I made several proofs, and I was just about to go forward on buying prints, but I realized that instead of sitting on many floppy comics that don’t sell that much, I’d make a big trade paperback containing not just my comics work so far, but behind the scenes stuff like my original pencil art and inks! I can even include other illustrations and sketches in the book to show off more of my artwork!
Recently, I’m posting art that I haven’t posted on this site before. As much as I maintain my Twitter and Instagram to keep my art in people’s eyes, I still need to remember that I built this website to archive my artwork.
After someone scrutinized my website, I found some issues that I’m taking time to fix. I haven’t been able to focus on personal projects as much as I’d like, as I’m crunching and focusing on finishing my freelance work for Flawless Extra-Ordinary Super Heroes.
I want to share my process making illustration art for the Indie Real Time Strategy game, Furs of Fury. Working on this illustration pushed my skills to it’s furthest because this game needed this treatment! I initially completed the art in December, but I finally got the time to make a process post and video of this illustration.
The programs I use to create most of my art these days is Clip Studio Paint. Most of the sketching and painting is done in it. I worked on this illustration on and off for roughly 5 months in 20202 over several sessions of Art Streams, weekdays, weeknights and weekends. With this time-lapse, I managed to edit it down to over 20 minutes.
Before I took a harder line stance on making fan art back in 2015, I made a piece of Captain Falcon and Sam Wilson as Captain America.
When I first heard that Falcon became Captain America in the comics, I thought the idea of “Captain Falcon” being in the Marvel Universe was funny to me.
With all the many resources available on the internet: video tutorials, articles, blog posts, and books, it’s easier than ever to acquire art knowledge!
Often, I get questions about my art books, so I made a list of books that I own to help anyone else out on their art journey.
Some of these books are books I studied in college to learn how to draw, many are books I’ve picked up from my local library to preview and put on my wish list to buy in the future.
I had plans, but they went to crap last year. With all the virus stuff, so many cancellations and changes in my life I didn’t get my goals done. The two freelance projects I had taken up most of my time for the year, but they kept me alive and maintained over 2020.
From doing that, it lead to me starting to make a video game called Blackmask. I want 2021 will be the year Adam and I go full throttle on Blackmask! I want to have more update videos for the game on the development YouTube channel. Another goal is to make a Kickstarter campaign for Blackmask and get development going on it.
I reached 100 Followers and even got Affiliate on my Twitch Channel! To celebrate that and the New Year, I did a request pixel art stream for any viewers who commented. In the future, I’ll give it a year of streaming on Twitch while posting clips on YouTube Channel.
I finally finished my illustration for Furs of Fury! I think I was too precious with the work as I wanted to make this and give the game a good first impression. I think I’ll get the hang of it once I figure out more of a work flow for any future projects.
I’m still doing my sketchbook stuff and I want to do more to put more purpose to my sketch and concepting work.
I’m also going to talk a bit about some music and bands I’m listening to on Bandcamp. Currently, I’m listening to a Russian Sludge Metal band called Old Sea and Mother Serpent.
I can’t listen to a majority of my faves on my livestreams like Pink Floyd and Camel. My solution is to look through Bandcamp to find bands, genres, and musicians I’ve never heard of. I’m a big Prog Rock fan, enjoying ridiculously long songs and albums, so Doom and Progressive Metal seem like a nice transition from Prog Rock. If you like Sludge and Doom Metal, give Old Sea and Mother Serpent a listen.
For this year, I want to get more choosy about the freelance jobs, my clients, and commissions I take on. My other 2021 hopes are to get more prints of Pizza Man made and selling on my Etsy store! It’ll be a small run since I’ve been sitting on many copies of comics, so I want to get through them before printing more. There are a few conventions that’ll hopefully run, so I’m pushing to get more things like stickers and pins! My website needs a massive overhaul, such as my own online store to not depend on Etsy to sell my work.
I’m doing alright for the past few weeks as there isn’t much to report. I’m still plugging away at my ongoing freelance commissions and Blackmask.
Artwise, I wasn’t very productive. My day job is beginning to pick up again and I spent most of my week making a promotional video for my Youtube Channel.
If you’ve been following my art and this blog before 2020, you know that I draw a lot of anthropomorphic animal characters. These animals were ideas for characters and world for a webcomic idea that I was thinking about for the past nine years.
It would’ve been the ongoing adventures of a plucky adventure merchant named Cole Blackmask as travels to strange lands, questing for loot to sell, battling powerful warriors and mystical forces who reside all over this funny animal world.
