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Hey, all! Your pals over at Society6 have deemed that the middle of this week is the perfect time to offer Free Worldwide Shipping on ALL ORDERS, and really, who am I to argue?
Go check out my shop and get yourself free shipping to anywhere in the world, May 24 & 25 only. Get yourself something nice! You deserve it.
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Howdy, all! As I type this, I’m two days into a two week vacation from my day job at the USPS. The job has really been wearing me out and leaving me depressed more often than not, and I’ve been really missing having more creative energy. So far I’m enjoying being super-lazy, but it’s time to get back to the work I actually enjoy, telling stories! So, the rest of my vacation will be focused on the final five pages of the current chapter of Ellie Connelly! It’s been so long since I’ve been able to devote more than an hour or two at a time to working on anything. I’m excited to see where this leads!
The pages only take me about 10 hours to do, total, so I believe I can find enough concentrated time in the next 12 days to see it through. If I can get the pages fully pencilled and lettered by Saturday, that will put me in a great position to really make the most out of my second week, when I’ll be holed up in a tiny camper-trailer on the Washington coast with a portable drawing table and my pens. I’m excited about where the story is going at this point, there’s a BIG scene coming up that I’ve been super anxious to get to. I should have no trouble inking these five pages in a week with no distractions, and free access to a soaking pool.
I do have a few other projects in mind to get started on in the event I actually finish all the pages early, but I’m not making any commitments to myself on that front. I know what my priorities are, but the big one is to Not Pressure Myself. This is a vacation, after all. I think I’ll have internet access, but I know I’ll have phone reception, so at least I’ll be able to keep my Patreon supporters updated with progress reports and photos from the field!
Alright! Back to the drawing table!
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Harvest, 2016
8.5×6.5, pen & ink, Photoshop
This week’s Illustration Friday prompt was ‘Harvest’, and with it being so close to Halloween, my mind immediately went to the scene in The Halloween Tree where the kids encounter Samhain, the Celtic god of the harvest, swinging his scythe across the field, and harvesting the souls for the year. I enjoyed the bit of research I did for this piece, and part of me is toying with the idea of doing a series inspired by Celtic myth.
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Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been hit with a bit of a dry patch for the last few months. My day-job has been sucking all of my energy away with 60-hour work weeks (ka-ching!), leaving me too drained to even think about drawing lately. The whole situation has left me more than a little depressed, I’ll be honest.
I’m in the process of looking for a more lifestyle-friendly job, and while I do that I’m going to attempt a little art-therapy self-medication as well, try to do a little bit of a course-correction back to happier land. To that end, I’m setting up a few Monthly Goals for the rest of the year.
- First goal is to not get on myself so much about not having time to draw. It is what it is, I don’t have much control over it, and self-criticism isn’t helping me feel any better about the situation.
- Second, complete two pages of Ellie Connelly each month. The next several pages are scripted, I just have to sit down and draw them. Two pages in four weeks is a reasonable goal requiring a modest amount of energy.
- Sketchcards! I’d like to do at least two of these each month as well, just for fun.
- Illustration Friday drawings, one each week. I’ve started a few of these over the last few months which I never finished. I still might, but the focus will be on new pieces for the upcoming themes. I can do these on a simpler scale than I’d been attempting, that’s for sure. These pieces don’t need to be earth-shatteringly awesome, they just need to be competent examples of my ability to execute an idea.
- Schedule out the next projects I want to complete after this chapter. Namely, the second War of the Worlds folio. After that, either another Ellie Connelly chapter or an illustrated short story. Indecision!
- I’ve got ideas to do a couple series of small illustrations, likely sketchcards on a theme. This might be a character-design exercise, an experiment in abstractionism, or an extension on a couple other projects like Cosmic Chaos. Don’t know how this fits into these monthly goals, but I’m thinking on it. Possibly along with the ‘Next Projects’ planning.
So, that’s it. When I pile it all together it looks like a lot of work to accomplish in just two months, especially considering my recent lack of productivity. And maybe there isn’t much in there to get me closer to being a freelance illustrator, but I have to start somewhere, right? And as with all of my upcoming projects, you’ll be able to see progress over at my Patreon feed for just $2 per project!
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