Embers

This week has been nutty.  I suppose that could be said each week... but I have been feeling it more.  Perhaps it is the Holiday.  I have see some pretty amazing things some of which I will share before the usual update.  I had my birthday, which I really wasn't looking forward to at all.  It turned out to be a lot better than I thought.  The only thing I had wanted, I got, which were super chocolate cupcakes.... and I discovered some wonderful things.  I have this flower that is blooming in my garden.  Seems so trivial, but despite the chill, the time of year, that none of the trees have leaves around it... my gypsy rose created one giant last flower which opened in a bed of chocolate mint on my birthday.  I have been told that I am foolish to think that this would not or could not happen... as it is my garden after all... but it was so nice last year when my violets bloomed through the snow... and the rose this year.  It is as though the world is trying to remind me that I once took in every day as though it was the first time I had seen it.  Whatever there is out there that took pity on me and made such a direct spectacle to get my head back into the game... thanks.

So this last week I have once more tried to be as busy as I'm able and chip away at my workload.  Here's what I got:

Am I Immortal: The Crypt has its pencils completed.  I shall be moving to the inks on that in the next two weeks.  I aim to get a few more things finished before I... tie myself to the bottle as it were, but am very much looking forward to getting started on it.  The Crypt caps off at 24 pages, that's 2 more than my work with Free Lunch.  I will also be reinstating Mini-Cain so you can look forward to that.  The worst thing about it is my dry sense of humor so if you can get over that... you should enjoy it.

Am I Immortal: The Origin has seen some of its last revision now.  As you know my intention was to post the piece online and have it eventually printed as a hard cover.  This will indeed be the case though it will take me a LONG time.  The script is 47 pages in it's most basic form.  That means that it will cap off at 50 minimum with the potential for more if I have stand alone imagery or interject some advertisers... which I may choose not to do in the case of the advertisers.  My intention was to have this maintain the look and feel of a fairy tale despite its adult themes.  Somehow I got this crazy idea that a good story can be beautiful, and have since been pushing myself to improve enough so that this vision is satisfactorily brought into existence.

I have also gotten a lot closer to completing the finished inks on Static Lullaby.  It is an interesting layout and I hope I am able to create the feel that Nathan had wanted through out the story.  Working off of Sean's base inks has made it easy to just add a little here and there to really make it pop as I feel he did a great job.  I predict that these pages will come together smoothly, though I know of one that may have me swearing at it a few times.... but the last page is always the worst...

I have been writing a short story recently.  I keep getting interrupted so it has been very slow going.  I have some fears that it will be inconsistent.  It doesn't even have a name yet.  I just had this idea I needed to get out.  I will post more information on it as it comes into clearer focus.

Sadly that's it... but that's a lot if you think about it.  I admit that a fair amount of my invested time went into The Origin.  It had started as an 11 page piece and needed serious alteration before it would be image ready.  I also had to do a lot of content alteration as, at the time I had originally written the thing.... I was really into some parts of it and just not into other parts.  Hopefully I have filled in those gaps.  Till next time my beautiful damned... enjoy the night.

Full Steam

Good evening everyone.  This last week has simply been a blur.  It hasn't felt real honestly.  Tomorrow is my birthday and I'm not liking it this year.  It's not because I'm getting older like a lot of people, it's because I liked being 33.  My lucky numbers are 3 and 13 so.... I enjoyed i t.  34 is rather anticlimactic in comparison.  I'll be all happy again at 36, I'm sure.  On another note, my shoulder is slowly improving.  That means that I have been able to start getting more done.  The next few weeks will still have some pretty big fluctuation as my work schedule (the day job) will be crazy.  The joys of retail.  Here's the skinny on what went down this week though:

First I had wanted to let you know that I have been able to work on Am I Immortal once more.  I feel that I have made a sizable dent and have started to make up for the couple weeks of downtime.  I am part way through page 21 now, and don't forget I still have page 24 completed.  That that means that I have roughly 2 and a half pages and then I move on to inks.  I am excited about my progress.  I feel that with this installment, you will get to know Cain a little bit better... perhaps enough to understand why I am so driven to get his story onto the page.  No matter how much it hurts.

I have completed another image for Godslayer.  It came out pretty cool except for one hand.  Red is the girl's name and she has this kinda old fashioned steampunk fusion thing going on.  I was inspired by Vargas (he was a pin-up artist for playboy for many many years) for her character design, and though at first she may not have been exactly what Nathan had thought of.... she fits the bill pretty well.

I have been able to work more on the website too and have been able to create some more of the imagery.  Waiting for responses from some of the other artists so that I can finish, but all and all I feel I have a firm handle on how it is shaping up.

I have completed another piece for Ink Dot Boy as well.  It is HUGE.  I got some really great feedback from his fan base from the first one that I did and he had mentioned something about anything I made, he would use...if it was like that...so how could I decline.  This one is very different from the first.  I had to alter the girl in it as I needed her to be visibly dead.  The original image the girl was looking away from the camera and I needed her eyes to be visible.  Even the person I found that I did use is....very different as I altered he expression, facial structure.  The background is much the same.. it is so different from the original that I had trouble finding it again when I was done with the picture.  I think that Ink Dot Boy himself is really the only thing that is close to what he looked like, but I covered him in blood so...yeah.

Well, wish me luck for the rest of the week.  I'll see you on the other side of 34...blah :(

Escape

I don't think that I have mentioned here that most recently I have been in a considerable amount of pain.  When I was younger I was in a car accident.... I loved that car (it was my favorite) but apparently the guy driving the little truck behind me loved it far more than I as he decided he wanted to try to permanently bond it to his truck.... and I came out with whiplash and a ripped shoulder.  It was my right shoulder of course because that would be the WORST THING EVER.  So I apologize for not creating enough to warrent two posts a week these last two weeks.  I've said it before and I shall say it many many more times... I don't have much that is very interesting to say anyway... so onto what's what in my worklist:

I was able to continue on Am I Immortal a little, but was not even able to complete one more page with my shoulder that day.  I need a lap desk or something to rest my elbows on so I can become more productive and not suffer so much.  I will attempt to get more done on that this coming week.

I did however complete Hunter, which is a concept for one of the characters in Godslayer.  Nathan should be putting some info up on Godslayer in his blog soon.  I have the Concept for another of the characters, Red, nearly completed.  I am REALLY enjoying drawing her.  She's supposed to have some armor... but I think I will have to create another page for that as this image is all attitude.

The Meth Collection is back on track.  I completed an ad for it....which you will see below.  The Ad is for a band which I listened to a lot while I was making A Matter of Faith and the additional content the collection has.  Yes, the ad will also be in color.  The band is Ink Dot Boy (www.inkdotboy.com) and the album is called the Red Symphony.  I felt with the original images.... it wasn't RED enough.  I had explained to the front man of the band, Andy, that I have a love affair with red...so I would hold him hostage and mess with him until I was pleased with the result.  I'm just glad for his patience as I made him wait some time while I played.

Sean and I finished screen printing and painting some immortal Gothic shirts.  They look pretty sweet... and I am pleased with the result.  They are a beautiful mess!

I also did some sculpture.  I haven't taken any shots of them yet.  The one I made is a small white sparkly mask fitted with gears for eyes and a flat head screw for a mouth.  Will made another which I then fitted similarly.  I hope to mount them both on some kind of pendant and put them up for sale on etsy.  I completed one other necklace too.   I had hoped to get pictures of some of my wares up before this post... but alas... here we are.

Till next time my darlings.  Enjoy the night.  I can't complain... I still have flowers blooming despite the cold.  Almost makes it worth venturing into the sun to thank them for blessing my land through the frost.  Sweet dreams... green spirits.

One Shot

This weekend was another convention that signified the end of my con season for 2009.  Now I get to concentrate on wonderful things like... getting older and... christmas.  I am not really looking forward to very much, honestly.  It seems the projects that I have now... which should be so simple to complete are taking an eternity.  I HATE waiting.  On the other hand I don't want to be super pushy.  It's like balancing on a tightrope.  Too much and there is the threat that people will perceive me as being impatient and difficult to work with (which I completely admit to being but I try to curb it so I'm not a complete loner), too little and I will never get anything done.  I just need one thing done!  I'm running myself into the ground trying to work every angle to just get one step ahead.  One good thing would make it all seem like I am working so hard for something!  I don't even mind paying for it!  Ugh... so without further complaints... the update for the week:

I spent most of the week working on the website... unfortunately it just crashed and I had to delete the subdomain completely.  So I am back to square o ne with it.  I have an edge because I know how to do what I want now.... but I was supposed to meet with my webdesigner (wait a minute... I'm my webdesigner now) tomorrow so he could answer any questions that I had about how to make it exactly what I want instead of close.  I am using wordpress but kinda twisting it, so there are some features that I want to remove from the basic page layouts.  I figured out how to make it do what I want... so I am very sad because it really took a lot of work on my part...which is now all gone :(.  So I feel like I wasted a ton of time on NOTHING.  I could seriously cry right now.  now I just keep getting error messages when I try to do anything...

On a related note, I worked with Liz Ortiz and Sean Therrien to get their respective blogs up.  Soon that network will be running.  Now if I could just get the site up.... man I am really about to cry..... a lot!  My goal is to have all the navigation for the individual blogs and main site in the compass in the sidebar so that it will be easy for people to navigate from one thing to the next.  I would love feedback on the basic design of things... especially once I get the redesign of the site running live.  Perhaps tomorrow Devin will show me once more that I am just an artist who is truly not good at figuring out the right code.... man I was doing so good.  You can see where my mind is now, LOL. 

Over the weekend I did a few little sketches on artist cards.  One of them was really cool because it was not my normal style at all.  It was a chibi version of this character for a girl at the convention I was at.  I would totally post it.... but I am waiting for Liz to send me the scan...poke poke....liz!

I got some more work done on Am I Immortal book 3.  I am happy with how it is coming.  I keep saying that and can only continue until I get it through to a digital format. I desperately hope that you will enjoy it.  It will be printed under the Immortal Gothic banner which offers me a bit of relief.  I will be at my own mercy.

Nathan gave me an amazing update for Godslayer.  I can only tell you that I know this story is going to be insane.  I'm really glad to be involved.  I need to get him pictures for Red and Hunter....so.... I gotta jet.  See you all on a less blue night... when I do more than sleep all the time and wish I would stop hurting...

~s