While working on the songs for the Silas comic, I've done damned little with the images. The other day I managed some time to throw together a couple studies of Smatt and Silas. I've been going through some old books on Yoshitoshi and think his work will be a major influence as his sense of composition is still so fresh. Really, Ukiyo-e was a huge part of Tamino so it makes sense. I want there to be a lot more attention to lighting in this one and I posed for these two, adapting the lighting from the photos. Since I have a decent lighting kit, I'll likely try to pay a lot more attention to this sort of thing. Ink, Affinity Designer.

Another Bio with Mary. I think this helped codify one of the reasons I liked her show so much.

My favorite sitcom ever. I was watching it again before work today, found out in the middle of a workshop at work, came home and watched some more of it. And I'm watching it now. The Mary Tyler Moore Show has always meant something to me. I'm just old enough to remember those saturday nights on CBS where they had this, M*A*S*H, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnette. I don't think there's ever been a lineup like that before or since. When this show ended, I was 12, and I remember watching the last episode. I swear that the kitten logo at the end turned upside down but I have no proof. Very sad. Silly, perhaps, but her passing made me sad.

New page and updated all in one. There's a new guy in this one, kind of a slacker rabbit. No idea how long this will play out but I did manage to write the four songs of the third part of the Silas comic yesterday, so I am making progress.

Just for fun, put the three pages together. I like how busy and nuts it is. There is NO point to this, it's purely art for the sake of fun.

Lazy day. Another one of these. Make as much sense as you want to.

Some quick studies of the weasel's expressions. I make lots of grouchy characters.

Been VERY bad at posting anything here, which is silly as I have been making... something. These sort of grew out of the last images by way of some other artist's stuff. Even when I fear I'm going to steal something instead of being inspired, I never seem to be able to just take. I'm bad at it. And this is a good thing. These make no sense and there's a lot of freedom in that. I had some random watcher on tumblr actually 'translate' one of these into a hilarious string of illogic and commentary. He honestly put more thought into it than I did. I can totally see doing a comic of nonsense like this, where it's all layout, drawing and color just for the purpose of enjoying it. But I have stuff to do on Silas and I don't want to neglect him. These should just be little throwaways.

Forgot to post the color version of this. Seemed to please the client, so all is good.

Had a sudden request today for a weasel skateboarder. I don't generally take requests or commissions, partially as I'm so slow but this seemed up my alley. So I did it. Went from no character design to finished in about an hour, which for me is horrifically fast. Still rough, I might finish it with color later.

And now for something completely different. The last episode of my movie vlog, The Movie Wrench had me sitting in front of a green screen with a 'set' made from a formica pattern I found online and a very crudely drawn monitor in the upper right. Since I'm likely to use this 'set' from now on, I thought I'd put some work into it and redo the whole thing in Illustrator (only because the original file was still in there.) This meant finding a new monitor, in this case a 1965 Zenith black and white tv, exactly like the one my parents used to have and on which I watched countless hours. I also wanted to trace the horrible pattern so I could output it at a better DPI than before. As a last bit of 'reality,' I added a cast light effect just to make the area of the screen in which I appear pop a little more. I'm pretty happy with it though as an illustration, it is kind of dull. Still, work is work.

Another one, so fast! Must mean I won't update this til April or so. When finished, I felt a little let down with myself, as if I should have expanded on this and yet there really wasn't a whole lot else to say. As someone that loves old TV shows and has his junior high yearbook still, artistically I don't look back so much. I really do try and keep reaching forward. Sure, I study old art, and new art, and try to add it to my mix. Memories are, for the most part, packed away, literally in boxes. There's some old art on the walls, but I really only want to think about making new art. So talking to this guy, Tom, I could totally see why Coober Skeber was something best left to what it was, regardless of the unpublished art. Sure, I'm curious but that's all it would be. Wouldn't have the same impact now as it did then. And it turns out that it DID have an impact. Marvel and DC both did their own (apparently lame) indie comics versions of their own characters, Marvel had the Hulk story redrawn and inserted in an actual Hulk annual, that short story was a scene in one of the Hulk movies... so it did its thing and we moved on. It remains my one and only story published by someone other than myself. So, nostalgia. But what have I done lately? Honestly, since then, a lot more. But those are blocks to continue to build on, not things to try and elevate in and of themselves. There. I've expounded on the comic and really haven't added all that much more. So perhaps, as a journal, it works.

First post and first Biography for the new year. Trying not to use Illustrator unless I really have to. That being said, AD has one annoying habit that I can't seem to get around: Ai was smart enough to export jpegs based on the size of the illustration, not the art board. Can't seem to get AD to do the same thing. Very annoying. That being said, I was able to get this colored and done while doing other things in the background, which says that I'm getting comfortable with it. This is a good thing. If possible, I want to do Silas completely in AD. As they update, perhaps it will make me wonder why I ever bothered keeping AI around. Certainly not paying those bastards 20 bucks a month. Ridiculous.

Other than that, I do have a lot I SHOULD get done this year. There's no reason not to. I'm nine songs into Silas, have the style down and am more interested in this than anything I've tried to start for years. Should have a website. No excuse for that. And if I'm going to make prints, I really ought to sell them. And live streaming! I do indeed have a 1080 camera that will allow people to see me sketch and ink which might or might not be of interest. Still, it seems a way to keep folks interested. Patreon kind of scares me a little. Every time I see someone start one up it seems to be SO egotistical. I don't really need folks to give me money. I've always worked AND done art, and part of me wonders about people that have the luxury of just having someone pay them to do what they do. In my case, I think I'd better have a distinct product, plan and guide or it won't work. Regardless, one of my other goals is to have more posts in this blog than I did last year. I know almost no one reads it (hi, Vince!) but it matters to me.