Big Ol' Health Update

This is my Valentines Day card to all you wonderful readers! And, yeah, that's a good summary of my current health too.

For those who haven't gotten the play-by-play over on my Twitter feed, I'll try to summarize what's been happening to me. Be warned: It makes ZERO sense. I am baffled. The docs are baffled. Everyone's baffled!

The fun of my toothache and extraction is over, and what's taken its place is a strange muscle problem in my face. No one really knew what was happening to me for a while, and even now we aren't sure WHY it's happening. It's obviously tied to the extraction, as I've never had these symptoms before, but that's all we know.

The problem with such a muscle problem is that it's far worse than a sore tooth. It could take months to recover from - and I'm not helping it by trying to fight through it the way I am.  I have an official letter from my doctor, demanding I cease drawing. It's not the main trigger for pain flare-ups, but the most controllable. Eating is the worst for me, as any chewing whatsoever will knock me out. Talking hurts me. SMILING hurts me. I am medically advised against watching comedies on TV, or cheering for my sports teams. (Not that there's much cheering these days for Caps fans.)

What this means is that my pain increases throughout the day as I do such strenuous things as eating, breathing, talking and having emotion. Pain leads to fatigue. Pain and fatigue keep me from drawing. I'm seeing more doctors soon, but for now the general consensus is to rest as much as possible.

I do sometimes have small windows in the morning to work, but it's not enough to keep pace with what I need.  It's easier to do light work than work requiring intense concentration - which is why I mostly post fancy sketches these days. It's the only way I can give anything back at the moment.

So what does it all mean? I'll do what I can, but the chronic pain is going to take its toll. I can't say what will happen yet. My priorities must be focused on the most important deadlines, and I still intend to meet them. The Fall Festival arc will continue uninterrupted until its end, and Precocious will keep updating after that in some form. (I have ideas that are pretty cool, *and* could help my health!) Since no one knows what's up with my stupid face, no one's able to make any predictions about what will happen to me.

What can you do? Be patient, and save up your money! Medical bills combined with a loss of all commission income puts me in a very bad spot, but I'm full of pride and I want to earn my keep!  Wait for the book announcement! Wait for merchandise announcements! The Precocious store will pop up eventually. All the plans are still in place, just delayed. (The donation bar remains on the front page, just in case someone still wants to help now and earn color for the bonus story that, yes, will come as soon as I can draw it.)

I understand everyone's frustration, especially since I've done all I could to spoil you all rotten to this point. Please be patient, and please be kind. The comic is free, remember. The paid stuff has been suspended until I can deliver. (The four with outstanding commissions have been contacted, understand the situation and can write me again if they have more concerns.)

The best thing you can do for me is to come back every day. Be an active reader, whether it's through re-reading the archive, commenting on strips, writing me, asking me questions on tumblr or formspring, going through the sidebar links and following my antics, spreading the word to others, clicking on the page's ads (disable adblock, please) or reading through the links I post, retweet and include on my linking page! It means the world to a creator to *see* people enjoying his work - especially in trying times.

I'll try to keep things entertaining and running smoothly for the casual readers, but I felt you all had a right to know why some things have slipped. As mentioned before, I had a *great* plan! I have several scripts for Precocious and Copper Road and bonus stories! I have sketches for merchandise! I just need to be healthy enough to make those happen! If more rest is needed, more rest will happen. I need to survive the now to thrive in the long term - and that's a delicate balance.

Abusing the trust of others

When you volunteer your face for someone's portrait practicing, you gotta know the risks.

This is Michael Kinyon, webcomics superreader and all-around awesome dude. Other webcomic creators have stepped in to comickize his profile pic in the past, so I decided to give it a go.

The plan here was to use his face as a test case for various portrait types. I'm more comfortable doing the life-drawing painterly stuff than cartoonizing folks at this point, so all those who stumble into my path these days end up as a hybrid of the two as I work my way to something new.  This is the first portrait test with him. I wanna try a toonier look and my old-school "stained glass" portrait stuff later.

And here's a test to see how it'd work as an icon. Dumb me used the long 5.5x17 pad of paper, which I've been drawing book two's bonus art on, and I promptly forgot the mission was for a square portrait. I'll get you next time, dude's face!

The portraits keep coming!

Completed another page, so here you go! (If you want to see them as they are done, follow me on Twitter!)

I have one more promised portrait to do, then a few optional ones of my family. Tomorrow the cleaning of the house begins in earnest, so my portrait productivity will go down. On Friday, I am driving back down to Savannah to retrieve my stuff, which will eventually lead to madcap comic production as my buffer will be completely gone when I return - so Thursday is the last day I'll be doing portraits. I'll take up to three more requests, then I'll put portraits on hold until I'm caught up on work. Doing first come, first serve, so act now!

Update: One slot left. Also, I am so very very tired after hauling junk around this house all day. (And I had the easiest job of the four people here, so you should really pity them!) If I don't get 'em all done before I leave on Friday, will you forgive me?

The reader portraits continue!

So, it turns out that sitting on a squishy bed - and I cannot stress enough how mindbogglingly squishy this thing is - and trying to draw can do a number on your neck. If I was a cool cartoonist, I'd make a journal comic about it. But I'm not, so you just get more portraits and some griping.

Neck pain has slowed me down, but not defeated me! I got this one, as promised. One more remains for today's queue. We'll see how I hold up. That one might not appear until tomorrow evening.  (I'll be gone for most of tomorrow visiting my relatives in DC.)

I have three portraits to do on Monday. After that, it could be you!  This promotion will last until I get a new project, or my neck snaps, both should happen around the middle of next week. Don't miss your chance!

Twintacular!

Another part of the portrait experiments. This time, I took on my friend's twins. THIS IS TERRIFYING! Not only are babies/toddlers/whatever-you-call-two-year-olds a whole new ball game, but THESE ARE PEOPLE I WILL HAVE TO LOOK AT IN THE FACE ON A REGULAR BASIS.  They judge.

The scan was very unkind to me, dropping out a lot of subtle stuff. (Note how much of the background got eaten.)  I did ok with Juliet (on the left), but Zoe's gonna need a few touchups once I get brave again.

And, yes, I left in Zoe's hand gesture so you people could craft a narrative. (I combined them from two separate pictures.) Be funny, but nice.

It's a portrait party!

Here we have the efforts from today's portraiting. I thank everyone for allow me to defile their faces. Some are closer than others, but they are all valuable because I need the practice!

Do you want to be a part of this? Email me your picture! I'd love to do a bunch of these, and you might get lucky and have me make a non-cruddy portrait of you!

I like doing this for both the skill-building and because it lets me DO something while I wait for my moving situation to work itself out. (I've given up on trying to make comics in this small space, which means the first week back will be me flying by the seat of my pants! Hey, I've done it before, and I'll do it again.)

The Experimenting Continues

There's a reason I'm not charging anything for drawing portraits. I gotta work out the kinks first.  I knew this one was gonna get me, because my test sketch for it was pretty good. For the rest, the sketches were atrocious - just ways to block out the space. You don't want to waste artistic goodness on the early stages. You only get so much per piece!

This one also got botched in the scan, unfortunately. The flesh tone appears to have been completely eliminated, only leaving the shading.  Well, ok, whatever. Scanner, you are mean. (And this is the *good* one doing that!)

The scariest part of doing these portraits:  Discovering where the gaps are in my Copic collection.  Maybe for the next one I'll get creative with the coloring, just to see what happens.  I'd rather the "artistic" approach succeed than see my bank account take another hit as I order more markers.

So, who will the next victim be? Step up! At best, you get a cool pic of you. At worse? No one will recognize it's you anyway!

I swear this dude has teeth

In this post, we rediscover what scanners do to subtle coloring. Any place with a W2 or below coloring level got zonked.  Well, maybe that means I was too timid.  I chose this pic because it was the most difficult look of the images offered, so I was scared at times. Smiles are hard. Smirks are easy. EVERYONE NEEDS TO SMIRK MORE.  Also, when one buys Copic markers, grabbing a bunch of potential skin tones is a good idea. I don't have that collection, so I have to improvise. Grayish Cherry doesn't seem that face-y, but it proved quite useful today! The smattering of colors can be kinda cool if thrown around well enough, though.

Also, I am starting to conclude that Precocious is for bearded dudes, by bearded dudes. Will someone please submit a picture to disprove this theory?

The first portrait

First come, first serve!

I was given three photos of our friend here. Two clean-shaven. One beard. C'mon, you know I can't resist!

This is approximately 4.5x6" and done on a Canson drawing pad. I want to keep playing around with these to see where the comfort zone is and what tricks I can pull. If anyone wants to be a part of this experiment, send me a photo!

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!)

My Little Chrispy

Yesterday Darc suggested I draw myself as a pony, and I can never say no her! So here you go: Chrispy the unicorn! (Because unicorns are the best!)

My cutie mark is a newspaper-style comic strip, because I've been obsessed with the things since I learned to read. (Because comics are the best!)

So... who is getting an awkward portrait tomorrow?

(Because awkward portraits are the best?)

And now, the rest of the painting!

I have successfully made a portrait of someone's mom! I told you I'd pull it out and I did. In your face, everyone! Next step: REWARD!

Next next step: MORE WORK! Aww, man. I want to be lazy and goof off! But I guess I've done that for... most of my life. I'll goof off by MAKING COMICS! That'll show you!

FACE!

I am one important step closer to finishing this commission: The face is practically finished! I say practically because I still need to touch up the eyes, but I'm close enough that celebration is in order!

Once the face dries, I aim to go back and work on the hair and *maybe* the dress. Still iffy on what colors to use, but I have to make that jump today! This sucker needs to be delivered in time to be a Christmas gift! (No delivery until I get PAID though! Daddy needs his paycheck!)

When this painting is complete, it's on to fun Precocious painting commissions. And perhaps that Bob Marley mural. Man, when did I become a professional painter?

If paintings were teenagers

As foretold on this blog, the initial stages of coloring the portrait commission are awkward and abrasive - and, wouldn't you know it, it just shuts down with communication! It won't tell me what's wrong and what needs fixing. Damn you, teenaged painting!

All my portraits go through such stages, but it's uncomfortable every time it happens. Some good stuff is starting to happen with the face, actually making it ahead of schedule in that regard. Usually the face is the last thing to fall into place. The hair is a letdown so far, but a bit of white in the paint should even things out the next round.

The background is still a question, and I have no clue where to go with it. Flat color? Texture? What color? Eh, I'll figure that out LATER!

The quest to make money

Hey, look, I'm working on commissions! Maybe one day I will earn more than I spend! Maybe.

I got busy portraiting today after I got approval of my proposal sketch. I have been approved to go wild, and I WILL! It's actually been quite a while since I worked on portraits, so I'm easing back into it. Good linework down? Sweet! Take a break and savor the victory!

Tomorrow is going to be interesting on the commission front, as that Bob Marley mural project is looking more and more likely to happen. I'm meeting with the owner to see if we can reach an agreement over cost. (Let's see if I can screw that up with my demands!) Murals require cash up front for concept development. GIMMIE! Payday aside, the mural thing will be cool because it's a new challenge. I'll have to do some research on how one actually muralizes things...

I'm a miracle worker!

I've started work on a new commission! I'm making a portrait of someone's mother, with full permission to get as stylistically crazy as I want!

There's just one problem: The source image is itty bitty, under-lit and out of focus. IT IS TIME TO WORK MIRACLES, PEOPLE! I scanned the photo, blew it up in photoshop, sharpened, contrasted and printed the result - reversed for style points! I then threw the image on the light table and began drawing on the back. The result is what you see here. NOW I have a decent image from which to start painting! Ta-dah!

Caribbean vibes

Behold, an hour exercise attempt at drawing Bob Marley. Why am I drawing a reggae god? I didn't even know how to *spell* "reggae" until Firefox's spell check helped! I'm entertaining the idea of painting a mural at a new Caribbean restaurant. It's unlikely this will happen, but I might as well TRY to grab some art-based income. My style is colorful and bold, which is a great match with contemporary Caribbean art, so this could be a good match! There's just that pesky Bob Marley getting in my way. I've gotta render him better than this!

30-minute meals

Y'know, if art is food for the soul...

This is part two of my "I have toys!" experiment. I had 30 minutes, watercolor pencils and PJ Harvey as background music. Inspiration!

So there's my stylized Polly Jean portrait. It was quite fun to do, even if the hurrying precluded perfection. Oh, and if you're wondering, the dark spots on the image are places where water made my paper warp dramatically. Hey, watercolor paper is precious! Bristol board I have in excess.