUT! now all cons are canceled. This means I will probably not sell any of them. I was set to sell them for $3 ea or two for $5 but online sales are just not the same as a Con. First off I have to add a little fee for the online store platform that I am using, StorEnvy. I also have to consider shipping. Shipping is a bear. These pins are an awkward shape so I’m not sure if the mail would take just an envelope with a stamp on it so I need to look into special envelopes and postage and paying $3 to ship something that costs $3 is annoying. The pins are on my store and I would love the support, I hope this transparency about the inner workings doesn’t dissuade or guilt you. (Wow, way to slap them and hand them a bag of frozen peas)  STORE LINK All that to say, sometimes you just loose. This is the gamble in making time-sensitive material to sell. You might miss the window of relevance. Next election year I will probably do the same thing and just bank on not having a pandemic that year. You can only make decisions based on what you know at the time and at the time all the available information told me that it would be a good investment. And you know what I bet when I take these to cons next year that people will still think that they are funny and I might sell a few. In review, I am sad about not being able to attend Cons and losing money on the product. I am frustrated at online sales and how it disincentivizes buyers with fees and shipping. But I am grateful for the lesson learned and hope to help you avoid the same mistake or at least plan for a workaround. Thanks for reading that alone is a huge support to me and very encouraging, I would love to hear from you. Stay safe out there, love each other, and create beautiful things. Cheers, A |
