This is the final new image for 2017. Haven't done a Year's End card since 2010. The Village at Year's End is a place that only exists one evening per year, a place, a repository for the emotions and happenings of the previous year. They're often sad, or at least melancholy. Silas was the last one pictured for one of these. I did a series with the Ice King and a few others. One of them is the only piece of art I've done for which I have no record at all. They all have little poems, some more than other. These are a little card to myself, something I prefer to Xmas ones.

Did the sketch in Procreate on the iPad but thought about developing it in AD. I think it was the right decision. That being said, Procreate has spray paint brushes and I wondered if I might be able to use it through Super Vectorizer in an AD file. As it turns out, I could and so was able to get something organic and yet vector at the same time. Pretty happy with that.

I've been keeping this blog now for 11 years. I had a goal this year to at least top last year's entries. That would mean I've been at least somewhat productive. In some ways, I have. I got two comics off the ground and am toying with a third. Biography continues with more entries than last year and, with a shift to Procreate, I might be able to make new pages more quickly. I wrote 27 songs for an opera comic, got that started though didn't get as far as I wanted. This year has the second most entries of the blog ever which I hope is telling. As long as Blogspot exists, I'll keep going just so I have something to refer back to. There's a lot of bad stuff in there, but hints and points I can re-read and work on later. So, I guess I should look on all this as a positive and hold tightly to whatever artistic momentum I can. Here's to 2018. Let's hope it's a damn sight better than the last year.

Quick sketch on the iPad last night of my dead mouse, Rooster. I regret killing him off as he's more fun to draw than Smatt or Terry. Guess this is before he died, then. I was going to paint/render this further but my partner stuck his head in the studio and said how much he liked the sketchy lines so I thought I'd at least export a version and post it.

An experiment with my iPad with what I threatened to do. I'd forgotten that I actually did this once in Biography back in its second year. Was REALLY hard to edit that stuff together in PS. This took me less than an hour, and I just used the iPad. I can see me doing this kind of thing with the cartoon coyote wandering around my real house. We'll see how it goes.

Family and friends are nice enough to give me more of what I really don't need; books. I especially don't need art books. And these aren't all I got. I also got the Art of Coco book. I have LOTS of those. They are inspirational though sometimes daunting, making me feel really behind. That being said, I think it's really important to look into things that stick in your head, even if they're things one doesn't like at least at the outset.

Tried a new approach to the comic this time, and I think it worked pretty well. I posed holding the books, took the photos with my iPhone, sent them to my iPad where I just erased myself out of the picture, then drew the coyote character in, all within Procreate. Might use more photos in the comic in the future, at least to add some backgrounds here and there. The setting and style has got rather dull and static. This comic used to have more experimentation in it. Three pages more, and it will surpass Tamino, my longest comic in length. I still don't get very personal with it, for fear of reprisal, which is annoying but I think it's worth doing.

Sometimes I forget to play the little "drop the lines layer" game with my digital stuff. In this case, I think I DO like the image better without the lines layer. This isn't a good thing, or is it? Sometimes I like to think in terms of only color and shape. Seems that, sometimes the lines are just there to help me along as opposed to being a part of the final.

Another few days without being able to draw anything. It's more a block situation than a time one. Things just weren't coming together. I can't draw what I WANT to draw. This image, more or less, came into my head today and I've learned that this often means I need to draw it to get it out of my head. So I did. Just Digby, the fox that sometimes walks for me, in the dark.

And then later, I colored it.

Sometimes I like to draw just to draw. There is something about the act of making something, anything that's quite satisfying and for me, when it includes pencil and ink, I get a kind of warm, 'finished' feel. It's especially true if the image isn't FOR anything, it's only point is to draw and be happy. That's what this is. That being said, I think the rabbit-thing (he has no other name) is kind of the inner spirit of that because he's so twisted and breaks so many of my other rules. I can be my most active and action-y with him and not worry about how he looks. There's still a trace of rubber-hose animation in him, which is where he came from. Don't want to lose that. Others have done this kind of thing, too. It's a fun sandbox to build in.

Forgot to post this from yesterday. More or less, this is what that comic will look like. Slightly updated looks, less awkwardness, which also mirrors my high school experience. I'll poke at this as time allows.

Did some quick sketches of Harlon today. Now why would I want to do that? In the shower, where I get most of my best ideas, I was thinking about when I had planned to do a follow up to Harlon a number of years ago. It never happened, exactly and instead it kind of jogged into Biography. The rabbit is gone, long gone. I think I worried that if I did do a sequel, it would feel cheap, and I wasn't sure I had the material. As I thought about it in the spray, the same kind of simple ideas that I used for the original were popping up with little prompting. If I do this, and it's an if, I would give myself the same criteria; square comic, one page per idea, 30 ideas, 30 days. Or something like that. The time period doesn't matter. The number of pages, I think, does. These were done on the iPad and I think I like the style of pencil and shading. We'll see. Haven't gone further than this so far...

Very quick and dirty Howard done with the iPad. Wanted to see if I could apply the same process I use when demonstrating portraits to one of my characters. There's an extra step of getting the head and body to fit, but otherwise, took about 20-25 minutes. There's the usual marks made for placement but this time I turned off the pencil drawing to finish it as it looked more painterly. The more I do this, the less it bothers me that there's 'tracing' involved, which there really only kind of is. The actual lines made while 'tracing' are laughable at best; I try to keep them loose likely for worry of 'cheating,' and guilt associated with it. That being said, tracing doesn't get me likeness, which I have to work on. The iPad is proving to be its own tool and as such, I use it totally differently than I do when making anything else. So, experiment. We'll see where this goes.

Managed this today when nothing else was working. Felt like I wasted the whole day. Maybe I did. Finally did try something new with Biography; use the iPad I bought to try and supplement my work. I think, with a bit of refining, this might work ok and I can make this something more frequent. The one thing that gets in the way of my doing more Biography is that, while I have ideas, it takes too long to draw. Don't want to spend too much time on this; it's only a journal comic. The idea is more important than the art, though I don't want just stick figures.

Today's demo at the store. This time, on a whim,I dropped out the usual pencil sketch layer, decided I liked it and went on from there. Got a kind of vaguely post-impressionist thing going on and am happy with it. Reminds me of some of the stuff I used to do in crayon, which kept pretty much to the primaries. Might try some more of this later.

Not a bad week. Two pages of the comic done as well as some voice over work for a friend (hi Vince!). The only thing I have against this page is it makes the last one look bad. Will have to redraw Howard for that one. Then again, I can already see edits I'm going to be making when the song is done. I think the whole comic will go that way; as each song is done, I'll try and do final pushes and shoves to get them into coherency. Sounds like fun.

Another page down. City Silent is going more slowly than I'd like, but as long as there's forward movement, I figure it's ok. That being said, there is a LOT of comic to go. I'll be working on this for as long as I can see forward.

Listened to "Hamilton" tonight. I can totally see why people like it. It's very catchy, there are lots of good songs and of course, it made me think about my own little musical. Helps push me on, though we're talking very different levels. Still, I believe in my work, even if there was NO response on the songs from anyone I showed them to. That's part of the story, after all. Not that it makes me happy, but there you go.

Another one of these thingies, done at work as a demo. I think this is one of the better ones. Haven't counted, but I think I'm amassing quite a little collection of them. iPad, Procreate, etc.

Another couple demos from work on the iPad. This time it's Hitchcock and Hockney. Hockney was only about a half hour, maybe a little less, but I don't think that hurt it any. Tried to stop Hitch before it felt finished and as such, I think it works better. Now that I own my own iPad Pro, there might be a change in my process. Might do some more sketching digitally even if the finals are still sketched and inked. We'll have to see.

Just some quick doodles today, playing about with PS. There's something to be said for being totally digital, though I think I like Procreate better.

Haven't drawn anything at all recently because I've been visiting my sister in LA. Did this today as an in-store demo. A little Warhol on the iPad. If anything, I think I took this a little too far, and that being only about 45 minutes total. Should have stopped at about 30. Andy works best with a rough approach, I think.

Where does this stuff come from? I was going through some VERY old backups this morning, hoping for a scan of a drawing I still own but can't get to. Never found it, but I did find some 'seeds' that I forgot I planted which have become something a great deal bigger than they were. The first are a couple of skater mice sketched in a pad that is now stuffed in a closet somewhere. What's obvious now is that I wasn't content with the two quick sketches. These guys would show up almost ten years later in Tamino, though their appearance was singular and brief. Since then, Smatt and Terry have shown up twice more and will definitely be a part of City Silent. I guess they symbolize my angrier side?I had totally forgotten about them until I re-found them this morning although it's obvious they were still in my head somewhere and have been since I drew them. Either that or it's just a continuing fascination with skaters.

Next one is a reference I didn't forget, though I HAD forgotten this image. Silas Crawford was going to be a character in a role playing game that never happened. I think it was going to be a campaign of White Wolf's Changeling game. He was a lonely teen with very gawky, bird-like features. He wrote graffiti which was somehow tied in with his fae nature. I don't remember much else about him though I know I was thinking 'crow' both in his name and his looks. I really liked the character and didn't want to just let him slide into nothingness, so he became my graffiti writing bird in Tamino and, now the center of City Silent. I bet a lot of creative people do this; plant seeds they don't realize will grow nearly on their own, bearing fruit suddenly ready to pick. I think I've also been building a cast of 'actors' similar to the way Tezuka did it with his comics, though mine keep their identities instead of taking new parts. It's a very small world and, perhaps, it will be my job to take all the players to their finish and then be done with comics. There aren't that many left; Howard, Silas, Terry, Smatt, Lucco, Ricci. The bit players include about four or five more though they might not get singular stories. Or I might end comics with City Silent and Ghiroy.

Haven't done one of these in awhile. Biography is hard because I often want to say so much more than can fit in the one page, but if I don't keep it quick, brief, I won't actually DO the comic. That being said, Murakami is a troubling figure for me. He goes along in the tradition, since Warhol, of artist as more director than anything else. The top artists of the day, him, Koonz, and Hirst all do it this way. With sculpture, I can understand it as pretty much no sculptor cast their own work. It's a very specialized field. That being said, they DID actually make the thing that was being molded or produced. These days, the top tier folks make sketches and hand things off entirely to others. Murakami, especially works with trappings of Japanese and other countries' pop culture. To be fair, there's a lot of commentary that's not so obvious to western eyes, especially on the role of atomic power in Japan's history. In a way, it's not unlike Godzilla, or at least the original film. What seems to be almost kiddie fare on the surface has more to say below it. Or does it? And again, how much of the final product, because it IS a product was actually made by Murakami? Approval is not the same as actual decision in the art making process. Is this how art is to be made from now on, appreciated or am I just a stick in the mud when it comes to stuff like this? I prefer to see a single person's thoughts on a given subject. It's that sincerity I crave. And for an art world that gets SO uptight when they find out that the painting they touted as being 'genuine' is in fact a forgery, I'm surprised that this kind of turnabout is not only accepted but even promoted. So, like Warhol before him, I'm still struggling with what I think about all this. I guess Biography is more like a book mark on thoughts and feelings I had at the time; it's not meant to be the full thought itself, it's just to remind me what was going on.

Today's demo at work with the iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Procreate. The movie is off center because I use split-screen to have the photo I'm using on the right. Used a different tool today, something ink (I forget). I think this one got overworked but is still somewhat interesting. Would use this tool again.

Home sick today, but I managed to get this page done, probably only because most of it was drawn and inked already. When I'm sick, I tend to need to sleep a lot. Today was no exception. That being said, this page came together more quickly than most. I think it's the best image of Howard so far as well. Sometimes I can feel things click; others I feel myself fighting. Glad this one was one of the smoother ones.

Another in-store demo. This time, I had a lot longer, perhaps even too long. There were times I felt that I was done but still had time so kept going. That being said, I think it's a decent interpretation of the original black and white photo of Boris as Frankenstein's monster. I had to interpret with my own colors, of course. I have no idea what the original makeup looked like. I think I heard that it was yellow. Was fun to do. As it is, I think, as of tuesday, I might finally have my own iPad pro so I can do these things more often.

Haven't done a page of Ghiroy in far too long. I've been focusing more on City Silent, which has a slightly better chance at an audience than this does. Also was struggling a lot with the Lich character. Seems easy enough; a skull in a robe. But I just couldn't get something that seemed to fit with the rest of the comic. So there are a lot of pages of design work as I poke and press, trying to get something that worked. In the end, I drew a head similar to Crow's and just put in skull features instead and that seemed to work. Seems obvious NOW.
This is a rare page that had most of the composition worked out ahead of time. I did the Lich on another page as I didn't want to muddy up the rest. As it turns out, I completely redrew it anyway at the end because it just wasn't working. This is one of my favorite pages, partially because of how things pop but also because of certain elements that just happened to work out by chance. For example, the Lich's head in the lower corner shares the robe from the figure above, making it look like it pertains to both. Happy accident. Also, the way the characters seem to be cut off by folds of the cloth. That, too was something that happened while I was making the page. Sometimes, stuff just works.

Some more quick stuff, though again trying to get out of my usual. These are done in PS with brushes I've bought and rarely use. Was watching a documentary on an artist that uses a lot of washes with oil paint and mineral spirits and I wondered if I could do something vaguely similar. This is very vaguely. Still, not entirely unsuccessful.

Haven't had much to post because of house guests and no time to draw. This was a quickie for this inktober thing. Tried to do something a bit out of my ordinary, something more flowing and simplified. I think it's mostly successful. Breaking my little normal is a good thing here and there.

With this post, I equal the total amount of posts I made last year. While it's not about quantity, there is something to be said about making more work of some kind. And it is a goal. With City Silent now in pretty much full swing, at least the prologue, there will be a good deal more done before the end of the year. That being said, I have two hiatuses (hiati?) coming up as well, one this week so things will taper off here and there. This one was a quickie for inktober, done before work today. Weekends mean no art. Skaters seem to be a thing for me right now, so why not?

Another quick addition to the inktober thing. I like this guy. He's fun to draw.

Inktober, day 4. A quickie of Scum. I rather like this scruffy bastard though there's no real story here. Just enjoying the drawing and inking process.

This one was kind of a bitch, which it shouldn't have been. I also had to cheat on this one and use AI as there are no perspective tools in AD. This is a page that should have been laid out better ahead of time. As it is, I am happy with it though it doesn't match my original idea exactly and there were some really last minute choices and changes that were nearly chance. But, moving on. I can keep going and that's what's important.

Inktober is here. I use ink all the time, so it's not really a stretch for me (which is also why I don't mind too much missing a day here and there). Here's a character from last year's Inktober, Scum. Just a bit of fun which is what Inktober should be.