Vote for a Bonus Comic!

I warned you that the latest Copper Road wouldn't be up long. Now it has rotated out and a bonus comic for the Charity arc has appeared! Vote to see it! (All Copper Roads from the past month will be added to the archive page on the 1st, if you acted shamefully and missed one.)

Having gone through the process of laying out a book, I'm much more aware about how comics fit on the printed pages now, and sometimes my stories don't fit so neatly. So, hey, if there's going to be a gap in the book, why not toss in a bonus comic to fill it? I want my books to give a unique experience, and including bonuses like that is a great way to do that. Granted, I'm three years away from benefiting from this new policy, but better late than never! And no promise it stick around beyond this week, as bonus comics take time to make! Still, let's aim high for now!

Charmed, I'm sure.

This is what I do on my "day off." Using the feedback I got, I went ahead and drew up two demo charm sets. Set A features the kids being cute.  Set B features beloved Precocious in-jokes. Look, you goof off your way. I'll goof off mine.

Not in color, and I haven't cleaned up the line work, but you get it. The tilting is so I can maximize the charm size in the template. Bonus: If your monitor is the same size as mine, and set at the same resolution, the sketches appear near the exact sizes of proposed charms! (I'm not telling you my specs. You guys have to guess.)

This will all remain a dream unless I can get around 15 folks willing to offer up $15 $20 for each/either set of 4.  (Updated cost estimate, because these are 1.5" charms, not 1" charms.) I'm just testing market interest now. (If you only have money for one Precocious goody this year, save it for the book. Also, increase your Precocious budget, tightwad.) Throwing money at me will not get you any charms, unless you are throwing enough money to get 15 of each charm.  (And if that was the case, I'd be kinda creeped out. Why do you need so many?!)

If you're wondering about me printing these things on my own and selling them as a bundle with the new book, other cool stuff is planned for that - and managing multiple artist bundles at once is a great way to end up paying for a lot of unsold merchandise.  (It doesn't move *that* well at cons.) If I don't think it's financially viable right now, I'll sit on this idea and pounce when the next custom charm printing site appears.

In the end, it was fun to sketch fancy things on the day between finishing the comics for the Fall Festival arc (I have a comic buffer! Woohoo!) and doing the glorious grind of business junk this upcoming week. So there!

Do you find me charming?

I've considered the idea of Precocious charms as luxury merchandise. I have no idea how my readership overlaps with those who charm it up, so I have no clue if I could earn back the expense it would take to create them. Still, if I want to make charms, I have to decide soon, as the window closes at the end of the month. Thing is, I am *awful* at coming up with proper merchandise ideas.

My vanity says people should desire to show off my cute characters alone, as that is enough. My brain says, haha, no. I'm so very far away from that kind of popularity.  I'd do better with something clever and fun - that serve as conversation pieces and be likable to those who don't know Precocious.  More logic says such a marriage of ideas is impossible in tiny charm form, but whatever. We're speculating now. Besides, I prefer a dreamy optimistic post to be atop the news section.

So what do we have?  Well, these would be a set of four.  Doll versions of the main four would be easy as a set, but purely for Precocious readers.  To go even deeper into my vanity, I'd love people to desire comic in-jokes such as the Muffin of Doom, Pingoball and Chrisp-Cola can.

It depends on you guys to tell me if I want to keep sketching ideas, refine ideas or let the luxury item go. I can play with this project, or go back to random sketches when I have the time and energy. I don't consider this a likely success, but what the heck? I felt like sketching tonight, so I did! (There are more merch ideas that will come later in the year, so no one has to hitch themselves to this particular fancy.)

I got PLANS, people!

With Intervention over (check out my review of it here) I now realize my site needs a new top news post. Well, all the fun stuff is a week away, so let me give you a rundown on what to expect from that fun stuff instead!

- This week is all about building up the Precocious buffer. I'm only two days ahead as of writing this post, but it's not so bad. I have outlines or scripts for the next two months, so all I gotta do is lock myself in my room and draw like a madman. 

- Copper Road returns on the first! It was supposed to be on Thursday, but the script that comic was tied to got pushed back when I beefed up the ending to this arc. Thanks for letting me slack off with the bonus content while I got caught up with the moving and conventioneering and stuff.

- Now that I've had a few mildly-successful streaming tests, I'll try to set up a real schedule so you'll know when to come hang out and chat. The current plan is to take watercolor commission and stream the results.

- I'll be selling or auctioning off my recent watercolor work, so posts about that will be appearing in this space soon!

- Stay tuned for details about what I'm doing for other types of commissions. I need to confirm a few things with my schedule before final decisions are made there. (That should be tantalizing to you, because those few things are kinda awesome.)

- I have no October conventions, but I will be at MFF in Chicago in November. After that, I'm looking for places to go. FWA in Atlanta (March) is an option. So is Fur the More in Baltimore (April), because I want to help grow any con that might like me and wants to base itself in the DC/Baltimore area. Some friends have invited me to try out Katsucon (February) and I'm open to trying other anime cons in the future. I don't know much about anime since 2004, but I'll give it a shot and see what the reaction to me is. If you go further on into next year, it looks like I'm going back-to-back with Anthrocon and Connecticon the first two weekends in July.

All in all, it's going to be a wild next two months, with lots of work - but lots of fun as well. Just... give me this week to build a buffer before I get it all in motion.

The Wheel of Fortune

As promised, here is the piece I used for my second contribution to The Webcomics Tarot Project: The Wheel of Fortune! Go to the website to see it in card form, and make sure to check out my Copper Road contribution there too: The King of Wands. Both pieces from this project will be for sale soon - I just need to figure out the best method of offering them. I'd like to try an auction, but where and how has yet to be determined.

I did this piece in a special way, too! I STREAMED! It wasn't planned at all. Some organizing left my new webcam sitting on my desk, so I opened it and plugged it in. Hey, it worked! I went to Ustream and logged in, then click the "broadcast" button. Hey, I was streaming! Setup took, like, two minutes! So, hey, check out my streaming page! I don't have a good streaming setup yet - thanks to those who came today, as feedback is very valuable at this point - nor do I have a set schedule for streaming, but the page is there and I'll do more test runs when I have non-Precocious traditional media projects to share. Won't draw Precocious on streaming, as I intend to build a buffer and I don't want to spoil future strips. Copper Roads are fair game, though, as they are normally posted the day they are made. I wonder if these streaming places are also good to use just for chatting. Some days it might be fun to just have a chat session with readers. When I'm arting, I obviously can't pay full attention to questions. Streaming announcements will be made on my Twitter feed for now. Once I get it going for real, I'll have a set schedule, with advertising on Precocious' main page.

Back to the piece, I am rather happy with how this one came out. It's quite close to the idea in my head, and I didn't botch any coloring *too* bad. Watercoloring went well, and the touchups I did with colored pencil really helped some parts pop. As someone noticed, Roddy got left out of the mix. Blame the format. While I painted extra stuff on the side/bottom of the piece, the tarot card is tall and thin, which means it took a lot of planning to get as many characters as I did in the active space. Originally, this was my only tarot card contribution, so I felt no pressure to cover all the main cast. When Copper Road got a card, I went back and made it all the Gemstone kids. Sorry, Roddy.

Fumbling through August

I'll get to the image above (and note how you can get one of you) in a minute. First, here comes the promised update on things:

My move was a disaster. I made it to Virginia. The stuff I crammed into my car made it to Virginia. Everything else? Not so much. It doesn't look like I'll be able to get anyone down there to pick up the rest of the stuff - the most important of which is my drafting table! - until the very end of this month. Lack of a proper work space in VA is gonna cause some delays with side projects, but I'll figure out a way to get the comics done. A new arc should still be popping up when the guest week is over.

Speaking of, GUEST WEEK IS COMING! I have lined up fancy comics for every day next week, plus extra comics and art that will be appearing as vote incentives each day. I'm very excited about this. I love seeing how other artists handle my crew, and it's fun to share the cartooning love of these talents!

Now to that art stuff above! September is an important month for me. I will be expanding the illustration side of my work, and that means picking out new angles and practicing them.  One approach is to try cute portrait stuff. I've had a lot of fun doing the character portraits at furry cons, but why stop there? Let's human up this place!  It's been a while since I did stylized portraits, and I want to tackle it again.  I let myself be a test subject and played with a few degrees of cartoony. I can also attempt some fine art twists. The goal here is to see what works best and give the people what they want. The name is there because I got jealous of all the cool furry badges I saw at cons. I don't have a character, so I just put myself on the dang badge! THAT'S HOW I ROLL!

Want to be a test subject for this new approach? Email me a picture of you or a loved one, and I'll chose a few to practice with! (Sticking with the headshot drawings for the free stuff, so don't send full-body shots.)

I'll have more art/promo/commissions news for you in a week or so.  For now, send me some photos and start checking out the sketch blog for the results! (Update: The first one has been posted!)

24-Hour Comics Day: Cheaters Edition

So I thought it would be cool to try this crazy event one year - in which one puts together a 24-page comic in 24 hours. This year seemed as good as any! Of course, I have no intention of playing this game with integrity. Here's why:

I don't plan on displaying my comics all at once. No, my glorious plan is to make them VOTE INCENTIVES! One a day for 24 days? Would that help me climb the rankings? (Would anyone but the regular voters even notice?)

I have hand health to worry about as well. My gimpy finger still occasionally gives me problems and I'm not risking long-term health for some crazy stunt like this. When my hand tires, I will stop. I'm still hoping to go 12 comics in 12 hours, but I'll deal if I fall short. I'll have time to finish the project later!

Finally: I HAVE STUFF TO DO ON SATURDAY! (That's the official day, since I didn't mention it before.) I may end up doing one strip Saturday morning (for a first-of-the-month vote incentive) and saving the rest of my time for Sunday or Monday.

So, yeah, I'm cheating like crazy and totally not in the spirit of things... except for the crucial having fun part! Heck, I may change my mind and not do this at all. Only time will tell...

Could it be marathon week?

Almost forgot to share this. I have made commission progress! My first ever watercolor commissions are now complete, and I didn't ruin them horribly! I won't claim I have much watercolor skill yet, but the lack of ruination exceeds expectations and is encouraging.

That means two projects are now done. What's next? A GIANT MOUNTAIN OF WORK, of course! This week I was supposed to be in Virginia, but I decided against it so I could work and work and work and work. Let's do that!

There is a lot in front of me, so this week would ideally contain a bunch of epic grinding. How many days can I pull off a workathon this week?

I need a paintathon at some point. I have three sold bite-sized paintings that need heavy upkeep before they will be ready to ship out, and I'm still not content with the eyes on my big schoolgirls painting commission.

I need a comicathon at many more points. I have two weeks of buffer left, but the goal is to ALWAYS have at least two weeks of buffer. As soon as Monday's update appeared, I was technically under my buffer goal. This cannot stand! I was hoping to have seven inks done today, but it's looking more like I'll only get to four. That means a double work load for the next comicathon day! Oh yes, and I'm in charge of coloring all strips for this group of strips, so I must factor in a colorathon some day this week too.

I need a bonus comicathon on top of all those other comicathons, since I owe you guys two weeks worth of extras. I'm aiming for making Bonus Comics Day a big event, but that first means MAKING those comics. I have 15 scripts ready to go, which will turn into 14 finals, and I want them ready for July 11th. (More on Bonus Comics Day when the date is confirmed.)

Finally, I have some commissionathons ahead of me. Not only do I have a few donation sketches left to make, I have three commissions that are ready for the sketching stage.

Can I do this? I hope so. If I want to make a living at this thing, this is the world schedule I'll have to deal with.

Commissions are magical!

I had just finished inking the borders of the latest batch of Precocious strips when a new commission opportunity ended up in my inbox. Well, heck, I'm waiting for the ink to dry and I'm not yet set up to work on the other commissions - why not start playing with this one right away?

This proposed commission has me illustrating a character for someone's RPG, a noble fox lady magician. It's kinda silly for me to have done anything with it yet, as I have no physical description aside from knowing she's a female fox, but I thought it would be fun. (And it was!) The final of this will almost certainly bear no resemblance to this sketch, but it was a nifty way to kill time while the ink dried!

The plan for the rest of the day is to finish inking next week's Precocious strips, rearrange my studio and jump into the grueling task of tracing for the other commissions. I also have to scan in the next Copper Road at some point, but I'm waiting until TWC remembers to hit the reset button on its vote counter. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to launch a Precocious promotion a few days ago. I hope to get to that later too. AHH! THERE IS FAR TOO MUCH TO DO TODAY!

Moving along with commissions

A few days have gone by since an update, so let's play catch-up! I'm trying not to fill this blog with "I'm working on comics!" posts, because... duh, I run a daily. I'm ALWAYS working on comics.

The downside, of course, is there's only one me and that means some days I really am only making comics. I must fix that, as commissions are building up again. (I guess my newly-adopted daily nap time could be spent doing more productive things.)

Anyway, enjoy a pic of my current projects. I'm still tweaking the painting, cursing the lack of opaqueness in my paints. On top of that, you might be able to make out a pair of Tiffany drawings, which is for another commission. On the light table, we have the early stage of the big watercolor project, in which I have to trace and color a double-sized strip.

I'm still working on finding a good comic/commission balance. While these projects sat for a few days, I did manage to knock out the rest of this city arc! Now I have to get my scripting hat on again - and not forget about the commission hat this time!

Muffins... of DOOM!

I don't think watercolor test pieces are supposed to be this big (11"x17") or elaborate, but HERE WE GO! If I can pull this piece off, that means I can start taking commissions on watercolor pieces! Yay!

(Re-post) The Sycophant - growing the brand?

(Blogger's recent meltdown not only meant I couldn't post new updates - it also managed to eat one of my posts! For completion's sake, I'm posting it here again. My apologies to Facebook users who will likely get spammed with this repeat. Also, watch me look like a fool when the original post is magically restored down the line.)

So I just registered thesycophant.com. Suddenly the title of my blog means so much more! You know what this also means? I HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY PURCHASE! If I'm buying a domain like this, I'd better put it to good use. Cartooning side project? Oh, imagine the possibilities...

I've long since claimed my next project will be The Haters Club, a name which began as in-joke in my old social circle. I love that title. It's fun. It sets the tone for my humor right away. It's... common enough to be used by a few websites.

Well, then, I just registered a viable alternative... which is *also* based on an in-joke from that blissful time of my life. The Sycophant may not bring the hate as much, but it does make for a great title anyway - and I adore the implications that come from that word as well! Plus, when you google "The Sycophant," it seems I'm the first one to claim the title for his project. (Not counting some lame myspace account that somehow outranks me in Google's eyes.)

Now... what could The Sycophant be? It's prime for an observational journal comic, which is something I've wanted to try for a while now. It could signify a title character who bumbles through live in awe of everything around him. (Probably because he lacks viable talent and skill on his own.) I could take the name and use it to justify a site of nothing but fan art for people I admire! Yeah, that's not happening. Fan art is fun now and then, but making it your thing is the same thing as wasting all your artistic talent!

For now, the domain is set to forward you to the blog. (As I post this, the forwarding setting hadn't gone through yet, so those testing it out right away might not get the right result.) It'll probably redirect here for a while, as I've got a lot on my plate already - and there's also the problem of me not knowing the first thing about how to properly use a domain. Hosting? Servers? Site email? No clue how those things work at the moment. But one day, man. One day...

Oh, and I also registered chrisp.co, but I don't feel a need to justify that. That sucker was meant for me!

The Sycophant - growing the brand?

So I just registered thesycophant.com. Suddenly the title of my blog means so much more! You know what this also means? I HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY PURCHASE! If I'm buying a domain like this, I'd better put it to good use. Cartooning side project? Oh, imagine the possibilities...

I've long since claimed my next project will be The Haters Club, a name which began as in-joke in my old social circle. I love that title. It's fun. It sets the tone for my humor right away. It's... common enough to be used by a few websites.

Well, then, I just registered a viable alternative... which is *also* based on an in-joke from that blissful time of my life. The Sycophant may not bring the hate as much, but it does make for a great title anyway - and I adore the implications that come from that word as well! Plus, when you google "The Sycophant," it seems I'm the first one to claim the title for his project. (Not counting some lame myspace account that somehow outranks me in Google's eyes.)

Now... what could The Sycophant be? It's prime for an observational journal comic, which is something I've wanted to try for a while now. It could signify a title character who bumbles through live in awe of everything around him. (Probably because he lacks viable talent and skill on his own.) I could take the name and use it to justify a site of nothing but fan art for people I admire! Yeah, that's not happening. Fan art is fun now and then, but making it your thing is the same thing as wasting all your artistic talent!

For now, the domain is set to forward you to the blog. (As I post this, the forwarding setting hadn't gone through yet, so those testing it out right away might not get the right result.) It'll probably redirect here for a while, as I've got a lot on my plate already - and there's also the problem of me not knowing the first thing about how to properly use a domain. Hosting? Servers? Site email? No clue how those things work at the moment. But one day, man. One day...

Oh, and I also registered chrisp.co, but I don't feel a need to justify that. That sucker was meant for me!

Ha! Ha! I'm drawing background characters!

With the current Precocious storyline, I'm starting to push myself artistically. By moving characters outside of the standard environments and into the big city, I can no longer rely on simple color schemes to indicate the settings - I need to draw some backgrounds! And once I draw those backgrounds, however simple they may be, I must then populate them with bystanders! Needless to say I am both excited and terrified. I need the challenge. I need the practice. I need to make sure I get strips done for every day. SO NO GOOFING OFF!

So far, I have put zero planning into what background characters looks like. I jump in with my pencil, scribble a body and fill in details on a whim. That works ok, I guess, but maybe I should try to do something will all these extras? I suppose this is a good time to hand out cameos, but I draw cartoon doggies and kitties. That greatly limits who I can show off. (Although I'm willing to furrify a person, if asked.) There's also the fact that my style is so simple, any cameo renditions would be largely unrecognizable - especially when those characters end up only being 10 pixels high in the final comic. Eh. Who knows?

You know what, this blog totally sucks. Blogger's constant glitchery has totally thrown me off of what was a rather weak idea for a post in the first place. I'm posting it anyway (assuming Blogger works) so it can count towards my blog quote, but I'm gonna feel bad about it. I'll need to make it up to everyone later.

At least this awful post is the product of lots of non-awful work and progress!

I'm so excited! I'm so scared!!!

Look! Look! A page of sketches! It's not much, but it's more Precocious stuff than I've drawn in a loooong time.

What does this mean? It means I can do some light drawing and not DIE. What does THAT mean? It means nothing until I can prove that I can handle the drawing load that all my grad school make up work entails. That is where I'm scared. I'm already 5 days behind in my plan to catch up, and I'm not entirely certain I can handle this yet. Whatever. All I can do is try!

I'm starting out my road to recovery with simple stuff, like sketchbook work and Precocious. (Yes, compared to grad school, Precocious drawing is super easy.) If I get my concepts thumbnailed and ready to go, then I can ease into the big stuff next week. Doing the math, I need to average a page a day. That seems crazy right now, but each day I hope I can draw a little more. For now, I need to get myself disciplined and DO SOME RESEARCH! What I'm saying is... my holiday season is over. Chrispmas is cancelled. It's time to work.

So, yeah. Excited to be drawing again. Scared to death that.... *ahem* THERE'S NO TIME! THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME!

(Oh yeah... like the photo? It was taken by my NEW MACBOOK PRO! It's so shiny and awesome, I don't know what to do with it!)

New Years Revolutions

The unholy rebels in my soul have risen up to conquer the ruling procrastination regime of my brain. Death to the ivory tower eggheads! Up with productivity! Long live hope and change! Viva la revolucion!

Of course, such battles are long, bloody affairs with many casualties. (Sanity? First to go.) But we must fight for what is right and good! It hurts, but it's a good kind of hurt.

So now it's time for me to make some OFFICIAL resolutions for the new year. This is the day of optimism, and I intend to ride it! Here we go, with them in no particular order.

- I will keep Precocious going strong! This is intentionally open to interpretation, as changes may be in store. I want to keep going with the current format as long as I can, but I may have to scale things back slightly to fit in all these other resolutions. Don't panic yet! I'm just being cautious here. Ideally things remain as awesome as they are now.

- I will get my lazy butt into grad school. This one is major, as I've dilly-dallied far too long now. Granted, I've had my reasons, with all the chaos going on in my family. It's very hard for me to leave right now, but I've given myself over for two years now. I'm going to be in my 30's before I start school again no matter what, but 30 is way better than 31! (I'm also desperately in need of a change in venue.)

- I will find a way to start making money from my cartooning. This means designing shirts and setting up a store. I want to create a Precocious book as well, but that may have to wait until I'm in grad school. I should set up an shop, on etsy or somewhere, where I can sell prints and paintings. My birthday gift to myself should be a quality printer, which can enable me to create prints and such to sell! On the website side, I have to consider ditching Project Wonderful for a more paying ad service. I like PW because it helps other comics, but I'm not making close to what I could with my readership and pageviews. I should also start attending conventions to learn how I can one day *successfully* attend them as a vendor.

- I will do better to enhance my presence in the comic community. My horrid antisocial tendency might doom me, but I want to make myself known. This involves posting more on message boards, READING all those webcomics sites that I've been ignoring and becoming somewhat likable on twitter. I should reach out to other cartoonists and build more friendships. Once people know me, attending conventions becomes a little less intimidating!

- I will finish my Little Anxieties painting series. This can take all year, but I want it done. (Commissioned paintings do come first, after all!) If I get it done, I can start looking for galleries to display the series. (Getting into grad school might help me here!)

- I will work on improving and expanding my art skills. I want to learn how to use watercolors, so I can be like Bill Watterson! Ink and watercolor Precocious paintings make more sense than forcing acrylics to work like drawing. (Drawback: Watercolors and ink drawings do require me to mat them.) I also want to work on drawing furry. As I wrote a few days ago, I never set out to be a furry artist, but the fans sure seem to wish I was! This isn't just me giving in to pressure, it can potentially open up new illustration venues without starting from scratch and learning to draw comic humans. Human or furry, I must re-learn non-cartoony anatomy drawing. That would help me immensely, and likely make Precocious' drawing more dynamic.

- Like everyone else in history, I want to drop at least 10lbs. The stress from family crisis after crisis, combined with sedentary behavior has made me plump. I know I'm not fat, but any extra weight on my scant frame looks bad! I'd love to start exercising again, focusing on cardio, but I'll settle for better eating/living habits. When I visit the grandparents, I need to have more willpower - everything here is drenched in butter! If I have to start bringing my own snacks here, then so be it.

- I want to end this year better than how I started it. As you can see from these resolutions, many tie into each other. Getting into grad school gets me into a better environment, which enables my art skill-building and improves my health. Improved art and spirits help me find the energy to keep Precocious going AND do the extra work to get the store going and socialize. Becoming more social in the comic community gets me more readers and earns me invites to conventions, where I can make more bonds and potentially money! One good change encourages another.

So there we are. Let's check back in a year to see how I did. Heck, let's check back in two weeks, when grad school applications are due. (Good lord, I'm terrified!) My first test, of course, is probably my hardest one. Wish me luck!

What a year it's been

As 2009 comes to a close, it's time to look back at what I've done.

A year ago I was sick to my stomach as I uploaded the strips of Precocious' Gender Wars arc. Precocious was about to become REAL! I didn't know what to expect as I jumped into the competitive world of webcomicking. I knew cartooning is what I wanted to do, and I knew it would be a long, tough trip to get myself to a point where I could possibly do this for a living. I needed to build a reputation before I could start THINKING of doing something special.

Now a year has gone by, and I confess that this year has only enabled my dream. I have lots of wonderful, proactive readers. I have a product that I feel is strong. I am good enough to do this. I've still got a LONG WAYS to go, but I have hope! One year only proves that I'm serious about this. This next year is proving that I'm worth the investment!

It's time to reach higher. I've been content to let my product speak for itself, but now I've got to promote myself and push this further. I've got to set up that store and see if/what I can sell. Ideally, I should start work on putting together the Precocious book. (That terrifies me!)

This will be a year of transition. I need to find the right path to success, and I can't sit around and wait for success to find me. It's a scary journey, but one well worth taking.

2009 was the hardest year of my life, but it may also turn out to be the most rewarding. Here's hoping for great things in 2010!

Painting at the speed of snail

I'm entering the home stretch with the latest painting - after much much delay in production. Hey, I've been doing comics! It's not like I'm being lazy!

This one took a while because it fell into the typical painting trap. Great paint sketches are tough to turn into great paintings, while lackluster sketches make one want to improve! This one isn't going down as one of my best, but I think it'll come out solid. When combined with the others this size, I should have a beautiful show ready for a gallery near you!

When those other paintings are finished, that is. This is painting #3, and I have 5 canvasses to go. I need to paint FASTER!

As I progress, I do get excited on having a new series to show off. Imagine two walls of four, with a the rest of a gallery peppered with bite-sized paintings and my massive four-footers! Now if only this economy was doing better... Eh, by the time I get this series finished, there's a chance the art world will be welcoming again!

Comic overload

I've been on a tear this week, with the goal of building up my damn comic buffer. What you see here is the product of the last few days of intense work: 15 pages of comics. (Sadly, only 8 comics total, not including the Copper Road.) I have a whole pile left to ink, but it's still good progress.

The goal is get to myself two weeks ahead, and then use said weeks to get the application process in motion for my eventual grad schooling. That's the goal. We'll see how it plays out. I did get an added bonus in that Matthew Dawson of Sometime Alone has volunteered to do my Sunday coloring. That frees up a lot of time. The coloring itself only takes an hour or two, but I loath it so there's also many hours of griping and procrastination.

Can I do it? Can I get my conic ahead enough to get my life in order? PROBABLY NOT, but I'm gonna try anyway!

Think unsexy thoughts

As promised yesterday, I'm going to disappoint you! Yippie!

Today, as foretold by the sages, is a work day. So far I've finished up the Sunday (which is good, as today is Saturday), lettered the next week, drawn two of those next week strips and started inking on Copper Road. I also threw up a Copper Road teaser on my website during my break time. Not bad. Not SEXY, but not a waste of a day.

I fully intent to waste the evening, however.