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!

New Button ideas + Kickstarter info

Here are some button ideas that should eventually populate the Cupcakes of Bliss gift box, available through the Book 2 preorder on Kickstarter. I can still play around with ideas, but the current plan is three regular buttons and one papercraft button (probably of Tiffany). By the way, the red outlines and green circle on Quincy are guidelines on the template and won't be on the actual buttons.

And here's a reminder: While some items will be available in the upcoming Precocious store after the preorder ends, others will not. The Cupcakes of Bliss will be very limited once the campaign ends. (Well, they will become convention-only Precocious swag grab bags of random goodies, as opposed to gift boxes that always contain a doll and the button set.) Dolls, the new buttons and the "Two Sides of the Same Coin" charms will be scarce once the Kickstarter ends. Once they sell out, they might not return to the store for a long time. I will have a photo of Autumn and Jacob dolls soon! The prototypes are being worked on! By the way, all Cupcakes of Bliss will ship late August, as that's when I'm meeting with Duae Cat designs to pick up the dolls.

If you are part of the Kickstarter already and want to upgrade, you can do it via add-on. This means you add the total for the item to your pledge (plus shipping, if your're international), then let me know about the add-on when I send out backer surveys once the campaign ends. (You should always review the tiers first, to see if the option you want is available. You can also message me to asking about creating new tiers, or confirming the add-on is ok.)

Add-on options are:
$22 - One extra book. (International orders add $10 for shipping costs)
$30 - Cupcake of Bliss gift box. (International customers add $10 for shipping costs)
$16 - Complete the 'Two Sides' charm set. (Option only for those with an artist edition. International orders add $5 for shipping costs)
$5 - A sketched Precocious cast postcard. (All orders over $80 will get one for free. No extra international shipping charge.)
(If I told you a different international shipping cost add-on earlier, you don't have to update your cost. That was my bad math and I'll take the hit for it.)

If you are not part of the Kickstarter campaign for whatever reason, you need to email me with your requests so I can factor them in to my orders. Even if you've already informed me, a reminder at the end of the campaign will be handy.

Glitter Abuse

In what was supposed to be a fuller focus on commissions in the new year, I ordered a bunch of fun pens, including glitter pens! I've never had use for the before, but I've seen enough of the commission world now to know how fun they can be. This is the first thing I did when they arrived:

This also happened to be the mystery gift I was giving out during my recent "Too hurt to stream" giveaways, and the last art card I was able to complete before things too another turn for the worse. Enjoy your GlittUrsula, Brighttail! (I held off posting this until he got the card in the mail.)

Twitter and FurAffinity people got to see more of my glitter shenanigans. When the new Pokemon starters were announced, I marveled at how Fennekin took over the internet so quickly. The Glitter Pennekin was my stupid response. (Behold: About four minutes of HARD work!)

So I haven't been able to act on many of my fancy ideas for the new year yet, what with the old year doing all it can to destroy my head. One day, my friends. One day...

Cards and comics streaming, Dec 8th

December 8th is a special day, as it marks the beginning of Chrispmas - the season of giving! (Come to my streams if you want the full story of Chrispmas.) I intend to start this season by giving you a bonus weekend stream! Note the early start, 4pm eastern time, as I'm letting those darling people over in Europe get in on the action without wrecking their sleep schedules!

The plan is to draw two art cards and finish up the next installment of Copper Road, which will be posted after the stream ends.

Oh, and didn't I say this was the season of giving? During the stream, I will be giving away an art card to someone in the chat! You don't need an Ustream account, nor do you have to be actively chatting. You just need to be watching when the time comes and be able to let me know you exist. (You can use the chat room anonymously, or even email me if you're that shy.)

The above sketches, with festival outfits, are me getting you all started with ideas for the cards, as at least one will be created from chat requests.  The other card can be a commission, if someone would like to reserve a spot. Send me an email - chrispco (at) yahoo (dot) com - if you want it. Only $10.

The steam is expected to run 3-4 hours, so I encourage you to stop in and try for the freebie when you can! As always, this is the link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-sycophant

Hey, my 1000th blog post!

I'm not counting the 10 unposted drafts - so this is a legit 1000! Woo!  To celebrate this milestone, we have... a regular post-stream art-sharing post!

The card piece in the post below was pushed back to next week, because the client was sick and couldn't attend, so we filled up the night with the badge (will post it later - 1001!), card requests and an increasingly loopy Chrispy. I fought through the pain for you people, because I love you and want to entertain!

The Ursula saxophone card was the night's warm-up. (She has so much in common with Bill Clinton.) Knowledge Huntress Tiff was drawn during a commission break. She must have been playing with the time machine again, as she seems older.  The Kaitlyn and Quincy one is the result of me not paying enough attention - I thought I was playing with portfolio requests, so I messed around with the idea, but it was supposed to be a commission. (It's easy for me to miss stuff when my eyes are focused on drawing, so I encourage you all to yell at me until I notice.)

These are all up for grabs. $10 each!

Watercolors! *unsniffle*

Finally feeling better today! Hooray! Now I have no excuse for slacking off!

And, since I can't slack off, here are the watercolors! Enjoy!

Watercolor inks! *sniffle*

It took me a full day before I realized I had to actually scan these things if I wanted to share them. I blame illness.

This is how wussy I am. I have the weakest cold known to man, and it's turned me into a whiny and useless baby. It's not the actual feeling bad thing - it's more psychological damage done by three days of "Am I coming down with something? This can't be it. It'll surely either go away or become a real illness come morning. What's with this stupid thing!?" Still, I went to Costco today and I DIDN'T FEEL WELL ENOUGH TO BUY A PIZZA. Do you know what a tragedy that is? Costco pizza is the best and I missed a rare chance to get it! (Rare because I don't go often and I'm too lazy to drive across town just for pizza.) This is a real tragedy. I'm so very lightly sick, but it's enough to wonk out my sense of smell and make eating much less fun. Didn't discover this until last night when I had to triple the seasoning on my chicken to get any flavor across. Thank goodness I wasn't cooking for a group, as was originally planned.

Anyway, on to the watercolor inks. Yes, I wanted them completed earlier, but it doesn't really matter *when* they're finished, because the plan wasn't to ship them until Tuesday anyway. If I wasn't such a whiny baby, I would have done them today. Instead, I'll try to knock them out tomorrow.

Here's the happy Precocized Fenris ink. You get the full body for the final, but not much has chanced. With all watercolor inks, it looks a little weird because the paint will do most of the shading.

And here's Ursula reading in her bedroom. I'm going to have to do a printout of this one and do a few tests before I do any final painting. First I must figure out the best color scheme, then I must make sure I am capable of mixing those colors.  (I've had lots of struggles with getting a nice pink so far.)

I have one more watercolor that needs to be sketched, and then things get quiet. (Note: It's not good when it gets quiet.) Well, I guess I can do convention prep...

Di-Va's corruption

Forgot to post the one watercolor I did complete over the stream. Here is Di-Va trying to influence the Ticking Time Bomb.

Turns out painting a character cloaked in shadow with limited watercolor skills is pretty hard, but I think it all came out decent enough. The dark spot at the top center is not on the original, by the way. The paper is warped slightly - what with it being a WATERCOLOR and all - and that part simply wasn't in direct contact with the scanner glass.

The remaining watercolors will be done in the next few days. I was hoping to do them tonight, but I remembered there's this strange webcomic thing I'm obligated to do - and that comic's buffer is down to one. Since Tuesday is a streaming day, and it's a bad idea to wear out my arm too much before a live drawing session, I'm guessing the next two will be completed on Wednesday.

...and sweetness

Another Ursula watercolor in the works! This one is Ursula reading in bed. Above are sketches of the various positions one bed-reader can assume.

 I went well beyond the complexity limits on that bottom one, but I like it. It's kinda hard to put a bed in the proper perspective for that pose and *not* draw in the scene.

Corruption

I owe three people comp sketches (and there's one more project for which I'm still awaiting refs), so here's the first one.

Di-va is out to bring Ursula (Ticking Time Bomb) into her group of villains! Will it work? I do kinda like the clock and wires look for TTB's costume, although I'm not sold on the headband.  Ursula's markings interfere with a lot of headgear options

It's 50/50 on if I'll have more sketches tonight. Late night + early morning = blargh. I'll try, though!

Ursula alone

Here's the individual Ursula file I snuck into the cast photo, since most of it was hidden. (Just a reminder that the rest of that composition is a single drawing, so I can't cycle characters in and out, or move them around.)

This sort of pic is also an option for the new cast page, whenever that may happen. I have a stack of 4x6" index cards, and I thought I might draw the character pics on those. It works for the kids, but it might get tricky for the more vertical-oriented adults. We shall see. I suppose this project could be a streaming project too.