As of writing this, I’m now 31 years old and introspective about my art journey so far! I continue to tackle new conventions as I keep my head on a swivel! I’ve been sketching small bits of art on my social sites over the month, but I’ve kept myself busy going to cons, taking other art commissions and recording livestreams!
I’ll be honest and say that we haven’t made that much progress on Blackmask from last January to now. My programmer took time off for a vacation, so he’s been away from his computer. I myself have been taking other art commissions and streams, but we’ll be in touch with majors changes as soon as possible. I’ve been sketching small bits of art on my social sites over the month, I’ve been sloppy about posting my art here in a way that is an easy to find.
Northwest Indiana Comic Con 2023
Beginning of my convention season at Northwest Indiana Comic Con in early February!
It was straightforward selling my print comics, prints, stickers and taking commissions on paper! My Pastry Cat Stickers continue to sell well, but my Comics were no slouch either!
It was a nice time to take a break from digital art to draw marker art on Bristol Board Postcards. I saw some Teen Titans cosplayers at NWIComicCon, so I figured I’d draw the Titan girls just for the heck of it.
Northwest Indiana Comic Con is and continues to be a fantastic small scale convention that has a nice homey feeling and won’t be bloated with crowds and noise! If you live in Northern Indiana and love to hit up a comic show without breaking the bank, I recommend stopping by here when the show rolls around in the winter!
Peoria Con 2023
During my birthday weekend, I also tabled at PeoriaCon for the first time! Peoria is a neat-forested area that has a cozy comics community! For the first day of the two-day event, I tried out a new giant table set up and with this shelving arrangement! It’s a Birch Ply Three Tier Countertop Shelf from ClearDisplays. For under $30, it has plenty of space to add new stickers for the future!
I made a decent amount on my first day despite forgetting to have physical change. My Pasty Cat stickers are starting to sell out, so if you want your own 4 inch by 4 inch vinyl stickers, you can get them from my Etsy Store!
On the second day, It was a foggy morning, but I’d say it was another fantastic turnout ! I started drawing some Deadpool postcard art to keep myself busy, and it spun off into more members of X-Force, so that I continue on the rare moments that I draw fan art.
Overall, PeoriaCon went great! I made friends with other creators where there and got some cool ideas of future art and things to sell! I’d love to come back next year!
Twitch Streaming Art
Since mid-January, I’m back to livestreaming my art on Twitch! Right now, I’m doing my best to secure a recurring schedule for Wednesday nights at 5pm CST as my short streaming nights while getting used to being on camera again.
A majority of the streams will be developing Blackmask, but I do want to have streams to taking commissions and making emotes. If you miss these streams, I’ll be posting lightly edited Full Stream Archives on YouTube!
Commission Work
I’ve been taking commissions for the past month between my day jobs to catch up on bills and keep me afloat. I had a slight financial scare which I’ll elaborate on in a future blog post, but to put a long story short: Never ever accept checks for any Payments from strangers, and always take time to vet your commissioners to see if they’re legitimate.
With that, I finished a fantastic flat color commission of a good friend’s OCs on Twitter! Most of this piece was sketched and inked in Procreate to get myself drawing, but I finished the art in Clip Studio Paint during my art streams!
I borked up and didn’t save a time-lapse of my work to Procreate before deleting the copy. I but I still have what I did in Clip Studio Paint.
Granted, I could’ve been faster about this, but I know I shouldn’t rush myself if I don’t have a real deadline to finish my commissions.
Some more commissions I’ve been working on, are a pair of Tattoos for a friend and his brother under the theme of a Sun Lion and a Moon Bull.
He initially asked for it in line art, but I colored this on a whim during my art streams because I liked the graphical look of the images. I first started my thumbnail sketches in Artflow App on my phone and imported the files into Clip Studio Paint to refine and finish.
Figuring out the direction to take, the Sun Lion came to me easy as a lion’s mane is iconic, so I had plenty of ways to go. After getting input from my client, we picked the wavy spin wheel mane on the right.
The moon bull was an easier start, but tough to decide. I knew I wanted to do something with the bull’s horns, and that was the big moon thing I’d go with. I also wanted to do something that wasn’t a complete rip-off of the Chicago Bulls logo.
Refining the line art was smooth sailing due to Clip Studio Paints Symmetry Rulers to keep it all even. The Symmetry Ruler can mirror my lines in twelve ways, letting me draw my lion mane in a short time.
Coloring this was a spur of the moment thought during my art streams. The line art is colored, and I close the lines enough to flat color in a snap! This time I didn’t overthink the coloring, since the warm and cool colors were a given. I like the graphic style, so I might make a t-shirt of these in the future for my own personal interests.
Finally, this Copic marker commission of a client’s pet cats as warriors. Since I wasn’t at a convention to do traditional marker art, I had time to be fancy with this.
For the first time, I tried a new Light Table set up. Last year, I got this table from eBay quite cheap. It has three levels of glow in case you’re using multiple pages or thicker paper.
It has a short USB plug that eats more power than I have in any of my power banks, so I used one of my computer’s USB extension cords to plug into a plug adapter. Unfortunately, It’s unwieldy for my current desk set up, but I had to deal with it.
Inking the commission traditional with a Winsor & Newton Size 2 Sable Brush and Liquitex Acrylic Ink. I haven’t inked with a traditional brush in a year. I have a silly habit of holding my breath as I ink with a brush. For some reason, I’m unreasonably clean with my inking out of an invisible need to look as good as pro inkers even though I don’t have to be so precise.
Another big reason I wanted to ink traditionally is to try inking with my light table! I can preserve on my tight pencils sketches and not waste time erasing or the ink repelling off the graphite.
It wasn’t as comfortable or intuitive as I was expecting, as my right had kept rubbing on the power button or hitting the cord, turning off the light. My a small wobbly table also gives me some issues. I needed to use my tablet’s Laptop stand to have my paper level with my arm, so I don’t hunch.
The marker process wasn’t recorded due to me taking the work to my day job to finish it. The process is as straight forward as my marker process has always been, but I feel like I should’ve’ gone lighter on the greys to be more accurate to the client’s reference pictures of their cats.
I’ve gone through many commissions over the month, and I’ll be on stand by for anymore work that comes my way! If you want me to draw something for you, give my Commissions Page a look!
Other Misc Art
I’m still continuing on this silly rabbit thing. It stems from a Blackmask world building idea that I don’t even know is feasible.
The concept is that the Rabbit Country is ruled by a Hundred Hare Council, who represents the numerous populations of rabbits and bunnies above and underground.
Each one is reflective of a part of the giant world Cole inhabits. It’s unwieldy, but I’m too in love with the absurdity and storytelling potential of this.
I burned out on working on these, so I’m taking time away from these rabbits for a short time. To deal with the art block from this, I sketched this dreadlocks character at work to revisit drawing humans.
This is a bunch of art stuff that I’ve been up to for the past month and a half. I’m worried that I’m not playing enough catch up with my art tasks, but I’m trying to be more mindful about not letting it get to me. I’ll check in again with some more convention and commission news, so thanks again for stopping by!
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