The long-term commission

As I'm gearing up to start a commissionathon in the coming weeks, my thoughts turn to the one outstanding commission I have left - a no-deadline project for Codefox. It's had to sit on the back burner for far too long while I got my stuff together with school and the book and general craziness - and, to be honest, it's going to have to mostly sit while a bunch of small commissions go in front of it again - but I want to start making some progress with the sketches. (It's going to take a LOT of sketches to get things together.

What you see here will bear no resemblance to the final piece, except for the dress. I had a moment of horror earlier when I realized I had saved a LINK to the suggested dress for her and not the actual picture. LINKS CAN CHANGE! Fortunately, the image was still there (I assume it to be the same one as requested) and it has since been saved. This is my first attempt at drawing it. The rest of the foxy lady? I was too lazy to go back to the emails and find his requests and physical descriptions, so I just drew a lass! Don't worry, when I get more pro I will be a good artist and follow his wishes. For now, I'm just playing around with the dress because I avoided doing something stupid in losing it.

Sorry about the bad scan. I had it on the wrong setting, and didn't feel it was worth redoing. Yeah, lazy night. Hey, I just did a 12-hour comicthon, with (if I can do it) a 12-hour coloringathon coming up tomorrow. And I did work all morning on the website! I DESERVE LAZY NIGHT!

A change of venue

This painting has been driving me nuts. It's insanely hard to apply perspective when you paint the figures FIRST, but that is the challenge that faces me. I was stuck for weeks trying to figure out how I was going to set this inside a school, with thin hallways and lockers and whatnot. So, you know what? SCREW THAT!

After writing the man behind the commission, I was given a fresh perspective. Why not set it outside? Autumn can be walking to school along the sidewalk and stumble upon Dionne just as easily as she could do it walking to the classroom. (Plus, I don't fall into the trap of setting lockers in an elementary school.) I decided to try the venue shift, moving it to outside of the Poppinstock Academy.

This is obviously a very rough beginning. It has a loooong way to go before it looks right, but at least the underpainting is done. I'm not even sure how I'm going to actually treat the stuff yet - but that's a problem for the future. I hope it works out.

Oh, there she is.

Here's the first look at the coloring of the much-anticipated Dionne/Autumn painting! This is just me laying down a base of color. Everything needs several more layers, but it looks promising, doesn't it?

Because of the perspective thing, I am tempted to finally paint a background - although I'm not sure what it'd be. That would add a ton more hours to the piece, but it could be nice. For now, I focus on the figures.

Show me.... Dionne!

Sorry this post is a day late and half progress. It's a day late because I was working on Precocious bonus stuff (you'll find out soon) and it's half progress because the day is still young. I'm going to keep working on this thing, but I wanted to get a post up. Besides, all you're missing at this stage is some paint sketching and linework.

Since I'm still struggling with creating the perfect horrified Autumn (I do have one nice sketch I may use) I'm forging ahead with the painting of Dionne in her British prep school outfit. This is always the hardest stage of the painting: Transitioning the sketch to the canvas. Fortunately, I used the money from a prior painting commission to buy a projector! The projector is a pain in the arse, but when I finally get it working look at how fun it is! Also, look how crappy my wall is. Dang.

British invasion

Before I get back to the Yvette commission, here's an alternate take on Dionne trumping Autumn's schoolgirl look. Instead of ye olde Japanese sailor suit, I've gone with a British style. Preppy!

Sailor Dionne

And here we have another commission. This one is about Dionne taking the schoolgirl outfit style and trumping Autumn. Japanese schoolgirl > Catholic schoolgirl?

Finding a proper source was a far more harrowing experience than expected. Let me tell you something... If you are interested in drawing a sailor suit, Googling "Japanese schoolgirl" is THE WRONG THING TO DO! Holy crap, it's all creepy and gross porn! I should get hazard pay for this commission.

The first step is nailing down Dionne's look. After that, I can play around with poses.

(click the image for a larger version.)

Put on that dress!

It's been a while since Autumn wore her signature schoolgirl style, and that is a darn shame! Autumn is a weird anomaly in the comics world. She has more than one standard outfit, and she's not afraid to dress in one-off style. Why is this?

I suppose it's because the schoolgirl getup doesn't work in every occasion. If it's cold, she needs a jacket or her turtleneck. If it's a casual situation, she can get by in slacks and a tank top. The schoolgirl outfit is for Autumn at her crazy "I'm a master manipulator!" best.

In this case, the reason for being out of costume is fairly innocent. She was going to be sitting cross-legged on the floor, and a skirt was a no-no. Since the last few weeks were all part of the same day, she wasn't allowed to change. I do like the connotations, however, that Autumn has let her guard down around Kaitlyn. Now that Autumn's screwed up the situation, her schoolgirl outfit will reappear as defense!

Autumn is a fun character in that, as much as she thinks she's cool and collected, everything seems to affect her. She's enjoyably expressive, and I suppose that trait does lend itself to changing costume. Granted, I admit most of the costume changes were more of me testing things out than intentional mood draping, but it's still a nice touch!

Formal fashion

Work on the Dionne/Max commission continues! Look at Max's surprisingly awful suit! Yeah, gotta fix that. I'm thinking changing the pants to brown would do wonders. Dionne is sporting mauve, which looks better on the painting than in this picture, but still needs some accents. (Burgundy?)

Fashion choices aside, things are progressing nicely. The background should be set, which is nice. Lots of places need touching up - some need a couple paint attacks to make right - but it's looking good!

Look what I'm wearing!

Unlike the Zazzle debacle, my experiment with CafePress (the most loathed of all print-on-demand sites) has been a success! I have a nice-looking Precocious t-shirt!

I'll have more on this later. (Maybe I'll edit this post and put in some REAL content.) For now, I am operating with extreme lack of sleep and forming complete sentences is difficult.

I like your money!

Yes, friends, I'm thinking about merchandising again! I do it for SCIENCE! Wait, no. I mean MONEY! I do it for money.

Don't expect anything soon. I still haven't picked a store! Both Zazzle and Cafepress have disappointed me in their own ways, and I'll have to decide which evil is lesser. There's also the case of getting some finalized designs. So far I have some ideas and nothing more.

Before you ask, I can't do the bulk printing thing quite yet. Printing 100 shirts is all well and good, but that involves some up front case and, y'know, a guarantee of selling shirts! I'll have to be a bigger shot than I am now. (Or get more fans with LOTS of disposable income.)

The *other* Halloween project

Hey, guess who forgot he was also doing a Halloween Copper Road? If I was on the ball, it would have been up today. I am not on the ball, so expect it on the 1st.

I'll start work on the wallpaper tomorrow - hopefully. It looks like the giant TIFFWITCH is the winner., but there's still time for the other options to rally!

Return of the schoolgirl

It's been a while since I put Autumn in her standard schoolgirl outfit, and the reason is quite simple: I'm horrendously lazy. It takes a few extra precious seconds to draw things such as collars, sleeves and skirts! Tank tops and slacks are just so easy!

Now that the kids are back in school, I have no excuse to lazily dress Autumn. It's time to suck up and stop cutting corners. Sadly, when you do a daily, corner-cutting becomes a way of life. It would have been fairly easy this week to cut corners, as Autumn spends most of it sitting at her desk - but I was good! (Autumn's outfit *does* get a feature in tomorrow's Sunday strip.)

Things like Autumn's outfit are easy to lose when dealing with a strip as complex as Precocious. It always irks me when I sit back and realize someone or something got left out in recent weeks. Jacob once disappeared for three weeks! Autumn faded for two during a story. Currently, Bud - THE CENTRAL CHARACTER - is the one suffering from airtime deficiency. I know it's the natural ebb and flow of such things - recent and upcoming strips both deliberately focus on the supporting cast - but it's my job to keep everything juggled. As soon as I lose control, the strip becomes a mess!

Bud, like the schoolgirl outfit, will make a comeback in time, but it might take a month to give him proper attention. Usually I use Sundays to make up for any missed characters, but this time...

The natural look

You know, with all the recent costume changes, it's been a while since I consistently drew my kids in their standard Precocious looks. With the supervillain follies going on now, I look below and see a full Dr. Oven in yesterday's sketch. (He was just supposed to be wearing the glasses.) Since Dr. Oven in full is probably funnier anyway, I left him in the Sunday strip it inspired, but I have to laugh. So many times when I drew Bud in baseball gear or lab coat, I had to go back and erase his black vest. Instincts said Bud = vest! Now I've done gone and reversed everything!

Don't tell me, I'll get him back to basics just in time for fall weather to put him in a jacket!

Cartoon Wardrobe Logic

Autumn is a strange one when it comes to cartoon wardrobe logic. While she has her default "schoolgirl" outfit, she is far less loyal to it than your typical comic character. Part of it is my laziness. Her current tank top and slacks look is her casual garb, and perfect for a casual artist! I do fine the look to be a bit boring, however. There's no flashy vest, no strips on the shirt and no adorable button. It's flat white!

With the current storyline, the kids will be slipping on their baseball uniforms shortly. That gets everyone out of the norm and allows me to reset clothing after it's over, should I wish to do so. If I run with what I have scripted now for after the baseball arc, Autumn would likely be back in her schoolgirl look. If I go with another story I've been mulling, her look is already determined. What this means is I don't have to ACT upon this idea for MONTHS!

*slacks off*

Try me on, I'm very you

Alright, I'm doing it. I am starting to think about merchandising Precocious. It's scary! What in my strip is truly shirt-worthy? I present to you the first wave of ideas. Help me shape them into successful designs! Also, PLEASE tell me what you want to see! Since it's the fans that will be buying the shirts, the fans kinda need to let me know what they want to buy.


I know I want to do a Dr. Oven shirt, but what slogan does he get? A nice, happy SCIENCE! is all-purpose and lovely...


...the full bake sale line is more comic-specific, but it is still awesome. Actually, this would make a good bumper sticker just by itself.


Dionne's heart shirt is a perfect vehicle for a Dionne heart shirt! (You heard me.) I like this design a lot, even though I doubt many will want the shirt. If I can pull it off, I am also contemplating a Tiffany button shirt.

Other ideas I have come directly from the strips:

"If I give off the vibe of sweetness and innocence, it can be quite disarming!"

Unrestrained Creativity

"From chaos comes creativity; from creativity, chaos"

Eh, who knows? This whole merchandising thing is still at the "glimmer in the eye" stage. Let's find out what works!

Act casual...

Today is an inking day. Inking is so... permanent! I'm making THE comic! If I screw up, well, sucks for me. Oh yes, and tension does up the chances of screwing up. I gotta relax.

So I took a break! Gotta fulfill my blogging duties anyway. Today's sketch is of another buttoned-up character, Ms. Monster. She dresses frumpy and boring for her class - a "how not to be seen" experiment - all in a sick effort to keep her professional and private lives separate. It's kinda stupid, really. (I should note here that I've stopped the flimsy parallels to link the sketch with the day's theme and I'm on to just talking character.) Anyway, the point is that Bette hates having her worlds collide. (Tiffany seeing both Bette and Ms. Monster is an unfortunate exception.) For Bette to show up to class in short sleeves, something has to go horribly wrong.

So I course I made two Sundays' worth of strips about it! You'll see 'em come June. Consider yourself teased.

We hope you will enjoy the show!

Stupid ambition, now I have to draw my characters as Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band! That is ADVANCED cartooning! Oh well, practice makes perfect...

Big Suit + Small Cartoon Child = Problem

This week's vote incentives for Precocious are indulgent music references. NEXT week's strips OF Precocious, are EVEN MORE INDULGENT music references. Obviously, at some point I was going to draw one of my kids in David Byrne's oversize suit from Stop Making Sense.

Turns out cartoon proportions are a sartorial nightmare. Let's ignore the whole "how can they fit those giant heads through those tiny collars" thing and focus on arms and legs. Tiny, short legs. As Calvin once said to Hobbes, "SHORT PANTS TOUCH MY FEET, OK?!" Granted, my kids aren't quite like that, but when an oversize jacket gets in the way... Calvintown.

Will I keep the visual gag, which fortunately was not vital to the strip, or will I chicken out and draw Jacob in his already-difficult Waldo shirt?

Fate Favors the Adorable!

Since it's easier than webcammming a 3'x3' painting-in-progress, I will use this sketch to share my joy over completing the writing of the OFFICIAL first Precocious storyline! It is surprisingly Suzette-heavy, but I'm fine with that. It's Autumn's first day of school... which means Roddy is on a mission to save her from the other crazies! Spoiler alert: He fails.

The storyline ends with Autumn explaining to her class why she wears her schoolgirl outfit. As should be expected, it involves manipulation, combat and general life-or-death situations. I'm very proud of this. Another thing I'm proud of is having their teacher, Ms. Monster, openly attempt to traumatize Autumn at the first opportunity. I am such a well-adjusted person.

Oh yeah, it looks like I will finally be back in Winchester Sunday evening. It's been so long, I probably won't even recognize my own house. Oh, that's right, I won't! Kitchen renovations have entered the depressing endgame and my fucktard brother moved into my room - with the stinky, stupid, awful dogs - while I was gone! Oh, it will be good to be back. If you want to contact me, I'll be in the county jail after the murder spree.

Anyway, I'm assuming my few friends check this blog every few days so they can see what I'm up to and because they miss having me around... and they don't just skim over things before seeing me so they can claim they read it. I'm feeling isolated and invisible here - and under considerable stress - so I'd like to think someone is out there to see my words and care about where I am. Again: I am such a well-adjusted person.

Why finish something when you can just start something else?

So I had one last canvas to defile. One last wrapped piece of potential. How could I have overlooked it all this time? I am nothing if not thorough in my painterly destruction! A new Maquette girl must enter this world!

Besides, I was royally fouling up the other paintings. Fresh start!



This is Mi Magnolia, known as "Maggie" because of her stupid name. ("Who's that?" "Oh, that's Mi." "You wish!") In Audde, the capital of my fictional territory Ardille, there is a clear division between the classes. The higher ups get to dance around in the architectural wankery that is a city built over a mountain valley. Not in. Over. It's pure showing off! The Ardillian elite also have a hard-on for pompous names that seem to come from lame fantasy stories. (Getting into meta humor here.) They can (mostly) pull it off, but those lower-class people always seen the need to imitate their superiors and they are not always as successful. Mi Magnolia sounds catchy and looks pretty on the page, but it's more of a bad movie title than a name.

So Maggie is class struggle personified. Her ticket into the upper class is to work as a personal trainer in the senate's gym, where she can charm powerful men who can't help but fantasize about a younger woman. (She's not that young, at 36, but is technically younger!) There's no doubt she has aspirations of breaking into the upper class, but questions surround her in regards to how far she will go. Does she genuinely like the people she chats with, or is she winning them over in a more salacious way? Does she want power for herself, or is there something more malicious behind her. She keeps writing in that notebook when she thinks no one is watching - is she a spy?

On the painting front, I had initially dismissed doing a Maggie piece because I wasn't sure I could capture enough of her. Where was I going to find an Asian woman who is fit, sort of blockheaded, with bangs and a ponytail? That seems a lot to ask for in a random Google search. It's not like I could think of a well-known actress who would fit the - hold on.... BAI LING! Her cartoonish features and hair are a perfect base for a painting! Maggie as I picture her would look like Bai Ling, if Bai was a bit more compact and someone took a belt-sander to her. How did I not make this connection before today?

On the painting itself, I'm still in the process of figuring out the exact placement of features, but all of my first drafts have those flaws. (As well as many finals!) I was tempted to put her other hand in the picture holding a pen, as if she's jotting down a note and looking around to see if anyone spots her, but that would be hard so fuck it. Instead I'm positioning her left arm to imply she's looking back as she walks out of a room to check her notes.



On to the other paintings! Dania has been driving me nuts. She's really close to coming together, but I am flailing about to get the final touch in that will cement it all.

There are two big changes here. First, I've given her a new dress. I decided to hit Google to see if I could find a dress similar to the one I had her wearing in my writing. One jumped out at me, as it was draping horribly on the mannequin and looking awkward. I am all about that! Of course, in adding that dress I was reminded why I chose to ignore the "ruffles" part of the dress description before. Blech.

The other change is the possible addition of the clipboard. On one hand, it activates more of the space in the painting. On the other hand, I'm not sure I could stylize a clipboard and make it look right. Thus, I panic and run away! Every time I work on Dania, so much white paint is lost!



The white paint thing is also causing me to screw up Moreh. When one has to mix colors, one cannot make enough for just a few brush strokes - yet I keep micromixing and running out with Moreh with my irrational need to ration. This means each new step needs me to mix the color just right or it looks terrible. Epic fail with that so far.

Her outfit is also causing problems. She appears too large on the canvas for me to show the table on which her hands are resting. This means my skill as a painter must somehow make the arm positions look correct. I'm fucked! Best I could do for now was to underpaint a block of green which seems in no way connected to either arm. Yay! The teacup is crap too, but that's because I haven't really focused on it yet.

See, this is why people love me. I'm so fucking positive about things!