Stream (and post-stream) results.

Thanks to all who came to Saturday's stream! Maybe I was rusty, but it was nice to do it again. I hope for a brighter, more streamy future, but it's likely this one was the last chance of the year.

Here are the results!

This piece is to serve as the cover of a binder that features my art, which is the coolest thing! It's 8.5x11" and super spiffy! Autumn is reviewing her secret (art) files before bed!  With all of these, I may have overdone it on color-correcting. My screen is a bit off on yellow, so what looks right for me would be off for you. In-person, all is great.

It was a Pingo-themed night, so both Soren and Ivy got art cards. Soren's card is based off a sketch over a year old, which didn't get chosen during one of my request stream nights. It's a bit too complex to draw on the fly, so I scanned in the sketch, printed it out card-sized in blue lines, penciled over that and finally used my lightbox to get it onto an actual card.

For Ivy, she's discovering another lawsuit from a wronged magician. Since the client noted he liked Ivy's recent pink outfit, I included it for the card.

This is the long-overdue book art, which had been held until the stream. Ms. Monster tortures her kids. (The original idea did feature Ivy, so this was *almost* continuing the Pingo pride.)

Finally, here's the card drawn for the winner of the costume contest! This wasn't part of the stream, but I finished it earlier today so I could ship out both packages tomorrow. Bud is showing off both his zesty new cold weather outfit, and the setup for the (should be) winning costume!

Tuesday stream + Kickstarter Update!

As the preorders for book 2 keep shipping out, Tuesday marks the first of the Rent-A-Chrispy streaming sessions! Come follow along on Ustream at 8pm Eastern time for some chatting and arting! Scroll down to the other streaming news post for my typical streaming rundown.

For the rest of you backers, work on artist edition sketches is moving along nicely! Above you can see a few samples. Click on the image to see more I posted to my Tumblr.

I'm almost done with all of the tiers marked for August delivery, and I've already started on other tiers. (Sometimes I had a color set out, so I looked for artist editions requesting it.) Everything drawn should be on its way to those backers by next week. The only delay this week is that I need time to prep for my InterventionCon visit! (Come see me, DC-area people!)  Bonus: I'm getting the dolls for Cupcakes of Bliss at the con! That means the dollmakers will be there, marking maybe the only time a latecomer could grab an extra doll order. The new button set should arrive next week as well, which is when Cupcake packing begins!

Once I have cleared through the pre-orders, the remaining Precocious books will be going up in the store. Soon! Sooooon! The store will be populated with more and more things as I get time. Feel free to nudge me over it if there's something you're after. Money talks!

Book sketching tests

The time will soon come when I'll be working on book sketches for the artist editions and those who buy the sketch package at cons.  Sweet!  Now, how should I handle it?

Every artist handles things differently.  I wanted to offer something more than the typical pen and ink approach, so now it's time to find the look.  I've seen some wonderful book sketches Darc of Code Name: Hunter did with monochrome colored pencil, so... monkey see, monkey do.

What you see here are various tries to find the best combo of pen and pencil application. Do I sketch in regular pencil, or no-copy blue?  Should I erase the pencil or show the process lines? What type of pen should I use for the inking?  When should the inking stage occur?

The first try was Tiffany.  I began with blue lines, then inked with the glorious Fude pen that was recommended by Becca of Nattosoup.  It was all awesome until the coloring began. SMEARS! Noooooo!

Darn it!  I want to use that pen whenever possible, so that was disheartening.  The next try was Jacob, where I colored him first and use the pen overtop the pencils. That looks great, but it does make coloring more imprecise.  It should be OK, though.

Autumn is the standard sketch, using regular tech pens. I erased the pencil after inking, so it's a little cleaner. No problems here, but it's harder to pull off line variance.

Bud's inking went the other way.  I left the pencils to show process and used a brush pen, which gives nice lines despite my complete inability to use it.  The downside here is that error potential is high, and I take it a bit slower in drawing.

And then there's the blue. I've been on a monochrome kick for a while, so this should be no surprise. It's also practical.  It's a lot easier on the logistics to keep it in one color family, and I think it's a nice touch.  It doesn't have to be blue.  I just like it, and I can use the blue pencil for sketching.  (Although it doesn't scan well AT ALL. This is an iPhone photo you see.) There's a chance I could switch to toning with markers, but there's a bleed issue there.

The actual book sketches will be a bit larger, of course.  Gotta come up with some scenes to draw, especially since I need to have 21 unique sketches for Autumn.  (Yes, that's out of 25 pre-orders. Dang, guys.)

I know I'm getting ahead of myself.  Most book sketches won't be happening until August.  Still, it's a fun thing to practice!

The final dancer

Here's a test image for the final belly dancer piece. Deirdre is, understandably, less confident (and more covered) than the others.

I took a different approach here. Since my source image had such nice contrast in the fabric, I played with and increased the black placement dramatically.  I'm not sure how much will make it into the final - it will probably end up far lighter, just because that's the watercolor way - but it was fun to experiment.  Besides, it wouldn't fit in with the others if I went overboard on the ink. I chose a red for the cloth to offset Deirdre's cool grays, but that could change upon request. In fact, through the magic of Photoshop, I can show some other options!

I need some magic in my life

So here's another color attempt to figure out a composition for the big project. I'm not sure I'm any closer to a solution. For this one, I took a basic idea of her walking and magic trailing behind her... then improvised to see what worked and what didn't. I overdid it on the magic, which hurt any background potential.  It would probably be better to have her walking through an aisle of flowering bushes instead - which is possible if I shrink the magic stuff.  If this is a night scene, that would mean much of the foreground would be very dark. That could look pretty cool if accompanied by a dark night sky on top. I haven't put that much thought into the colors, so anything can change.

I dunno, man. I dunno.

I hate the night

This is a "back to the drawing board" post, but it does serve a purpose in proving that I am working on older projects. I've been struggling with this piece for months, and I just can't seem to hit upon a composition that works. Today I decided I'd try making colored pencil mock-ups and see what would happen.

In this one, I tried an overhead shot of the character in the garden at night, illuminating the scene with magic. I... I have no idea how to pull that off properly. I lack the artistic chops to do something like this, and I feel awful.  I have another composition idea to play with, but if that doesn't work it's back  The whole night idea will probably have to be abandoned, as it's rather insane to try it in colored pencil.

So, yeah, very disappointed in myself, but I am working! I haven't forgotten about you big commission guys!  This is why I'm doing small commissions now.  There's a limited complexity to them and much less pressure for precise treatment.

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.

A clone of our own

After a break to spend a few days building up a comic buffer, my attention again shifts to commissions! Here is the Pingo family photo, part two of a series. (For the Oven family portrait, click here.)

I'm pretty darn happy with how this came out. The colored pencils were mostly kind this time, and I appreciate them for that. I have no idea why the poppy red and vermilion decided to mix so brilliantly when I made the girls' hair, but I'm thrilled they did.  For once, this scan is actually pretty decent for colored pencil. Colors aren't as vibrant here, but at least it's not blotchy like normal scans.

It's nice to have one project completed, as it gets me closer to opening up commissions again - although you still shouldn't expect me to do that until late April/early May. I'm aiming to finish up two or three more by the end of the weekend.  (Doesn't sound like much, but remember that I'm currently on a work schedule that also forces me to average two comics finished per day.)

It was a great day today. I won my battle with Savannah over a parking ticket, spent the money I saved on discount Easter candy, got some socializing in and still managed to check off every item on today's itinerary. I hope tomorrow is even better!

Rawr! It's a dragon!

I'm not posting *every* sample image I've done today (god... no one wants to see my attempt at an anthro ferret) but this one was so stupid, I had to show the world!

I realized I should have a 30-minute colored pencil drawing in my portfolio, so I set out to make one that also added some variety to the freaky creatures I've already created. Enter: The DRAGON! Now, let me go on record as being totally racist against dragons. I think dragons are lame. I'm sorry if we can't be friends because of that, but it's true. Dragons suck.

Buuuut, certain potential clients LOVE dragons! So I will stop judging and I will start drawing dragons! (Dear dragon-loving future clients, please don't read this post until after I already have your money.)

Anyway, this is my attempt at a dragon. The scan, as expected, is awful - that gray in the background? It's ORANGE in real life - but it's enough to show what 30-minutes of effort will get ya.

The Oven Family Portrait

Here's one of the much-delayed commissions. Thanks to a very timely Skype call, I was conscious for enough hours this evening to get my colored pencil on. Considering how incredibly dizzy I got just by standing up and walking across the apartment to scan this piece, I don't know if I'll get the second commission done tonight. I will try, though!

The scan isn't nearly as nice as the actual piece. A lot of the lighter colors got filtered out by the scanner. (Works great when you're scanning line art. Not so much when you're scanning a soft-colored piece.) I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I wanted to do a fade effect with this (and all the family photos maybe) and I think it came out OK.

It's a glorious day!

It's pending approval, but this commission could be done! If so, that means I'm down to one big, long-term project and it feels so good. I want to only have one big project in production at a time, so I don't keep too many people annoyed with my slowness. It's much smarter for me to do many tiny commissions I can knock out in a couple days than to get derailed on several-week projects. (No, they don't take several weeks of effort, but it can take several weeks before my schedule opens up enough to work on them.)

This is not to say I'm open for commissions yet. As long as I'm neck-deep in bookery, that's going to be my life. The goal is to get all my scans into the publisher by October. Then, it's go time.

Commission break!

Thanks to a mistake I made nearly three years ago, my book work hit a snag today. In the end, all time lost equals time gained through the good stuff, so I break even. No worries, but I needed a break from the grind.

So here's a check-in on my long-neglected commission. Coloring has begun!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone, because why not?

Oh, right. I have a blog.

So I'm sitting here, putting together the donation packets for mailing tomorrow when I realize I HAVEN'T SHARED ANYTHING I'VE BEEN WORKING ON IN DAYS!

What can I say, I've been immensely self-absorbed. (Also, much of my work wasn't blog-worthy.) My solution to the recent funk was to lock myself away and ignore everything else in the world. Not the brightest thing to do, but it's working!

So here's the final version of the Skull Mountain commission. (At least, I hope so.) That's my first offering. To make up for my slacking off, I think I'll have to blog nonstop for the next few weeks. (Yeah, we'll see if I can pull that off...)

Grrl Power

Ta-dah! I finished something! (Pending approval, of course.) It only took a MONTH longer than normal. Obviously, this was due to the move/grad school panic - and commission man knew it would be delayed going in - but I still feel bad it took this long.

Now I move on to the long-term Dionne/Autumn commission. I'd like to get it done before I move, so that gives me a week to finish it. NO MORE EXCUSES, CHRISPY!

On west coast time, I'm good!

Bad: Missed the midnight deadline. Good: Because I was working a commission! This bugger is taking far longer than expected. Colored pencil takes time. Having to use several layers of colored pencil for each section increases the time fivefold! This is why shading is evil! I'm never doing it again! Ok, so it's not just shading. I also don't have a good variety of brown pencils, so Suzette requires a lot of blending. (I went out and bought a ton of gray pencils though, so any Yvette/Max commissions are covered now!) Hey, she did come out looking nice, though! I wish I had time to finish up the background and lettering areas, but bedtime comes too soon.

No promises on finishing this tomorrow! While it will be nice to get one commission out of the way - if only so I can officially pack my art supplies away - I have plans. It all depends on if I can get a good night's sleep tonight. Those things are hard to come by!

Max Power

Here is the colored version of the Max commission. I hope you guys like this color, because it took me four tries to get something I liked and I'm out of any usable prints. (I can still redo it easy enough if the printer cooperates.)

As usual, the color quality of this one isn't great because all the colors are faint. This is the best photo I could get. My scanner, I remind you, is designed for black and while line art - so it dropped out ALMOST EVERYTHING when I tried to scan it! Scanner, I love you, but you only do one thing well.

Awww again!

Here's the final coloring of the Yvette commission. Isn't she precious? The coloring is actually much nicer than you see. My scanner, as much as I love it, can't handle light colors. This is GREAT when scanning line art, and not so great when scanning a light gray character. You'll just have to trust me that it looks OK.

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.

Stop me before I color again!

Eh, I had the colored pencils out and I didn't feel like making more comics tonight. This is what happens!

I am about ready to seriously delve into the wedding card and all its glory, but instead of actually doing that my easily-distracted mind went to other card ideas. Problem: I had none, so I just started drawing freely hoping something would come. Nothing did, so enjoy a boring pic of Tiffany! Next time I need to START with a theme. (Or, y'know, start on the card that I need to finish soon!)

Color inside the lines!

It's time for the fun stuff with this Mothers Day card: The coloring! Here is attempt #1. (Click the images for larger versions.) Tomorrow I get to do this again and again. I'm sure the novelty will wear off, but colored pencil is my old unruly friend. (It's a harsh, unforgiving medium - but I love it anyway!)