Summer Wrap-Up

Intro

It’s the end of summer and my day job at school has started again, so I’m growing busier once more.

August Ko-Fi Sketchbook

I’ve made a new August sketchbook collection for my Ko-Fi Page!

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First Days with Pixaki

From learning pixel art in Procreate I found my efforts limited. With the extra money I had, I invested in Pixaki 4 Pro, a $30 USD app on the Apple App Store. I do most of my pixel artwork for personal and game art in Aseprite. With Pixaki, I want a good portable option that I can trade between the two programs for faster pixel art output.

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Setting up the Summer

As of writing this, I have a show at The Gallery Seven on July 23 during Comicopolis 2022! There you can find my traditional ink comic pages framed in Lockport, Illinois. I never thought I’d be able to do this, but I’m glad it’s happening, and I hope you’ll stop by and see my original pages!

Gallery Seven Shirley'd Day All Steps Frame Prep
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Massive May Marker Art

This month has been my most successful month of the year saleswise for my art! Anime Central was this month, and it’s a huge one! It’s a good sign that can sunset my time at my day job to take a big plunge into full time art. But I’m sure this is wishful thinking.

At Anime Central 2022
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Procreate: The First 30 days

As of writing this at the beginning of March 2022, I purchased an iPad Pro for $799.99 USD, an Apple Pencil 2 for $129 USD, and a copy of Procreate for $10 USD. Here’s my review of the first 30 days of using the iPad and the App!

Purchased iPad

The last time I used any Apple product is when I had an iPod Touch. I dropped them for an Android phone when it became a pain in the butt to transfer my music files from ripped CDs that I had.

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March Meh-ness

The month of March has been mild. The most I can say is that I celebrated my birthday and trudged forward on small art projects.

As of the 3rd of March, I turned 30 years old, and I’m trying not to get crushed by the anxiety of aging. I covered it up by having dinner with my family and buying myself an iPad and Procreate! Now, I can draw on the go! I’m writing an article about my time with Procreate at a later date.

Conventions

On April 8th, I’ll be at the College of DuPage Convention answering questions and selling art! There, I’ll be selling the finally printed Pizza Man book! So if you’re in the Northern Illinois area, stop by and grab a copy with my stickers as well!

Mastafran CODCON XXV

The week after, I’ll be at the Schaumburg Library Convention on April 16th.

More Events

I have a big thing planned in the summer later this year! I’m preparing some of my art for something I’ve never done, before. So, I’ll keep you in the know once everything is arranged!

Writing Blackmask

Most of my art time has been occupied with writing Blackmask as a story. My focus is split between re-editing existing ideas for the demo story and the big narrative of the entire game.

My personal hope for Blackmask’s main quest is that players can choose a level toplayin any order they want, Mega Man style. A connected Metroidvania-style world or an Open World is tougher to design without ballooning the scope even more.

My programmers and I check in on each other in our messages. We’re both doing our best to keep going during our bigger commitments. Adam’s tackling enemy AI next, as there’s not much left to do with Cole’s abilities for now.

Other News

I’ve been doing tiny website tasks to streamline my websites stuff. The Art Page now has all my art on it instead of having separate pages for each category of art I make. If it ends up making loading issues a pain, I change it back, but right now I want my archive front and center

Budgie Knight Color

There’s more blog articles in my back burner that I want to finish up, such as my tutorial series on making Incident at the Game Store. There are other articles that I want to write when I make the time.

I’m struggling to keep my focus on one specific art task. I keep dipping so much into different shit that I can’t choose an art direction for myself. My schedule is a loose cloud of “what is currently unfinished that I could finish now?” on my project list.

It doesn’t help that I keep falling into that trap of posting on my socials to say I’m alive on them. My game stuff is in my programmer’s hands. I’m messing about, sketching, and procrastinating on writing a game story. Am I busy or making up meaningless tasks for myself? I need to improve my personal project management skills.

The Pizza Man on Etsy and More Store News!

I have some store news for you all! There’s new stuff on my Etsy Store, Ko-Fi Page, and Redbubble. I’m a busy bee indeed!

The Pizza Man Now on Etsy!

I’ve finally got my comic, The Pizza Man, is printed and up for sale on my Etsy Store! It’s a 60 page 5 in by 7.5 in Black and White Book. The largest comic I’ve ever done by far!

After years after finishing the original Instagram challenge, arranging the pages together, scraping up funds out of my own pocket, I finally have print books to sell to you all!

The Pizza Man Print Comic

To remind you all, The Pizza Man is an improvised story about a simple pizza delivery driver, who must drive through insane obstacles to complete his order on time!

The Pizza Man Print Comic Interiors A

This story was completed in June 2020 for the Journey June Art Streak challenge. Journey June is an art challenge for those who want to improve their storytelling.

The Pizza Man Print Comic Interiors B

I took it one to the suggestion of my friend, but I wanted to see if I could do a comic sequence every day for 30 days. It was stressful, and I thought the story was getting too complicated, but it’s a nice notch in my art-making belt!

Mastafran All Comics 2022
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