More commission catch-up

Today's goal was to put finishing touches on all the paintings I have here, since they need to be shipped soon. I got the big one touched up enough that I'm ready to part with it. The little ones are still in the process of being fixed. They are years old, and were not created with the care I use now. The Bud and Dionne little ones still need lots of work. The Tiffany one, fortunately, only needs the background redone. (I want to keep the red to blue to white effect, but we'll see how it ends up.) I still have a few hours to finish these off!

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.

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! - Now in color!

I did it! I watercolored without screwing up terribly! I'm not sure my stroke quality is any good, and I can't stay in the lines to save my life - but those things are forgivable in watercolors, no? I declare victory anyway!

Watercolors are scary things, man, as one mistake could result in the entire piece getting scrapped. And I came close to that. As with all damning mistakes, this one came when I was 99% done with the piece. Everything was painting except for the "o" in "of", and that's when I decided to touch a spot in "doom." One hand slip later, I had a brown smudge across the "do." Fortunately, I was able to blot the paint enough to make it negligible.

Wish I could provide a better pic for you, but scanning faint colors seems to be the impossible task. I went to my good scanner, and everything light still came out as a pale cyan. Which really made Tiffany look weird.

Anyway, the next step in watercoloring is to double down on the difficulty and take on a new commission. Wish me luck, as this one will be a doozy.

Fighting with the paint demons

When I first thought of today's comic, I immediately went on Twitter and announced I had an idea that was completely unusable due to the effort involved. And then I somehow tried to do it anyway. I'm not sure if that was the best idea.

My inspiration for this strip was to have the characters find themselves depicted as demons in a painting reminiscent of the hell portion of "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch. The catch was, in order for the gag to work, the final panel had to really look like a painting of that style. That meant figuring out the most time-effective way of pulling off something that could pass as a detail of an oil painting.

The first attempt was a 12x12" canvas with acrylic paints. I didn't get far in before I realized the layers of paint needed meant a lot more time going into it than expected - and that I lack the tiny brushes (and skill for detail) to pull this off. Rather than give up, I switched methods. This time I whipped out my watercolor pencils and drew a version of the scene I wanted. It wasn't looking great, but I thought I could fix it - so I brought out the REAL watercolors next and started dumping more layers on it. Eventually, I worried the piece was getting muddy, so I went in and used a black tech pen to sharpen some edges. The result was the piece you see above.

At this point, I was committed. I had put most of one day's work into one panel of one strip for a gag that iffy at best - but I was not about to throw it all away! The brush stroke effect wasn't really there, the composition was too hokey and the background colors weren't deep enough. To fix that, I turned to Photoshop. Right away, I suffered the consequences of leaving the entire piece too light, as every little tweak drained the lighter details away. I tried a few filters to make it look more painting-like, but got mediocre results. The final version ended up with me throwing the watercolor filter in over my original watercolors and adding some shadows. I'm not sure how effective the result is for the final strip, but it's all I could do with the piece I created.

Maybe I should have gone with a throwaway gag about the gallery coffee shop instead...

Progress, and the end of acrylics

As I continue my quest to improve, I have to face and defeat my old demons. SCAD intensity plus epic life tragedy meant a scrambled Chrispy who had to let things fall aside while he struggled to keep afloat. Now, with this time of peace, it is time to make amends.

It's been a long climb to get back to my old levels of productivity. For the first time in many months, I have a comic buffer. It's still small, but having it means I don't have to devote every single day to completing comics. I can go at my own pace, do the type of work I want to do, take a mental health day and, most importantly, turn my attentions to part projects that got pushed aside when my life hit the dark ages.

The most important project I dropped was my last commissioned painting. When SCAD became the dominant force in my life, work halted on the piece and it was shelved indefinitely. I kept vowing to set aside time to complete it, but week after week that time was not there. I would drag the painting and painting supplies with me whenever I traveled - just in case I had a free day - but those trips always ended with no progress. Even when my schedule opened up, my increased comic obligation and persistent mental funk meant I rarely had time to breathe, much less pay attention to other things. It's only been on this recent kick, which my productivity increasing, that picking this project back up became feasible. This week, my comic finally reached a place where I had a buffer of a few days. I was finally able to take one day and set it aside for other projects, and this painting was first in line.

It seems weird for such a simple composition to have caused so many problems, but that's how it is. I'm quite excited for it to almost be done. Finishing this piece and shipping it off will serve as the closing of the last, awkward chapter of my life - allowing for a fresh start on things!

I refused to take on any new commissions as long as I had outstanding work to do, but now that I'm almost done I can start looking ahead. I'll tell you one thing: Working with acrylics is OUT for now. Thanks to my painting class last quarter, I don't get as much joy from working with acrylics as I used to. That urge will return one day, but it's on to new media for now! I've started dabbling in watercolors, and I'd like to keep practicing that. I still have my large collection of good old colored pencils - and, if I want to combine it all, a nice group of watercolor pencils too! I want to see what goodness I can do with that stuff when I open up commissions again!

A great idea, for more capable hands...

So last quarter I took a painting course at SCAD. It was a class of 15 senior painting majors - and me, a SEQA major whose painting experience peaked at painting 102. It was... brutal. My classmates had no desire to welcome anyone new, especially an evil outsider. My professor, while kind, was frustrated to have to deal with someone with so little painting experience. And, of course, I met this challenge with a full-on melt down due to this coinciding with the loss of my grandparents.

Come midterms, I had to show work I knew was weak and, boy, did they let me have it. It wasn't just pointing out that the work was bad, but they treated me as hopelessly ignorant. I wasn't a real painter. To them, I was someone coming into their territory with the arrogance that I could do their job better without any training. They were out for blood.

My reaction to this critique? A big ol' SCREW YOU to everyone involved! You know what? Cartoonists aren't inferior beings! They have every right to be displayed on gallery walls, and I was going to make sure that happened! Not only was I glorifying myself to taunt them, but I designed my series to allow me to use (the horror) store-bought canvasses I already had on hand. (In this class, if you didn't shell out the crazy money and spend all those hours of effort with construction and gesso, you weren't a real painter.) Any questions were hand waved by me claiming it was part of the concept - and concept is king in the art world!

As malicious as my motives were, this isn't a bad idea at all. It would be fun to be the painter who set out to paint portraits of webcomics' best and brightest. I was thrilled to be able to paint portraits of cartoonists I know and admire!

There was only one problem: I was still in a major funk. The reason I've held off from sharing these paintings until now is because, frankly, they aren't strong enough. I care about the people in these pictures and I wanted to do the best for them, so anything short of perfect would not do! I'd really like to see what I could accomplish with a redo and a mind with more clarity. Maybe, one day, this webcartoonist project could be resurrected and become something after all.

If you think I'm doing the typical self-loathing artist shtick here, then consider this merely the pendulum swinging back. For the second half of my painting class, I pretended I was nothing but gung-ho about this series. I put on my best BS face and enthusiastically explained how every mistake and bit of awkwardness was actually deliberate execution of my concept. For my critique, I put a smile on my face and talked boldly - even going to the point where I replaced my proposed sixth portrait with a tiny "to be continued" sign that was meant to mimic the end of a comic issue. (Note the arrangement of the portraits loosely resembles a comic book page.) While they frowned upon the fact the "to be continued" piece was clearly done the morning of - it might not have even been dry when I hung it - they bought my reasoning! Even though it was clear to everyone that I wasn't very good that quarter, my "conviction" salvaged my grade.

And, you know what, I do have conviction about this project. It SHOULD Be awesome. I just needs a better painter behind it. (And maybe, one day, that better painter could be me.)

Since you're dying to know, here are my subjects:

Top-left: Isabel Marks of Namir Deiter

Top-right: Jimmy Misanthrope of Agents of the Endtimes

Mid-left: Sarah 'Pickles' Dill of Distillum

Mid-right: Yeah, that's me. It was the prof's idea and I went with it.

Bottom: Irene Pitcairn of The Elves of LlueGarnok

Much love to all of them for allowing me to paint them. Much apologies to them for coming up a bit short. YOU WILL BE AVENGED!

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.

Running in artistic circles

Ok, enough with the mouse tales! Let's do some of that promised art! (Yes, I forgot to post this yesterday... and now it takes up today's post instead!)

This piece of work is the one I've been playing with for quite some time - with very little success. Keeping with the tradition, my hours of work on this bugger ended up making the painting look... uh... exactly the same as it did when I started. WHATEVER, THERE'S MORE PASSION IN IT NOW!

The devil in the details

More from the painting commission! I am trying to add some details to Dionne's gown. This is my *second* attempt at it, and I hope it's more acceptable. I went with the ruffled look, mostly because I had no idea what else to do. :-(

Do a little dance

As promised, and - er- forgotten, here is yet another painting post - with the painting looking very similar to the last version... but more finishedish! It's not totally done yet, but it's very close. Yes, it should be done, but - heh - I just noticed I forgot to paint the bottom border! That's minor, but it means no signature yet. (Glad I caught that now...)

I can't believe I still have the painting around here. I blame the snow. Ever since snowmageddon hit, I've been on a perpetual snow day - even though it barely impacted my normal life. I live like a shut in! My bedroom is my studio! I had no place to go! But, still, it felt like time off, and KNOWING I couldn't leave led to the required stir crazy feelings. Now that the snow is finally clearing, I emerge blinking and confused, wondering where the last 10 days went.

It remains whim time!

Today was recovery from the Super Bowl day, so not much bonus, bloggable progress was to be made - until I returned to whimsy and painted some more FOR THE PEOPLE! It may be chaotic. It may not be going anywhere good. It might accidentally trigger the downfall of humanity. WHO CARES! It's bloggable progress, and it beats having to show you a shot of my desk as I work on this week's Precocious and Copper Road strips. (I am indeed doing that today.)

It's whim time!

I didn't want to show you a barely-changed painting or a shot of my desk with in-progress comics, so I started a new painting JUST FOR YOU!

As is my way, I squirted one color (this time burgundy) and some white onto the palette and went wherever my hands took me. Did it work? I dunno, but it was fun to improv a bit.

Finishing touches on unfinished touches

Work on the dance commission continues, and it's time to hammer out the final details before the finishing layer. This is always the two steps forward, one step back part of painting, as each new touch requires a new touch-up to fix.

Starting with Dionne, her dress now has texture, a proper nose and lighter hair. I'm not sure I like the dress effects yet, so I may knock 'em all out and try again. The rest looks good and should only need some finishing. For Max, I did as promised and changed the pants to brown. I think it's a good base, but it needs another coat. His tie will be more red in the final, so worry not. I just threw in some burgundy while I had it out to serve as a placeholder.

Once the paint has a chance to dry, and I finish watching this Caps game, I'll return to the good fight and touch-up some more. This painting should be finished this weekend!

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!

Forecast: 50% Gray

Aww, I missed the midnight deadline. AGAIN. I tried to make it, but I had to move at the pace of paint. (You can still the light glinting off wet paint in the pic.) Oh well, productivity happened and that's what matters.

This painting is aaaallllmmmooosssst done! Just a few touches of white and we're set! As you see. I went with the 50% gray for the background. Good or bad, that's my choice. In an oddity, the painting actually looks much better in person than in the pic, so take my word that it's awesome.

Today was a 50% gray day. Snow kept me from frolicking in the outdoors. Writers block kept me from doing all the important stuff. My wonky sleep schedule caught up to me. Gray. Day. (I did get some comics done, though, but I obviously can't share them here.) Solution: GO TO BED EARLY! Hit the reset button and start anew!

Dancing Now

Haven't checked in with my Dionne/Max commission in a while, so here we go! As you can see, most of the main colors are down and I'm rapidly approaching the "repaint everything" stage where all the blotchiness become pure color bliss. If you would like to picture the final in your mind, I'm looking at making Max's suit a lightened Prussian blue.

I'm really happy with how this is progressing, and hope to get it done soon. It won't be done by the end of the month as I planned, but that was before I took a week off to wait for the projector. (Worth it!)

Now the unsexy work continues. Painting aside, I have to work on next week's comics, get back to writing character bios (I haven't forgotten) and write some of my Shepherd professors for grad school stuff. This is just the immediate stuff! I have business cards and postcards and t-shirts and the Precocious book and... ACK! Let's just savor the niceness of the painting for now, ok?

Paint by numbers

The latest painting is entering the final stages. Hooray! I'm not in my favorite "trace over everything" stage, where I tighten things up to make them ultra snazzy. I still have some details to figure out, but the final will look a lot like what you see above.

The big decision is figuring out the background. I'm mulling over two choices: A very pale yellowish color, and 50% gray, which I purchased after I noted my lack of it for the LAST painting. To be honest, I prefer the white background, but that would need some touches to keep it from being boring - meaning a lot of underpainting and, uh, overpainting... and paint is expensive!