With all the many resources available on the internet: video tutorials, articles, blog posts, and books, it’s easier than ever to acquire art knowledge!
Often, I get questions about my art books, so I made a list of books that I own to help anyone else out on their art journey.
Some of these books are books I studied in college to learn how to draw, many are books I’ve picked up from my local library to preview and put on my wish list to buy in the future.
I had plans, but they went to crap last year. With all the virus stuff, so many cancellations and changes in my life I didn’t get my goals done. The two freelance projects I had taken up most of my time for the year, but they kept me alive and maintained over 2020.
From doing that, it lead to me starting to make a video game called Blackmask. I want 2021 will be the year Adam and I go full throttle on Blackmask! I want to have more update videos for the game on the development YouTube channel. Another goal is to make a Kickstarter campaign for Blackmask and get development going on it.
I reached 100 Followers and even got Affiliate on my Twitch Channel! To celebrate that and the New Year, I did a request pixel art stream for any viewers who commented. In the future, I’ll give it a year of streaming on Twitch while posting clips on YouTube Channel.
I finally finished my illustration for Furs of Fury! I think I was too precious with the work as I wanted to make this and give the game a good first impression. I think I’ll get the hang of it once I figure out more of a work flow for any future projects.
I’m still doing my sketchbook stuff and I want to do more to put more purpose to my sketch and concepting work.
I’m also going to talk a bit about some music and bands I’m listening to on Bandcamp. Currently, I’m listening to a Russian Sludge Metal band called Old Sea and Mother Serpent.
I can’t listen to a majority of my faves on my livestreams like Pink Floyd and Camel. My solution is to look through Bandcamp to find bands, genres, and musicians I’ve never heard of. I’m a big Prog Rock fan, enjoying ridiculously long songs and albums, so Doom and Progressive Metal seem like a nice transition from Prog Rock. If you like Sludge and Doom Metal, give Old Sea and Mother Serpent a listen.
For this year, I want to get more choosy about the freelance jobs, my clients, and commissions I take on. My other 2021 hopes are to get more prints of Pizza Man made and selling on my Etsy store! It’ll be a small run since I’ve been sitting on many copies of comics, so I want to get through them before printing more. There are a few conventions that’ll hopefully run, so I’m pushing to get more things like stickers and pins! My website needs a massive overhaul, such as my own online store to not depend on Etsy to sell my work.
I’m doing alright for the past few weeks as there isn’t much to report. I’m still plugging away at my ongoing freelance commissions and Blackmask.
Artwise, I wasn’t very productive. My day job is beginning to pick up again and I spent most of my week making a promotional video for my Youtube Channel.
If you’ve been following my art and this blog before 2020, you know that I draw a lot of anthropomorphic animal characters. These animals were ideas for characters and world for a webcomic idea that I was thinking about for the past nine years.
It would’ve been the ongoing adventures of a plucky adventure merchant named Cole Blackmask as travels to strange lands, questing for loot to sell, battling powerful warriors and mystical forces who reside all over this funny animal world.
I’ve been drawing small stuff to pay my bills, fill my portfolio, and staying busy. Despite, constantly feeling like I’m behind on everything I’m getting the things expected of me done.
Progress is being made working on the Illustrations on Flawless Extra-Ordinary Superheroes, knocking out a larger illustration and pushing forward to the next few ones.
Pardon all of the sudden changes to my website if you’ve been following me on here. I’m never satisfied with a theme because many of them have little quirks and oversights that I never account for like being incompatible for mobile, or not displaying my comics correctly.
In general things aren’t as eventful due to the virus situation, but I’m doing my best to stay busy and to be positive. Right now, I’m working on a set of stickers inspired by this bread cat art I made a long while ago. A few more cats and I’ll have a worthwhile sticker pack.
I’m still writing Blackmask slowly and steadily when I have time, but I’ve been tackling some new freelance artwork and commission stuff. I’m still trying to fund printing for Incident at The Game Store in color but some car problems have come up, so money’s lacking.
Making art is easy to me, I just draw the thing and get done with it. Being an artist is hard. I draw the thing, show the thing, tell people that the thing exists. I convince people with money to pay me to live and draw more things.
It takes self-discipline, self-awareness, and self-esteem to be an artist. Some days, you feel like a fountain of ingenious creations! But other days, you feel like a worthless loser who can’t to do anything and regrets having interests. This is the life of most artists, musicians, actors, and other “creative” professionals.
This is a list of tips that I try to follow for myself for the past few years as I try to become a more professional artist.
