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.

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

Life has been CRAZY busy lately! Last weekend was The Fourth of July, of course, and Billy and I went up to Jersey to get some Wild Bill's Soda at Kaboomfest [Sadly, we got rained out and managed only to get the world's second most expensive kettle corn before turning around going home for dinner with his folks.] and actually had a pretty awesome weekend overall, especially because Billy's parents made some AWESOME veggie fajitas before we left. I ended up requesting the fourth off from work [holidays don't really exist here] and even though it ended up being a long weekend, I came home EXHAUSTED and have only just recovered! Speaking of work, here's something that won't ever get used!!!!

There's a new collection of polishes coming out that are based on a 1950s sort of theme, and they're AWESOME. Unfortunately, not only is this design not going to be used at all, but they ended up outsourcing and decided on something that has nothing to do with the 50s in even the slightest. How that makes sense I'll never understand, but it's what they're going with so... Yippie? I think the problem is that the folks here originally envisioned the collection as being a french cafe sort of thing, but when I brought the 1950s thing to the table, they fell head over heels for the funky names and the way it actually made the colors [which could only be described as 'old lady' ish] exciting... But forgot that it doesn't really make sense not to continue that theme into the marketing campaigns. Ah well. I really like the way this mockup came out and will tooooooooootally use it for something of my own if I figure out what I want to do with it.

Because of the three day weekend, this week has been going by ridiculously fast, and I'm kind of blown away that in just a couple more days, I'll be going to my third ever wedding! I ordered a dress online since I didn't have anything that would be appropriate for the event and it's supposed to arrive riiiiiiiight before I leave, so I'm cutting it pretty close. I suppose it won't be so bad if it doesn't show up, though, since I made sure I had enough extra money to buy a cheap dress on the fly if I need to and Billy's mom really wants to go out shopping. Personally, I hate shopping... But I LOVE Billy's mom, so I think it'll work out just okey dokey.

Unfortunately, because this is the second weekend in a row that has been claimed by family events and whatnot, the only time I've been able to work on the comic is right after work on the weekdays. Happily, I've gotten the pencils for two final pages about half a squiggle away from being finished!!! Unhappily... We're getting into that murky area of how much I'm allowed to show you, which is why the next few posts will probably have a lot more images of work-related stuff and a lot fewer images of comic-related jiggers.

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.

I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.

So I'm lying here on my free, old-lady style, cream and creamy green-colored loveseat, talking to my roommate about how much it sucks being sick. She's got a killer sinus infection, and I've got a killer case of the too-stupid-to-dry-off-before-going-to-sleep-while-it-was-damned-cold-and-managed-to-contract-something-horrible-but-don't-know-what-exactly-because-I-don't-have-health-insurance-so-can't-actually-ask-a-professional-and-have-to-basically-just-tough-it-out-and-hope-for-the-best. I'm a big believer in the "Just toughin' it out" method, but Linny [the aforementioned roommate] is a big believer in drugs. After two nights of keeping my boyfriend up with my coughing and nose-blowing and general sickery, I decided to give him a break by going out into the living room and trying to nap here... Especially since I felt awful for kicking him in the face, inexplicably. Linny, who works night shift and is also having trouble sleeping due to the evil, evil phlegm monster, was in our living room watching Avatar:The Last Airbender and immediately started pressuring me into taking Niquil. Linny's basic arguing method is the doooooo iiiiiitttt method, except she's exceptional at it and I've pretty much been conditioned to give in within an hour in most cases. Wow. Niquil frickin' kicked my ass. I took the shot of Niquil at the beginning of the episode where our ragtag bunch of heroes gets drawn into a swamp and meets a bunch of swamp-style water-benders and was stone-cold knocked-out in the most uncomfortable position imaginable on this itty-bitty love seat by the time Aang started chasing -spoilers- Toph and a flying pig. And I STAYED asleep. AND I DIDN'T SUFFOCATE. I don't know what the heck is in Niquil to make it work, but... Good job to whoever figured that crap out. Anyway, speaking of not having health insurance... My job!

I've been doing some pretty cool things for work that will never see the light of day, so I figured I'd show a couple of them here whenever I feel like it. I only had this idea like.... last week, and I'm definitely not at work right now on account of being pretty damned feverish so the only things I've got to show are..... the following. Since they're saved on my hard drive and not the server.


That is the cover for a nail art brochure that was scrapped on account of not being clean.


That's an illustration I made for a 50's-themed collection of nail polish that we're coming out with. The drawing was scrapped on account of being too terrifying.


This image actually was used in our blog in celebration of the Chinese New Year, but I felt like sharing it because while it is incredibly simple, I did it, damn it. And I'm gonna say so.


There's more, but I figured that's enough about work for now. I'll upload some stuff here and there as I get around to it.



Lately, Billy's been bugging me about how I haven't been doing as much personal art and that I've been only doing work art and... well... He's right. But so what? Sure, what I do at work isn't what I really like doing but... By the time I get home, I've done so much of it that I'm just too tired and don't want to do any more. But he does have a point, so I have been trying to at least get around to doing SOMETHING once a week, especially if that something is make a shirt for the woot.com derby. Now, the illustration that follows was originally for the woot derby, but I didn't finish it on time because we decided to spend the weekend with Billy's mom on Mother's day instead of doing something responsible like 'conserving fuel' or 'finishing artwork.' I feel like it was well-worth it, honestly. But I at least got the basic lineart finished so... Y'know... Here it goes.



And just so it's known, I inked that digitally which I absolutely HATE but I had to do on account of the fact that I pretty much only had time to work on the 'inking' while I was at work on my lunch breaks [at which time I pretty much only had my laptop available to me] and at Billy's parent's house while he was sleeping before we went to brunch for his mother. ... Either way, no scanner in sight and not really ideal scenery for inking. I did also finish the pencils for another design which I'm hoping to ink the proper way if I ever get around to it.


Given that there's only so many hours in a day that I can use to try and sleep away this fever, I'm hoping I manage to get myself to do something between pass-out sessions. I've got a feeling anything I'd make in this state would be entertainingly awful. Whoo!