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.

My Inkwell Totoro

So I was reading this post on comic tools and pretty much flipped my lid. First of all, I've been looking for something decent to put my ink in while working that I wasn't afraid would tip over when I nudged it or my cat decided to be naughty and hop up next to it and dip his paw into [he's actually really good when I'm working and almost always patiently waits, curled up next to me, for break time. But I'm always afraid that he'll get brave and jump up here and murder whatever I'm working on, just like he used to when he was a kitten.] and get ink EVERYWHERE. I don't know why it never occurred to me to just make something but MAN the instant I saw Amalgamated Biscut's little ceramic inkwell that reminds me surprisingly of Astroboy, I knew what I had to do. So last night, I got to working on making my own out of Super Sculpy!





I mean, just look at this guy!!!!



I'm pretty much certain that this is basically the coolest thing I'll ever make.



Now obviously, my concerns were much different when making this than Biscuit's were, but it is EXACTLY what I wanted, and needed. My BIGGEST concern was stability, because as of this morning alone I've knocked at least three brushes, a round container, a roll of tape, and the lid to something off my desk... Knowing this about myself, I knew it would be best to make sure there was something that laid flat and reduced the chances of spillage dramatically. I was also looking for something that I'd be able to put ink into easily but also be able to take ink out of without too much hassle, either by brush or by the little drip squeezer that comes in my ink. A lot of times when I'm inking, because I'm worried about being messy and I don't have anything decent to put my ink in, I'll squeeze out a couple of drops of ink from the eyedropper onto my pen or brush EVERY SINGLE TIME I need to refill it. It's tedious, it's a pain, but it's not messy or wasteful and it gets the job done. Gosh darn though, I'm so excited about this Totoro inkwell and I can't WAIT to take it out for a spin! Now, I'll be spending today coloring more of the comic, but I've got exactly the PERFECT piece in mind to break in My Inkwell Totoro and I simply can not wait!!!

And, for those of you who either don't know who Totoro is or who DO know who Totoro is and love him just as much as I do, here's a spot that Cartoon Network ran when they premiered it on their channel. It's even got the part of the film that I based my inkwell off of in it! Yay!



Double bonus!!! Orchestral version of one of the Totoro themes!!!

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!

Don't tell your mom!

There isn't a preview here, certainly! I would NEVER dream of giving off a few crude sketches from random panels of the comic I'm working on to give you guys a taste of how it's coming along. Why, I object to your accusations! I am a standup citizen of the artistic community and I would certainly not abuse my powers of illustration to share some here-and-there bits that won't make sense all jumbled and out of context anyway! Gawrsh. Just what kind of dame do you think I am?

But speaking of previews, this certainly isn't one.



Now that we've got that out of the way though, I feel like I can get on with my business. Which is certainly not taking a nap during my lunch break, if that was what you were thinking. Because it's not. It's something else.

It's okay to let yourself believe you're beautiful.

Our first Valentine's day together, I made a doll for Billy that looked a lot like me, and had a small, handmade book tucked away inside a plush heart it was holding. It's basically the most personal thing I think I've ever made, and despite constant nagging from everyone who's seen it, I kind of refuse to make any more. I feel like it's special because it's the only one that exists and because I put so much heart and hard work into it. Lately, though, I've been trying to come up with some extra cash for a badly needed new laptop... As well as a vacation to Disneyworld and more than just a few goodies from http://www.damseldress.com . Of course, it kept getting suggested over and over again that I make dolls for people and sell them on etsy, and while I'm mostly unwilling to do it, I've sort of started to consider it a possibility. As well as making custom mailboxes, for whatever reason. Anyway, just as I was starting to think about sewing dolls, I came across these awesome ones that the previously mentioned Damsel in this Dress magic-maker, Michelle, created. They're fantastic pirate dolls! I was waiting for one to pop up that looked like Billy, but... It never did. So I made one myself! It's kind of crude, and quite a bit creepy, but I effin' love it!



On a completely different note... Lately, at work, my boss has been talking to me about beauty. Now, I am a VERY large woman, but I am completely comfortable in my body. However, she is an itty-bitty, super-skinny woman and is terribly ashamed of hers. She thinks she's fat, and she thinks she's ugly, and she thinks that if she loses that last five pounds that she seriously does not have left to lose, then she'll finally stop being known as 'the chunky' one in her family and stop feeling so ugly. I think that's kind of horrible, because she's got the kind of body that people practically kill themselves to achieve and she still feels like she isn't pretty. Meanwhile, I'm sitting to her left at least five times her weight, hair completely frizzy, and clothes completely riddled with holes and I KNOW that I'm effin' gorgeous. So what's wrong with this picture? Pretty much everything.
It is completely horrible that someone who is so obviously beautiful will never, ever feel that way because her family, her industry, and every single thing she's ever seen has told her that she's not. Why? It doesn't make any sense. And I know it's not just her who feels this way. It breaks my heart that there are so many beautiful people out there who are afraid to let themselves believe that they are beautiful. Are they waiting for someone to tell them otherwise? Prove them wrong? Who has that kind of power?!?! Are they waiting for some divine sign or a billboard with their face and a thumbs up on it or Tyra friggin' Banks to knock on their door and say she's jealous of them? It's ridiculous! I wish, I WISH that more people had the strength to look at themselves, I mean REALLY look at themselves, and see the truth. We are ALL beautiful. I mean it. If you're just willing to admit it to yourself for one second then you'll feel so much better. It's an awful thing to walk around all day, hating yourself; an awful, and exhausting thing. I think it's high time that a whole bunch more people free themselves.

Anyway, here's another picture of me and my Billy doll. I love this man with more than my whole heart, and he tells me every single day that I'm beautiful. So is he.



Love yourself. You ARE beautiful.

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.