Open for Commissions

(Note: The above artwork is higher-priced commission than I'm offering below. I'm using it because I don't have a new example piece ready, and I want to show off recent work.)

Update for clarity: If you're interested, send me an email. You can use the feedback link on the home page.

In preparation for my upcoming appearance at Anthrocon (I'll be at a RCSI table), I am taking a bunch of quick 8.5x11" commissions. The goal is to build up skill, increase my speed and boost my portfolio. I'd love it if you guys could help me with this. Commissions will be done in grayscale markers ($15) or colored pencil ($20). (Additional characters are $5 more.) I'm also taking suggestions for exercises and studies, if you're unable to support me financially at this time but still want to be a part of this. You can find out more on the FurAffinity account I'm trying to get off the ground. I'd love to sneak some Precocious work into my con prep!

I don't know how much response this will generate, but you should probably know this is going to be your last chance to get a commission out of me for some time. Once my May promotion and any remaining outstanding commissions are done, I won't be drawing any more custom art outside of conventions (Anthrocon in June and Midwest Furfest in November) and artist editions of the book.

Linkletter Love

Here's the first coloring of the wedding card! Sorry about the crappy photo. The colors are nice and light, which means they die to both a flash and my insensitive scanner. Hopefully enough came out that you can get a sense of what things looks like.

Working around the fold

It's time to get serious about this wedding card. Behold: Bonus flowers! Now there's something cute for the back of the card! Also, the train has been shortened so the fold of the card no longer violates the rules of composition. My college professors will be so proud.

Now comes the task of picking out colors. The difficulty is that the Linkletters are a bit, um, off in fashion sense - but the card still has to look nice! It's time to mess around with coloring! I can't tell you what I'm planning, as I have no plan yet. Just assume it shall be awesome.

Get aboard the train!

Here's an updated version of the wedding card idea, featuring a new dress for Deirdre! (The original design is below for comparison.) Gone is the lace around the neck, as no wedding dresses on a Google search had them. I stuck a necklace on her instead. The big addition is a larger train on the dress, which makes it more wedding-y. The bow is something I am ambivalent about, as evidenced by me forgetting to draw the ribbons in the new drawing. It's something Deirdre *would* probably wear - neither Linkletter has much fashion sense - but it may be conflicting with the new dress.

The downside of the new dress is that the train makes it no longer fit on the card front. That's either a design flaw or a feature, depending on what I do with the back of the card. I had sorta planned on nothing for the back, as this was to be a smaller project.

There's not much change for Harvey. I added his signature bow tie back in, as all tuxedos I Googled had one. Otherwise his clothing remains a bit off - but deliberately so. Tuxes are really boring from the side, so I had to make it wrong to make it look right in a cartoony drawing.

Here's the original wedding drawing, for reference:

Love: In Color!

As the prophets foretold: The next step was indeed colored pencil tracing!

Here we have the happy color in color - quickly hashed out color, but color nonetheless. I tried a few things in drawing this one, namely tracing using the color of what I was tracing instead of black. Mixed success. The downside to black is that once it smears, it's there forever (see Harvey's foot); the upside is that comics work well with a strong black outline.

Best results might be in attempting to do the outline last instead of first, limiting the smear. That would be rather difficult, but nothing about this project is that easy. Another solution is to simply go with a pen and ink outline. The only downside to this is that ink shows through the card stock, so the card will have to be one-sided or the stock will have to be card-ier. This is why we do mock-ups, people! Things are learned!

Twue Wuv

It's the new skill-building exercise that's sweeping the nation: TRACING! Seriously, I've got to get good at that if I'm going to make these cards look right. I can have lots of guide marks on the DRAFTS and TEMPLATES, but finals need to be done right the first time, with no extra lines! I must learn to trace like a GOD! (Also, drawing a perfect heart is impossible, so let it go already!)

This wuv incarnation attempts to swap the Linkletters' attire to something more wedding-appropriate. It should be obvious I did not use a reference for either the tux or wedding gown, but that's fine for now.

I may go back and try coloring this, to make it look snappier, but this is where I am at the moment. For my next trick: Tracing with colored pencils to see what I can do!

Wuv

More potential card ideas! This one goes out to the romantics out there. Of course I'd have to bring in the lovey-dovey Linkletters for this one.

What I'm saying with my card of love... I dunno. Haven't thought that far ahead. We are solidly in the doodle stage and nothing more.

Back, with a loving family!

Hey, y'all, the blog's back up and running! To commemorate my return, I present to you the *almost* final version of "A Loving Family."

The camera needs to painted, and a few places on Harvey needs a second coat, but I'm about one night's work away from having this done. I had thought of going pink with the background, but I have no pink paint. Since I wanted it to be uniform, I went with pistachio. It might not look it, but it's really hard to "draw" characters in paint, so I'm looking forward to going back to painting my modernist pieces.

Let's see if I can keep this daily blog going again. Also, let's see if that hiatus left any readers...

The mark of the illustrator

Here are the two paintings I worked on today. My versatility owns you all!

Hey, my modernist fetish won't be paying the bills any time soon. It's those cute cartoon animals the offer my best route to salvation.

What we have here is the latest update of my "A Loving Family" commission. I've laid down the first layer of color (mostly) and things are starting to come into focus. Jacob's blanket and the background color are still up in the air. Once I figure those out, it'll be finishing the colors and then one last black and white pass to crisp things up! The end is near!

On the other side, we have what I do for FUN! I quite like how this bite-sized painting came out. While the colors are all on the lighter side, they pop nicely in the composition. All I have left to do here is add a pale olive border. A work of mine with NO BLACK? Blasphemy!

It's important that I keep my skills up with all my art styles! I have a strong fine-art portfolio, both in printmaking and painting, but that will only get me so far. If I want to do illustration in grad school, I need to prove I have the chops for some commercial art. The PJ Harvey illustration was fun, and I really do need to draw more celebs. But that's for home and I'm in sleepy DC land. Painting is the key!

Cootchi cootchi coo!

I believe I worked on/started about a dozen projects today, most of which was not blogable - be it OFFICIAL BUSINESS or just too boring to share. What I can share with you from my frenetic day is the updated linework on the Loving Family commission. Next up: Color! Oooh.

A loving family, part 2

Work has started on my first commissioned Precocious painting!

What we have here is a detail of the paint sketch feautring a young Harvey and Deirdre Linkletter adoring a newborn Jacob. If it's too rough to be clear, Deirdre is doing the coochie-coo thing and baby Jacob is giggling. Harvey, like any doting father, is armed with a camera.

The next step is shoring up the figures and solidifying the lines. I'm not content with Harvey's rendering yet, but I assume it'll work out in the end. The giggling Jacob came from an errant brush stroke, but I think it really adds to the piece! (He was originally supposed to be asleep.) Yay happy accidents!

A loving family

What, did you think that was an ironic title?

I'm working on some sketches for an upcoming commission. (My first commission!) This is my first drawing of the Linkletter family in their younger days, as they welcome young Jacob to the world. Next step: Use photo references for motherly poses!

Hetero-Normative Behavior!

I'm am such a wholesome idealist. Well, in one subject at least. Since the foundation of Precocious is my idyllic childhood, that means the environment around my kids is extremely awesome! Gemstone Estates has just about everything a kid could ever want! Outside the houses we have lots of stimulation. Inside the houses... LOVING FAMILIES!

The Precocious parents are a fun bunch. They have happy, healthy marriages, do their best to motivate and encourage their children and they are delightfully insane!

I'm almost done drawing the Max's birthday storyline, so now the question is what to do next? I have a silly little brawl over dessert, or I can go back and do that much-hyped parents storyline. Ideally, I'll do both! If I built up a large enough comic buffer, then I have time to create the parents arc and just insert it into the archives. That's the dedication I have to you people! (I make no promises that will happen.)

Either way, it's time to practice my parent-drawing skills. I want to get the parents introduction into the archives soon, as they do tend to pop up in the strip. While I do my best to get their personalities across in their appearances, I want the chance to expand upon them. Once they are established, their lines in earlier strips take on new interpretations!

The only worry I have is that I naturally write more adult jokes for the adults. One couple met due to judgment impaired by alcohol and fatigue. Another punchline involves nudity, paint and the dining room. (I'll let you contemplate that one.) I love it, but such risky gags could hurt any syndication chances.

The humor is appropriate contextually, though. Insane geniuses don't just pop up out of the blue. I believe in nature over nurture. The environment may do some finishing in shaping personalities, but lots of my kids nuttiness is inherited. Each kid is the natural consequence of their parents spawning.

That is... if I don't blow the strips with a bad script. Before I draw anything, I've got to tighten up the story and connect the dots.

Missing Persons

These are not the best sketches to show, but I wanted to cover a couple characters mostly ignored here so far.



Yes, it's yet another family portrait formed by combining various sketches that results in a strange scene. Why are the normally cheerful Linkletters concerned? Heck, even Harvey's smile is far too subdued for him! What is wrong? Well, tonight I am a shitty artist!

I thought I had inspiration, but then I watched a Wes Anderson movie. When will I learn that man is creative DEATH? The crappy painting I made while watching The Darjeeling Limited got rejected from the Mill show - even after I reworked it. Now, The Life Aquatic has sapped the joy from my cheeriest of characters. Wes, dude, you're going Tori Amos on us. You've reached the point where no one questions you... so no one tells you to EDIT YOUR SHIT DOWN! Tori's been making double albums...with about half the songs good. That's dumb, yet forgivable, because iTunes allows me to strike her failure from the record. I can't do that with a DVD, Wes. Stylish filler is still FILLER and it seems to drain my soul. AND THIS IS COMING FROM *ME* WES! MOST OF MY POSTS ARE USELESS BLOAT AND EVEN *I'M* TIRED OF YOUR SHIT! This is why Cracked wrote an article about why the movie didn't work!

Wow, that was... uh... unplanned. Oh well. Anyway, there's a poor version of Harvey Linkletter - but he's finally on here! Fun fact: In the post introducing Gene Et, I also had a image of Harvey Linkletter ready to go and fill in the final missing parent. All it took was one misclick in photoshop and I was left with... an image of Gene with Harvey's name on it. Whoops. Of course, I had closed out of Photoshop before I realized my mistake. I didn't go back because, well, that Harvey sketch kinda sucked too. The dude is just hard to draw! I have come to rely on cranial fluffiness to draw my characters...and Harvey is supposed to tallish, thin and *regular* animal fluffy. Deirdre must be noticeably fluffier! The fluffiness change throws my already weak proportion control out of whack. The silly oversized bow tie doesn't help either. Deirdre's sketch is weak too, but considering I just posted an awesome one of her below - even if she's missing feet in said sketch - I'm content that you know I *can* draw her well.



Suzette has only made one appearance so far, for a far different reason. While I'm total weaksauce in drawing Precocious parents, I've got Suzette down. Because of this, I practice drawing her far less - which means fewer chances of a fully-rendered Suzette working. (For me, having a character "down" is still equivalent to, like, a 10% success rate. Dammit.) This isn't the best Suzette either (again, I blame Wes Anderson) but her angry face is always fun - and far more common than the innocent look she sported in her other appearance here.

So, yeah, I seem to be posting whatever I can to make up for lost time after my tooth explosion. I even had another self-indulgent rambling ready for later... but Wes Anderson has ruined those for me. At least for today.