I Choo Choo Choose Conventions!
I'm back from Chattanooga and ConNooga!
It was my first time at the show, and it was a lot of fun. It's a little show, but it's one that has a
So you're prepeared for the 2014 con season, the hot (or cool) trend in costumes is Frozen. Lots of Frozen. If I could get stock in a magenta cape factory, I would be a rich, rich man this year.
I did a couple of kids' track panels, too. Both my "How to draw My Little Pony" and "Create a Superhero" panel were really well attended. The kids were great and they all did really well. It's one of my true honors to help foster new talent, if even if such a small way.
I have to thank the Berns, the family who
Chattanooga was a nice town. I got the chance to walk around, try some restaurants and Clumper's Ice Cream, and then walk some more. And I stayed at the Choo Choo Hotel, which is the site of the famous train station, now converted to a
Now, I'm going to bask in the two weeks I have off before I have a hat trick of shows in March. Please come see me!
Donut Be Too Hasty
Yesterday, I stopped at my local Dunkin Donuts to bring some coffee back to the house and fulfill my hunter-gatherer instincts. I had to get up a little earlier than I would have liked to get to church, and it was particularly snowy and sloppy, all of which may have grumpified my mood a bit. But as I turned into the parking lot, which has a weird little curly drive to get into the drive through line, this blue truck with South Carolina plates cut me off and hopped in front of me.
I'm generally a pretty calm guy. I try not to sweat the small stuff. But for some reason, this just burned me. I yelled some things in the car. When his rear wheel drive started to fishtail, I may have even rooted for him to smack into the big yellow pole. (That didn't happen.) And look, I fully realize that this person cost me all of three extra minutes. In the grand scheme of things, this was nothing.
But, when I got to the window with my money out, the lady working there waved me off. "The guy in the truck paid for you. He realized he cut you off and felt bad about it."
It totally changed my morning. It was such a nice thing to do and shows the value of the little things. I don't think I would have thought of doing what he did, even if I realized that I'd made the same mistake. This gentleman raised the bar. I hope I keep it in mind the next time I do something stupid.
New for 2014: Premium Commissions
I want to try some new things at my 2014 conventions. One of them is this: a new "premium" commission. I want to take a limited number of much more complicated pieces, colored in watercolor rather than marker. I'm only going to do a couple for each show, and you can either place an order or select out of the ones that I already have done.
To start, I'm trying some My Little Pony stuff. I draw the ponies a lot, but I haven't had much of an opportunity to play with the backgrounds and those are a lot of fun. Also, I haven't done watercolors in a long time, so it's nice to start refreshing that skill. Here's Twilight Sparkle as a premium commission. I've got a Zecora one on the drawing board that I'll be showing soon, too. Both of them will be available at Connooga next month.
If you're interested in getting one, give me a shout and let me know. I'll certainly do a few through the mail. For these, 9x12 in full color, one character in an environment, I'm going to charge $125.
1000 Deadbeats and More
This past week isn't just the anniversary of the Mac, but it's also a work anniversary for me. I just lettered my one-thousandth issue of the online Deadbeats strip.
I started working for Claypool back in 98 or 99. Honestly, I don't remember. It almost seems like I've always worked for them. At the time, Richard Howell contacted me about doing a pick-up Elvira story. The
Claypool has been an important part of my career. The regular assignments became the framework that allowed me to start a full-time freelance career. They were the known quanity that made taking the leap into the unknown so much easier.
We've gone through a lot of changes, from lettering on boards to paste-up to lettering completely digitally. Richard's been a good friend, and I'd like to think I helped the company a little, setting up the Claypool website and helping the transition from print to digital using some of the lessons (and mistakes) I made along the way on my own projects.
We've had a good run, and I'm glad it's still going.
Manga Studio on Sale!
I wrote at absurd length about my experiences using Manga Studioin my December #tzadvent project. The program is on sale
Almost All My Table Commissions from 2013
I went through my photos from 2013 and pulled the images I have from commissions I did at my various artist alley tables. I'm sure it's not complete, but there's a good chunk of them here. Almost 100! I've also included the group shots of my Star Wars: Galactic Files II cards.
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2013 in Review
Let's see, I put out the last (for now, at least) issue of Love and Capes, and Mark and Abby finally had their baby. I wrote and drew the first issue of the first My Little Pony micro-series, which ushered me into the Ponyverse and has completely changed how I've done conventions. I lettered Taran Killiam and Marc Andreyko's Illegitmates, I wrote and drew some Gutters strips, lettered Jeremy Dale's Skyward, worked for First, Lone Star, drew some book covers, and continued my relationship with Learn It. And I did an insane number of conventions: WonderCon, Emerald City, Comicpalooza, Denver Comic-Con, HeroesCon, Comic-Con International, DragonCon, Wizard Ohio, Baltimore Comicon, Cincinnati Comic Expo, Fax Expo, Akron Comicon, C2E2, GeekGirlCon and New York! I did almost a dozen store signings, too. I wrote a couple more Pony stories which will see print in 2014, and I even wrote one more thing… but I'm not sharing that publicly until next year.
I drove across the country, made new friends in LA, walked around Vasquez Rocks, wrote in coffee houses on two coasts, saw a ton of Thrilling Adventure Hours, experienced the magic of Disneyland (including Club 33!), watched my not-Godson fight Darth Vader, took my Goddaughter to her first musical, and watched my brother Robert get married. I met a ton of fans and got to spend lots of time with my friends and family. Best of all, I got engaged to the lovely Amy Ratcliffe, who despite her obviously questionable taste in men, is a pretty amazing. I love her so much.
So 2013 was pretty amazing. Here's to an even better 2014, and I hope yours is fantastic, too!
(Photo by the talented Rachel McCauley)
Day 31: Fantastic Four #tzadvent
I wanted to do something special for the last one, so I knew I'd do color. More than one character seemed natural, too. The Fantastic Four seemed the perfect fit.
And this was hard. I drew and redrew this one over and over. The Thing was the toughest nut to crack, since I was going for that Kirby/Sinnot/Byrne look. Also I like the classic flaming Human Torch before computer color made things look different. I started following the book shortly after the
Ironically, I think I used every technique I picked up on this one. Custom rulers were used to ink Mr. Fantastic's stretching. There were multiple layers, lots of resizing, and a ton of brush work.
Thanks for being part of this project. I'm debating putting these together as a skecthbook, either digital or physical, for the 2013 season. Let me know what you think.
Day 30: Catwoman #tzadvent
I always liked the Seventies Catwoman uniform. It's not the semi-practical cat burglar outfit she currently wears, but this one is just more fun to draw, with the cape and the skirt and the flowing-ness.
I did tweak my settings on this one. I'm learning to modify the Cintiq as well as the Razer. I now can control the brush size from the pen buttons on Manga Studio, something I couldn't do before. And it's similar to how I change
Tomorrow is the last day of this Advent project. I may go off the board and pick something on my own, but I want to finish this thing in a big way. It's been fun. I've got an idea to keep it going in January, but I'm not positive I want to do that yet. What do you think?