Back to Blogging!

After a bit of an absence, I feel up to getting back in the social networking saddle, so here’s a lot of stuff I’ve made.  I will be getting caught up on a few other things this week, hopefully.  I may be a little slow to get to emails and such, as I do that.  It’s been a little tough lately, but I’m doing okay.  I’m about to become a year older!  29!  OH NO!

Actually, I don’t mind the idea.  I’ll carry on with pretending to be an actual adult.  Business as usual.

Ekwara is still updating… I just haven’t posted the pages here.  I used up my buffer, so tomorrow’s page will go up tomorrow, and one of the things I want to catch up on is getting the week’s pages squared away, again.  That shouldn’t be a problem.  Also, I have a lot of time to devote to Icon Day 10.

Art behind the cut!

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Tuesday

This is my container garden!  Catnip is on top of the red bucket.  Romaine lettuce is behind it.  Cilantro is beside the lettuce, and the smaller containers are all spinach.  I’m not using the red bucket as a container because it was too thick to get through with my knife.

Alien concept sketch.  Something to fight the little bobble-headed alien guys I’ve been drawing, maybe.

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Sunday

STEAKOSAURUS

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Bethin Roth

Rough sketch of the front view of Bethin Roth, a seaside fortress overlooking an as-of-yet-unnamed pandril city-state, on the southeast coast of Ekwara.  Auln is the furthest point north, and this region is the southernmost of the continent.  It’s the setting for Chapter Four of the comic.

And here’s Haone, standing around in his sarong and robe, not doing much.  His fur’s branded with that pattern on his stomach.

Stuff!

Here’s some art!  The mural is maybe a couple hours work from being done, so I think I’m going to hold onto my update until I can get photos of the whole thing completed.  I’m going to borrow my roommate’s digital camera on Monday, when I next go in.

Illustration I did for a cookout/camping event.

Haha…

Designs for Chapter 4 of Ekwara.  I’ve finished penciling Chapter 2, and am working on Chapter 3, so it’s about time for me to start working on character designs for the next part.  This part of the story calls for some villainous birds, and I’m trying to make some unlikely species look less than silly.  For a toucan, especially, that’s something of a challenge.  Instead of taking the HUGE NOSE route for his human-like form, I’m emphasizing the beak markings, on his face.  He’s not especially sinister looking, but hopefully not ridiculous, and his dove sidekick, I think, picks up the “sinister” slack.

I need a third character for their little group - a bird who can’t take on another form, yet, and is a new recruit.  I was thinking a chickadee, but am open to suggestions.

Icon Sketches

Here are more penciled icons!  Some I need to rework a little, but my initial pencils are pretty rough anyway, and that’s how I like ‘em.  I’m not quite done with the rest, yet, but I’ll have those soon.  Today is MONSTER DAY, and I intend to celebrate.  Then, back to the icon mines XD

Oh man, now I really want to do an ‘Icon Mine’ picture.  That’d be fun.

Daily ACEO, Sword and Sorcery ACEOs and Ekwara sneak preview

I’ve started a daily challenge of making an ACEO a day.  I want to see how long I can keep that up.  I’ll be putting my results up in my etsy store, which you can visit by clicking on the ACEO, and on here, so I have a good header for a daily post.  I’d really like to stick with making a post a day here in my blog.

I’ve been going to the Monday meetings of the Bellingham School of Comics on Monday evenings, at an awesome coffee shop in town called the Black Drop.  I try to show up a little early, and I end up getting a lot of work done on Ekwara.  I am now halfway done penciling Chapter Two, believe it or not.  Here is a sneak preview of page 14, which is Sparrow and Ginger’s intro, and also includes West Raven, who’s also introduced in this chapter, in his bird form.  Some of you might remember an ACEO I did last year for Bird Day of West in his more human-like form, here.

I think the white elephant Sword and Sorcery ACEOs have reached folks at this point, but I’m putting them behind a cut here, in case someone’s still waiting for their envelope, and doesn’t want to spoil the surprise!  This was definitely a fun project.

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This post contains both a displacer beast and a blink dog. Uh oh.

Some badges, some sketches :)

Blink dog art card!

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This post has nothing to do with owlbears

I think it works out best for me to do daily posts without a set format, though I’d like to include art and sketches as often as possible, and talk about various worldbuilding things along with whatever’s going on.

Except nothing is really going on.  I’m just working a ton on getting myself where I want to be on my art list, before December starts up.  Today I’m tackling more of the icons, and the last bit of another commission.  I’m also working on sketches for new art, which is really fun.

I want to do Griffon Day next, but I had a really fun idea for a Day I want to do some time.  The theme could be all kinds of things, or it could be mostly open, with a few guidelines to give it some structure.  I like the idea of a theme, because those have ended up being pretty cool.  No one else could see these prompts, though.  I draw art cards from all the prompts, shuffle the cards, and mail them randomly to everyone who participated.  Everyone would get a surprise card!  I need to figure out how to do it so that I get paid enough for my time with it, though, because art cards plus shipping for everyone is a little more than I can tackle for free.  I will have to think about it.  I suppose I could do it as a sale instead of for tips.

I figured out how to make simple papercraft bobbleheads.  I was sitting around bored, when I first moved in to the new place, plotted out the design, and made some prototypes.  I haven’t done anything with it, since, because I’ve been lacking my light box, which I had to leave back home.  Well, I broke down and bought another one.  As it turns out, it’s half as bulky as my old one, which is a serious convenience for taking it along to cons.  The lack of this equipment has been putting a serious slowdown on my productivity, and I’m really happy to have one, again.  I’m going to use it to fine-tune my template, and then make some bobble-headed critters!  Not today, though.  Today’s for work!

Ekwara stuff!  I’m thinking about the grevians a lot, lately, because I’ve been fleshing out Aldus’ and Pel’s (she acquired a name!) character designs.  Grevicans are a little odd, as far as their biology and gender roles go, and I’m trying to figure out how to present it within the story.  I think I’m going to do a separate post for that, behind a cut.

I finished this for Newenglander, yesterday.  Once upon a time, Alice was not a giant, talking rabbit, and had trouble reaching books on the top shelf.

Sparrow says, “You, sir, are drunk.”

Boots and Ako

Here are some guys from something which is not Ekwara