The quest for the perfect brush.

Normally when I ink, I use a nib pen for the whole thing, and only consider touching a brush if there's a particularly large area that needs some ink slapped on it. I've been going on like this for years, not really considering the brush to be a primary tool so much as a convenient afterthought! However, when I inked one page in particular of Little Red Men, I realized that I'd need HUGE lines from the getgo, and decided to ink the whole thing with a brush on a whim.



This just so happens to be that very page! I'm permitted to share up to 25% of the comic before it's published, and given how sparingly I've teased you, I feel like this is permissible. ANYWAY, the only brushes I had available to me at the time were some pretty worn down, beat up, and desperately depressing white nylon brushes that did the trick, but were less than desirable. Even still, I noticed that my inking time had been virtually cut in half with each stroke! And while I did sacrifice quite a bit of stability and control by giving up my pen, I suddenly had an extremely varied number of line weights that I could make in a single stroke. So, I decided it was time to experiment with brush work.

Once I got it in my head that this was a viable method, it became pretty much obvious that I'd need to upgrade my materials... So I fired up the ol' Googletron 9000 and asked it what brushes were best for inking. The internet seems to unanimously praise the Windsor and Newton series 7 [in particular, sizes 2 or 3] brush and claim it to be the one brush to rule them all. Then then in their next sentence speak of how there truly is only ONE brush to rule them all as the company has gone downhill and serviceable-much less actually perfect-brushes from W&N can no longer be found. Besides, it's roughly $20 or $30 per brush, apparently, and I don't really have that kind of scratch lying around for one single brush that may or may not work.

Enter Rosemary and Co. The internet has mixed feelings about the company, and just a few years ago they were praised as being phenomenal brushes at outrageously affordable prices... But something has clearly happened to the company. Perhaps they have become exceedingly popular and can not keep up with demand? I decided to take my chances and looked into their brushes. Not really knowing what to get, I decided to e-mail Rosemary and ask her for some advice on which brushes to purchase based on how I like my brushes to feel, and that I was planning on working with ink. She got back to me nearly immediately and was extremely helpful!!! So I ordered my brushes that night and despite them being shipped from Europe, received them within three days! Holy crap!!! Not only that, but a free catalog that has EVERY SINGLE BRUSH THEY MAKE photographed at real-size?!?!? Wow. The customer service at Rosemary & Co. is certainly not lacking, that's for sure. However...



See that blurry phone photo? [Sorry, but my digital camera is broken and this is the only thing I've got that takes pictures right now.] See how the left side looks kind of... lumpy? Perhaps even... separate? This is one of the four Rosemary brushes that I ordered, which after shipping, only cost $30. Two are Kolinski sable, and two are Red sable which means that at basically $20 before shipping, this is a pretty pimp deal. Well, in theory it is.

You see, pretty much all four of my Rosemary brushes have problems, this one in particular had the most drastic problems because the bristles were caught in that stupid protective plastic sleeve thing and bent backwards over the handle. I trimmed the super-deformed bristles as close to the ferrule as I possibly could so I would be able to jump right in and try them without having to wait a couple more days for a replacement... Which would have been free, but which actually... I don't even want any more. This photo was taken AFTER I trimmed the brush, and after I used it for the first time. The darned thing went completely coo coo! Hairs were just splaying out everywhere depending on what they wanted to do at any given stroke! And it wasn't the only one! Essentially every single brush I ordered from Rosemary is absurdly frustrating and discouraging to use because of how poorly it functions! Not only is the belly pretty thin, making the ink-reservoir in the brush pretty minimal, but every single one of them has this curiously specific point. I gather that it is good when a brush comes to a point that is essentially one hair, but the lengths to which Rosemary & co. went to ensure that was the case is just ridiculous! There was one single hair at the tip that seemed to be ever so slightly longer than all the rest, causing it to actually be more of a pain in the butt than an advantage! That particular hair would always go off on its own adventures and come back later to tell everyone else they were doing it wrong and attempt to garner more support for the rebel army! I inked a verrrrrrrrrry simple piece with those brushes that I'll share with you all in the near future and I could not WAIT for it to be over just so I could put them away and NEVER USE THEM AGAIN.




The brushes on the right are the ones that are from Rosemary, and the one that is to the far left is basically the only one that's even remotely usable... And I do mean remotely.

Because of how awful my experience with these brushes was, I decided that it would be wrong to tell you all about them and not offer an alternative, so last night I went to Blick with my friend Mike and rummaged through their brushes. I found this GREAT brush that I think was made by a company named Isabey or something along those lines, but nearly had a heart attack when I saw that it was $75 for just the one brush. I shit you not. It seemed like an actually really good brush due to the springyness of the bristles [which were, of course, sable], the verrrrry full belly, the tight crimping of the ferrule, and the fact that it came to a splendid point and had no flyaways or clipped bristles anywhere. When I sulked back to the spot where the expensive dream brush was supposed to live until some more fortunate artist that I hope knows how to show a brush a good time comes along to claim it... I noticed that Blick has their own line of brushes. The three brushes on the top of that photograph are the ones from Blick's line and I've got to say... They're pretty darn good.

That is NOT to say that they are AMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZING, but they are good enough that I'm actually really excited to keep playing with them, and I am super grateful that I didn't want to gouge my own eyes out with them. If you can see well enough from the picture, the bellies are quite a bit fuller in the Blick brushes than the Rosemary ones, which was super duper nice of them. Not only that, but I have not yet had to deal with a flyaway!



The springness of these brushes is great, and even though I had that tiny little size four brush, I actually ended up using the ten for the bulk of the piece, only really going to the four for the eyes and suuuuper tiny fiddly bits. The 16 that I got was superb for filling in huge spaces and actually also came to an impressively fine point! They were also great for little bits of dry-brushing, and did not even for a moment complain about being abused so early in their life-springing back to a perfect point the instant I dipped them in some good ol' water. Did I also mention that together, these three brushes only cost me $25? Yeah. I'd say I got more than what I paid for in this case. These brushes were a joy to work with and for that price, there's really no reason NOT to stock up on a couple and at least try them out!




I know that I've still got a long way to go before I've mastered the brush, and I really think that my only obstacle is learning to let go of my incessant need to tightly control each line, but I definitely believe that having actually found some decent brushes is the best favor I could have done for myself.

So, to recap, Rosemary & co. = no go. Generic Blick-brand brushes? Get 'em. Also, my Totoro inkwell continues to be the coolest darned thing ever. I've been abusing that thing and shaking it around like crazy and spinning it and all sorts of crap and it not only takes the beating, but doesn't spill a single drop of ink. I friggin' love this thing.



Here's the finished image that I used to test the brushes. Thank goodness these ones weren't duds, because this piece is for Billy! Our anniversary is next week, and it's about time I gave him another art. Two years in, and loving him is still the most magical adventure I've ever been taken on.

... I might change the coloring, though.

Is it the snowtimes?

Yes! I've now officially broken in the Totoro inkwell and it worked brilliantly! The mouth now has an expected ring of black ink on the inside and I stupidly decided to pour just a wee bit of glaze in the mouth and not properly allow it to dry before inking so there's now a small paintless patch on the inside, but it's otherwise perfect! Held the ink just splendidly, the mouth was exactly the right width for me to swirl the brush around in, and despite moving Totoro around like crazy, he never once spilled! As an added bonus, the teeth proved to be an excellent place to quickly wipe off any excess ink from the brush since they're a ledge hanging inwards!

Here's what I decided to make tonight during the testing-just a very quick doodle that all said and done, probably took about an hour total, which is absurdly quick for me. Plus, I stopped halfway through the sketch and played "who's a big dumb head that just got their nose bopped?!?!!!!" with my cat for a bit.



This was so much fun to just knock out! I'm definitely going to experiment more with my inking, and the first step I've definitely got to take is getting some real brushes! I have no idea why, but basically every single brush I was able to find tonight was either a falling apart white nylon brush, or a falling apart 'comes in a pack of five but are totally the worst brushes you'll ever use' discount brushes. I KNOW I used to have some decent ones, but they're either buried in the chaos of my hallway closet, or they were lost in a move. Either way, it's probably about time I upgraded to well-informed growed-up art brushes and that's exactly what I intend to do! Well... Sort of.

I spent a large chunk of the night looking for advice on what brushes to use, and the internet seems to have come to the conclusion that all hope is lost as all brush manufacturers are either crap, expensive, expensive crap, or expensive crap that just isn't like how it used to be. So I've settled on ordering some brushes from Rosemary and Co. because heck, they're cheap and so am I! Besides, if I'm going to take a chance on good-quality brushes being horrible I may as well go for a brand that not only gives a money back guarantee, but will instantly replace any product that you report to them is unsatisfactory, no questions asked. Now try getting THAT kind of deal from Windsor & Newton.

Once I get around to figuring out just which Rosemary brushes I want, I think I'll do a review of them, since I really appreciated the recommendations I found online for different brushes and like to think that someone else will be as grateful for the advice of someone who actually experienced the product as I was.

And what's the deal with those October snowstorms?

Finally! Halloween came and knocked our socks off with a kind of random and uncalled-for snow storm. Luckily, in my area there was only a light... smattering... of snow, but a couple of my friends reported having gotten up to 2 feet of snow! Holy moley! Sadly, the snow canceled my plans to revisit the Renaissance Faire on its final weekend, but I had a darned good time anyway. Linvilla Orchards had some AWESOME pumpkins up for grabs, so I took the opportunity to carve a rather swell Totoro [from My Neighbor Totoro] pumpkin... Which is not pictured below. Instead, I'm spreading the love by 'accidentally' hitting 'put that preview of Little Red Men' up on this blog. Whoopsies, clumsy me! Kind of the same concept as when you're making yourself a nice pot of grits and you just happen to trip and drop a block of cream cheese in while crossing the kitchen. [Wise advice from Paula Deen, let me tell you...]



This page was a lot of fun for me to color, because I really liked playing with the skyline in the first [heck, ONLY] panel. Really brings me back to when I was a kid and we'd sit on the roof of the house and just watch the stars show up.

And, since it's been a while since I've shared anything from Misa, here's something else to add to the 'not getting used this time!' collection!



We've got a new line of treatments coming out soon, and the owners wanted a quick header card so they could send out an advance package of them to Trade Secrets. When I asked if they had any imagery or themes or colors that they wanted incorporated into the design, I was only given "Fresh and clean." Which caused me to hum "So fresh and so clean, clean" while doodling that. We've decided to go in a more photographic direction, so that means I'm free to share that little gem! And as an odd sort of treat, I'll leave you with this video.



What a random song to suddenly have stuck in my head.

I went to the Ren Faire yesterday!

Heya chumps and chumpettes! It's been a long, winding month here in crazytown and I've finally had a chance to check in!

This half of the year is always kind of hectic for me, because in addition to all them fancy 'give everybody ALL THE GIFTS' holidays that are now, about 3/4 of my friends have their birthdays between September and December. Oh no!!! My lovely, wonderful, gorgeous, amazing, and absurdly loving friend Ren's birthday was last month, and I sadly did not have any money to buy her anything. That's not to say that I normally buy people things in the first place [What artist DOESN'T make at least 2/3 of the gifts they give?], but I had an idea of something to purchase this time around and was kind of disappointed that I had to default to handmade. So anyway! This year, I made her an inked [and later mounted] drawing of her Pathfinder character, Ehalania, and her... Pet? Fuzzy-Wuzzums. I shit you not, that's what she named her character's tiger. We have some AMAZING adventures together every Sunday and I felt like this was an entirely appropriate gift, especially given that I was going to give it to her right after one of our Pathfinder sessions anyway.



That week, I was reeeeeeally craving some deep-inking, but I haven't done anything with extreme shadows in quite a while. I figured if I pulled it off, she'd win a fun and unexpected piece! And if not, well.... Then I at least got to experiment. I feel like I could have done a bunch more detailing and played around with texture and dry-brushing, but Ren loved it so... Who cares! This was fun for me to make, and it gave me some great ideas for whenever I get around to making a picture of my own character.

As a little bonus, I'm feeling generous [and a bit guilty for not having posted for quite some time] and have elected to share a very rough beginning stage of the coloring of the first page of Little Red Men, a forthcoming comic written by the talented Sam Verrall and illustrated by the dead-sexy... Me.



This page has a lonnnnnnnnng way to go until it's finished, but I'm having fun messin' around with it and trying to decide on the best way to create the warm, reflective lighting from the fireplace. Gosh though, this comic looks like it's about creepy aliens that wear wigs according to that last panel. ... I kinda like it.

This weekend, I'll be taking a break from the comic [probably] to help the infamous Brandi make some paintings for her brand new office!... And celebrate Billy's Mom's Birthday! .... And his god-sister's birthday!!! [See, told you there were a lot of birthdays right now. My roomate's birthday is in like... two weeks and I'm still not done her gift yet, either!]. I've actually really missed painting and I'm suuuuuper excited to bust out the ol' staple gun when I stretch the canvas. Hopefully we finish the paintings quickly and I get to photograph them and share!

Goin' a bit batty. Har har har.

Howdy, y'all! So, I'm taking the weekend off from working on the comic to hang out in Jersey and celebrate father's day with Billy's family! I'm super excited to get a move on the cooking that Brandi and I are going to do for the Sunday BBQ [The Gluten-Free kid and Vegetarian kid are going to do some cooking for Glutenized meat-eaters?!!? Oh noooooooooo!!!!!] because we always have awesome food adventures and, this time, we're going to be playing board games and watching Dr.Who simultaneously! How jealous are you?

So obviously, there are going to be some awesome treats getting pumped out for Billy's family this weekend, but what do I have for you? Well, I'm glad you asked! First, and most excitingly, I have one COUNT IT, one actual finalized and finished.... panel... for the comic!



The way this panel came about was that one day, during my character-sketching bonanza, I got fed up with fiddling about poses and turning heads and designing chairs and just wanted to draw! ...But it doesn't really make sense to draw just whatever the heck while I've got this awesome project to pull from and decided to take one of the more striking images that Sam, the writer, specified in the script. It was originally just something I was doing because I wanted to keep sane and because I wanted to procrastinate while still being able to claim productivity but... I ended up going all out. Luckily, this particular panel was written to be a sort of inset panel on the page, so it doesn't matter that I made it completely separately from a fully-realized page. I'm pretty pumped about the way this came out, and Sam went super crazy over it, too!

Also, here's some stuff that I did for work that didn't make the cut!



This piece WAS going to be the cover of a brochure for this Summer's newest polish collection but, unfortunately, they decided to just not do a brochure at all! This project was a lotttt of fun to do and I was glad they let me try it out riiiight up until they decided not to go with it. Le sad. This is a common theme though becaaaaaaause....



this one is ALSO not being used. The rejection of these two designs was particularly heartbreaking to me because, obviously, they are fully-realized... I had a lot of fun working on the projects so I guess I shouldn't be sad about them. Plus, I got to take home the props from the second one and am tooooootally going to add them to my studio at home. I forgot how much I loved painting with actual paint until I did that UFO! Even though it was done with acrylic [my LEAST favorite paint] and with an eh quality brand of paints, it was just... fun!

You know what else is fun, though? Making your own guacamole! ... Which I'm going to do right.... NOW.

Dream big.

So I've been coasting along the road of life for the last couple of months with much more ease than I'm accustomed to... Which is why it wasn't really a surprise when I managed to hit a delicious disaster of a bump. I'm not going to mention what's going on, only what I've discovered because of it.

There are no rules. You can do literally anything at all as long as you want to and refuse to accept that there are pre-existing roadblocks that you have to bypass. Nobody in this world knows what they're doing and are pretty much just doing their best to convince you that they've got it all under control while panicking massively in their own mind. We're all just people dealing with the same stupid problems from different sides of the situation. What in this world says that you need to go to school to become something if you've already got all the knowledge without it? Who says the stars are too far away to be reached? Who says we can't all grow up to be happy? We all have such a limited amount of time on this earth and the people who have managed to build empires and become successful are not gods-they're merely other people. There's nothing special or scary about them that makes them any different from you. If you want it, go ahead and get it. We're all on the edge of dying at any given point anyway and I, for one, would like to go out thinking I had a good run; not go out thinking 'well damn, ain't that just another fuckin' thing.' Don't ever let anyone convince you that you CAN'T do something. Especially you.

I'm a big kid now!

Holy crap, I got a big girl job doing stuff that I totally dig doing! I've got to admit, after the debacle with Nijah directly after Panera I was a bit skeptical that work was really working out for me. I considered becoming an old-timey railroad robber or spaceship instructor or parasite wrangler but those positions all seemed not to currently be available. I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when this new job not only turned out to be with a totally swanky company [ http://www.misacosmetics.com for those interested], but also doing something awesome! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you are now reading the blog of someone who is, quite unexpectedly, an art director. Awesome.

You know what else is awesome? CHRISTMAS. My family raised me Jewish, and did a pretty crappy job of it. If we decided to celebrate anything, it was by buying a pack of Matzos during Passover and eating it alongside our toast and possibly remembering to light a candle at least one of the nights of Channukkah while possibly being given gelt or nothing or a coat and continuing to ignore each other. Now, I am very proud of my roots despite not identifying with the religion or the people at all but goddamn does being a Jew suck.
This holiday season I elected to spend time with Billy and his family and celebrate Chrismas for the first really real time in my life. I was so excited! I couldn't sleep at all Christmas Eve and am STILL just going around and shouting CHRISTMAS!!! from time to time. Billy's family is fun to be with, and they provided me with enough trail mix and clementines to cause me to develop a very serious trail-mix-and-clementines dependency. That stuff's friggin' tasty.
By the way, the second best gift I was given is a heart necklace with a triquerta carved into it. The best gift was two weeks straight of Billy. <3

Also, my friends and I participated in a pollyanna for each other and in true "I'm a brokeass" style, I drew the gift for my polly.



Yes, this is why I was practicing reflective lighting on crazy child-faces.

Fireflies!!!

One day I woke up and said "hmm. I don't think I've done anything with reflective light for a while..... LET'S DO THIS THING!!!" ... So I did.




Now.... I am definitely aware that I may have gone a teensy-weensy bit overboard while doing this, but... I have a couple more projects I'm working on that will really help me refine this skill. Honestly, I just wanted an excuse to draw something that looked freaky as fuck, and we all know that me drawing children is terrifying. What's weird is that I actually like kids... So I'm not really sure why they're pretty much the scariest things I ever draw but... Eh.

This image was also colored entirely in Photoshop, as opposed to my lovely, lovely Painter. The main reason being that my computer has had problems with Painter crashing lately, and I need to reinstall it.... But I don't quite remember where I put my install disk soooooooooo.......... Poop berries. It's probably somewhere real clever like... In the bag that I keep the rest of my computer accessories and my CS4 disks but I am far too lazy to search for mere moments. No, instead I feel compelled to spend many hours slaving away in front of a program with which I am slightly less competent.

It's really funny to me, actually, that in high school I pretty much exclusively used the Adobe suite of products, but when I went to college... I switched to Painter. I think the reason is that I was able to get a copy of Painter 10 online for $35, and the adobe products were locked into a key server that meant I was only going to have access to them temporarily. I figured it was probably best not to get too used to something that I wasn't going to have around forever and instead, become a master at the one I actually did own: Painter. I was literally the only person in college that I know of that was using Painter, so when I had to figure out how to do something.... Actually, I kind of had a lot of fun doing it. I think I came up with some of the most bizarre methods of doing things and honestly I don't even remember what they were any more, but I always made them work. I also really love the brush controls in Painter, and how it duplicates the effects of traditional mediums quite nicely.

Recently, though, I've been getting re-acquainted with Photoshop and it is one of the best ideas I've ever had. Why? Because it got me a job! I've been unemployed for a bit due to some complications at my old new job that resulted in me not gettin' paid. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah. Don't worry about it. What's important is that a combination of randomly deciding to start using Photoshop again, coupled with the super high-quality portfolio that UArts required me to make landed me a job as a receptionist/artist at Misa Cosmetics, a pretty rad nail polish company. The art portion is mostly going to be Graphic Design, photo editing, and product photography but... Hey! It's something! I am sooooooooooooo freakin' psyched it's just ridonkulous.

You know what else? I am sooooooooooo freakin' hungry it's just ridonkulous. I think I'm going to go make a totally pimped out veggie burger with a bun that's been grilled with garlic butter, topped with garlic herb mayo, extra sharp cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, and a hint of ketchup. Successes like this are worth celebrating with copious amounts of soy.

Man, it's really cold right now.

Now, it is no secret at all that I am crazy head-over heels ga ga goo goo butterflies up in the sky in love with the most wonderful man in the universe:Billy. And if it was a secret before, well.... Uh.... Surprise? Where the junk have you been living? I mean, seriously... He's just about all I talk about aside from my cat and how darned cold it is right now. Anyway, his birthday was this weekend and I am beyond grateful he managed to be born so.... I conjured up this little number for him.




Anyone who knows him, obviously knows that the pirate is, in fact, the most realistic portrayal of Billy ever to have been created. I'm serious-aside from the entire month of December [during which he dons a Santa hat], Billy wears a pirate hat all year-round, usually has a ducky or two on his person, and is the jolliest crazy bastard you've ever met. He's also got this really awesome dog named Rowdy, but that's only partially as important. I absolutely LOVED making this piece, and it is actually the first one that I've completely colored in Photoshop without even a little bit looking at Painter. I'd definitely say that it was an interesting experience, and I understand why it's so popular but.... seriously... Painter rocks. I really want the latest version, but I've got to replace my xBox before I go spendin' money on other, more productive things like art programs.

Also, this week I re-discovered my shrinky-dinks. Good lord, they are pretty much the most awesome art supply ever!!!!!! I will probably make an etsy account sometime in the near future and make billions of dollars off of Shrinky-Dink crafts.

Double also, I'm really good at making cake!

END OF LINE.

[Totally want to see the new Tron movie. :D ]

She doesn't fight fair....y.

Have you ever just wanted to see some fairies kick the crap out of each other? Because I sure have.



You know that song by Lemon Demon? Y'know, the one about the ultimate showdown and Mr.Rogers wins in the end? I'm kind of wondering what it would be like if there was an ultimate showdown for cryptids. Like.... Would Bigfoot, or the abominable snowman win out? They're pretty much the same big hairy ape-type dude, wandering around in an undesirable setting and alllllways having blurry pictures taken of themselves. Mitch Hedberg was probably right when he said Bigfoot just is a blurry monster. But they might not stand a chance against something as crazed and blood-thirsty as the Chupacabra! Then again... Neither of them is a goat and so... Are probably not actually in any danger. Unicorns have a high probability of stabbing something through the chest, y'know... And Nessie's got an awful big mouth.... Hm. Nah, if we're looking for the Mr. Rogers of the cryptid world, I guess we'd have to declare the inflatable hedgehog as the winner, since seriously.... what the junk? Inflatable hedgehog? Who the heck comes up with these creatures?!

Well, that's all for now. Be sure not to trip on any hoop snakes on your way to bed, or upset any owl men when you go out grocery shopping. Not that I think it would be deadly for you or anything, just that it would be hard to explain to your parents why you suddenly up and lost your marbles.


P.S. Fairies are totally real, though.

Bigfoot in Love.

Looking for love stinks. Being single really isn't bad at all... Unless you've gotten that itch that only the love of someone else can scratch. You know what I'm talking about. Those weeks of evaluating yourself, starting to think there's no one out there who could ever love you, changing your face and hair and wardrobe to make yourself a little more appealing, telling all your friends it's okay that you're single because it's okay, you're a deity and don't need anyone to fill your void and it really doesn't matter that everyone you know is growing up and getting married and you can't even manage to wrangle a second date despite the fact that you think you do and say all the right things aside from ordering the most garlic-y dish on the menu.... But yeah, no big deal... Everything's okay. But you're still lonely. I'm reminded of a Deirdre Flint song, actually....

Anyway, some of us have a little more trouble than others. Some of us are imaginary creatures with a constant bad hair day and have a LOT more trouble than others.





This week's woot.com topic was cryptids, or well-known imaginary creatures that people SWEAR are real. More to come soon!



By the way, I'm in a ridiculously satisfying and happy relationship and have fairly normal-sized feet. ... But that doesn't mean I don't sympathize with ol' Bigfoot up there.

No sense cryin'.

Holy smokes has it been a long time! How y'all doin' tonight? I see some old faces in the crowd, glad to see you're still up and kickin' about. Me, I stopped kickin' about for a while there... As you can tell. It's hard out there when you're working fifty hour weeks at a job that doesn't pay you nearly enough to survive, tells you you're the cancer of the company [true story!], and sticks you under the command of some dumbass too idiotic enough not to run into a car while on his bike. In the suburbs. At some point, you've just got to say enough is enough and get back to what's important to you. I've been spending a lot of time with my cat, and my boyfriend, and they both agree that drawing is the best way to fix this craphole I seem to have slid right on down to. So I've got a solution to keep me motivated, and hopefully end up with a good enough payload that I can blow this crummy popsicle shop and lead my life somewhat more on my own danged terms!

shirt.woot.com has a derby every week for random people to submit shirt designs based on their parameters. This week, they just so happened to decide the theme was the end of the world, and I just so happened to produce this little gem:





As of now, I've got a whopping 24 votes, which is pretty pathetic but actually way better than I was expecting.... I was really only hoping for five votes, and ten as an ultimate goal. Did I mention that whoever's shirt gets picked, gets a thousand bucks right off the bat? Hot damn! I could use that money to buy the biggest bag of gummy bears ever made!!!! Yeah!!!!! .... Or, y'know.... Do something responsible with it, too, like... Pay my electric bill. Sheesh, whatever. Gummy bears are cooler.

I'll be entering this derby for at least another ten weeks for a few reasons. One, moneymoneymoneymoneymoney. Two, deadlines force me to actually do work. Three, I was super frustrated I hadn't been doing anything other than random doodles for basically a whole danged year. Four, it'll help me buff up my portfolio so I can get back on track to being a real artist. Five, secret plan.

YES, THAT'S RIGHT, SECRET PLAN. Just because this is the internet doesn't mean I need to tell you everything.

Incidentally, I just pulled off one of my toenails and it's bleeding quite a bit. And I'm going to start learning sign language next week. And I'm hungry. Stay tuned!!!

The Pope-revisited.

I tend to fall victim to misinterpretation quite often, but I always get my best ideas out of it! For instance, one day I saw the phrase "The Pope's Not Coming" for a split second and IMMEDIATELY died laughing. Then someone threw me a phoenix down and I ate their brains because reanimation can only end badly. But! The point is that I just could not get over that phrase. What could it possibly mean?!?!?! I started thinking up all these reasons that the pope wouldn't be coming, and things that he wouldn't be coming to and knew that something had to be done with this. So, I've been working on a series of illustrations called "The Pope's Not Coming" all with the theme of... The Pope not coming. I really dig this series and hope to get it published at some point, but since I usually do it entirely in black and white, throwing a couple of them into my portfolio doesn't quite fit. Solution? Colorization, of course! I took one of my favorite Pope images and gave it a go with the ol' computeramizational colorajiggatron.

Before!


After!



Oh, and by the way, the origin of the phrase was from a professor's computer. It turns out that he did the illustrations for an article about how The Pope wasn't coming to Philadelphia on his U.S. tour, I believe. That's pretty normal compared to my versions, which involve rock concerts, aliens, wedding invitations, and chastity belts. And plenty more still, I'll have you know.

A day full-o-junk mail.

This morning I wake up and check my e-mail to find about 30 brand new junk mails that have slipped through the cracks of my junk filters. What the heck is going on with this?! Did I sign up on some kind of list?! Ah well, at least it gets me thinkin' that I'm popular for about a second and a half, there. And who doesn't like a good "Yay, me!" moment?

But how about some art, eh?!?!?

For the UArts portfolio day event, they tasked us talented students with making the promo card to invite prospective Art Directors. Of course, in true UArts style, they gave us as little notice as possible. Well, not really, since they could have said 'SURPRISE! HAND IT IN IN FIVE MINUTES!!!" and then there would have been a lot of ink blots and random paint scribbles almost a la Pollock instead of some of the things that actually got submitted. For my piece, I originally started making something that was entirely lame. When it came time to do the finish, I just couldn't bring myself to go through with it, so I said SCREW IT. I suddenly had a desire only to draw tea parties. Of course, I had this desire exactly 24 hours before the finish was to be handed in, but... Well, I like a challenge.



The secret is that the characters actually represent people! From left to right is Rachel Burkhard, Gloria Martin, Me, Collie Mills, and my sister Nanners. And the not-so-secret is that all the cakes and cookies on the table represent different types of illustration. I'm actually pretty happy with it, and there are only a few things I'm going to change before adding it to my portfolio.

I've also been having fun doing some quick illustrations for my friend, Lorne, for whatever reason I choose at the moment. Here's one that is just as strange even if you do know the context.



This is what happens when you give me a week off of class.

Ta-daaaa!

Well would you look at that-not even a full day later, and you get the colored version of this fantabulous Grimble piece. Looks like I may be able to build a snowman wonderland with this foot of snow we got, afterall!



As promised, not only did there end up being a chair, but a coat as well! Have fun playing the "What's different?" game that's in just about every Highlight's magazine ever. Also, those "Find these pictures!!!!" drawings in those are amazingly fun. I wonder who does them...