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.
Conventions and Events
First, my time at Oak Lawn Public Library Fan Fest went great! I would’ve had a tablecloth, but it was much too small for their huge table. As usual, my stickers sold well! I finally sold out of my slower-moving stickers, like my Bagel Cat and Muffin Cats. Some stickers will drop, while I’ll keep up new stickers. I’ll keep you informed about that!
I didn’t get commissions at OLPL, so I had the time to get some inking done with some old Lion Knight sketches. It’s a bunch of world-building stuff I’ve had in my head for Blackmask, so I wanted to explore it.
Female lions don maned helmets, while the gents only need masks. They both function as foot soldiers of their Lion Kingdom. The lore is still cloudy to me since I have fifty different versions of what they’re about, so I’ve yet to elaborate harder. The most I have is that they’re among the many evil empires fighting for supremacy all over the world of Blackmask.
Weeks later, I was rocking at Anime Central with my table next to Chris Scott! I also hung out with other regular friendlies such as Rick Heinz, Brian Babendererde! ACEN is the most successful convention I’ve ever tabled at, making back my table costs and then some! I’ll try to return again!
I didn’t have enough time, but I got pics of some great cosplay. My phone camera is kinda crap so I had to depend on my bulky iPad to get pics. If I show up to ACEN next year, I’ll try to wander the hall for more stuff to see.
At the start of the day, I fiddled with my own sketches to keep my drawing arm warm. From this I tried out a new style of drawing in Copic Markers by skipping the pencil and inking phase in favor of going straight to colors! It’s nice to try this risk and the art looks better than I expected.
From all this, I got more commissions at ACEN then I’ve ever had before! I was expecting to tackle some anime characters at an anime convention. But, I never expected I’d draw Spider-Man at an anime con!
I also got commissions for many OCs and this made up the bulk of my commission list! Except for one that I needed to mail out, I did quite well, completing them all in a timely manner!
I’m still open for commissions, digital and traditional, so if you want some art form yourself you should give my Commissions page a look!
Gallery Seven and Comicopolis
My next big thing I’m working on is Gallery Seven in Lockport,IL! I’ll have a showing of the original 11inch by 17 inch pages of Shirley’s Day and Incident at the Game Store in their entire framed glory!
This is my first ever gallery show in my entire art life. I’ve never had a high school gallery show, so this is gigantic for me! I’ve been learning with the ins and outs of this. Tracking down frames to put my artwork in and figuring out the set-ups for the space. It’s more work than I expected for a bunch of comic pages
Over the month, I did this rad rasslin’ panel for Forthetitle on Instagram!
It’s a bananas story where Macho Man Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior come back from the dead to bitch slap all the rest! It’s a fun story if you’re into wrestling and has a bevy of guest artists throughout the panels!
Sketchbook
My day job is going into it’s slower period, as I’m getting more time to complete art. I know that sketch in my SketchWallet much more than I draw in my iPad.
There’s nothing wrong with it, but I wonder if I’m too scared to leave my comfort zone to struggle with Procreate’s brush settings. I’m bummed that the iPad isn’t as easy going for me, yet other artists seem to grasp it in an instant.
June it’s going to be slower, but I’m doing my best to wrap up all the other big business tasks I need to do. I’m due to meet up with Adam about Blackmask. Returning to streaming and making videos is also on my mind. There’s much to do, and I’m getting more messages for new tasks to tackle! Will I need an assistant to handle things?