Into the Winter Grind

One month left in 2022! Time has flown fast for me! I’ve been trying to stuff as many of my art projects into the month as I can while keeping my sanity!

New Website

The first big thing I can say in November is that there’s now a new website for Blackmask and news of its development! This is a large task that’s been taking up my time. Even if I’m getting things down on this website, there’s still much to learn about self-promotion.

Blackmask Website Debut

I will say to join the Blackmask Mailing List! It’s a direct way to get news of our progress without missing any of my posts due to algorithms. Now that the website is set up, it’ll be less confusing for anyone who’s been following my website and getting unrelated news.

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Az & Miko Marker Commission Process

I couldn’t finish one of my commissions by the time Anime Central ended. So I needed to finish this two-character piece at a later date and mail it to my client! With this, it gives me a short opportunity to tell you about my Copic Marker technique for this piece.

This commission is for ToastyGhostey’s OCs and Az and Miko. I dig the art style, and it was a nice challenge to figure things out with my markers. ToastyGhostey told me that I didn’t have to draw AZ’s helmet, but I took that as a challenge. Do I regret it? No, this was still great.

I start with a Mignola-inspired ink drawing using a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, Pentel Tradio Stylo Pen, and drying Copic 0.3 Multiliner. I was hoping it would be fast enough, but I got sloppy on my Bristol Board.

After letting the ink dry for the rest of the night, I began the color layering with my Copic Markers. Starting with E35S Chamois, BV00S Mauve Shadow, B12S Ice Blue, YR21S Cream.

Next, I fill in Miko’s first jacket with YR18S Sanguine. I should’ve used a lighter red marker since the color is too orange compared to the refs. I pressed forward to avoid my perfectionism. Likewise, I also took the time to add Y18S Lightning Yellow trim to Az’s jacket.

Then I needed to layer more colors to darken Miko’s fists. I tried using E15S Dark Suntan and Mauve Shadow. Then added V06S Lavender, but it wasn’t enough. Using an N2S Neutral Grey 2, I dulled the stone color down.

I realized that messed up a detail for Miko’s Jacket. Failing to notice the small patch on her Jacket from her refs until after I colored it. With a Colorless Blender, I attempted to clear away the color to the best of my ability. Time to add in the YG03S Yellow Green in the eyes and a 0.3 Pentel Arts Hybrid Tech Pen for smaller details.

Continuing on, I layer more color with V09S Violet and B39S Prussian Blue to darken Az’s coat and pants.

Finally, use the E27S Milk Chocolate to darken the wood of Az’s rifle and antlers.

After all this, I add a smidge of Ice Blue for shadows and complete Miko’s jacket with Lighting Yellow trim! All that’s left is to message my client to get their approval, and mail the sucker off in an envelope!

This is a sloppy explanation of my process. This gives me a good idea to make a formal article about Copic Markers. Heck, I’ll try to make a video about it!

I’m still open for commissions and so if you want a commission for yourself, check out my Commission page to get some cool unique art from me!

Autumn Draws

I’m making the finishing touches on my freelancing work. Plus, my Twitch streaming is returning while Blackmask development is moving along. I’m also preparing for next year’s convention season. All this and more below!

 

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Altered Book Plans

I have bad news and good news about working on my self-published comics.

Some bad news is that I changed my mind about making The Pizza Man a book. Good news is: I’m going to put The Pizza Man, Shirley’s Day and Incident at the Game Store, in one bigger book!

I made several proofs, and I was just about to go forward on buying prints, but I realized that instead of sitting on many floppy comics that don’t sell that much, I’d make a big trade paperback containing not just my comics work so far, but behind the scenes stuff like my original pencil art and inks! I can even include other illustrations and sketches in the book to show off more of my artwork!

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Art & Work

Recently, I’m posting art that I haven’t posted on this site before. As much as I maintain my Twitter and Instagram to keep my art in people’s eyes, I still need to remember that I built this website to archive my artwork.

After someone scrutinized my website, I found some issues that I’m taking time to fix. I haven’t been able to focus on personal projects as much as I’d like, as I’m crunching and focusing on finishing my freelance work for Flawless Extra-Ordinary Super Heroes.

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Selling Captain Falcon Crossover Art

I’m selling my 11″x17″ ink drawing of Two Captain Falcons for $100 on Ebay.

Before I took a harder line stance on making fan art back in 2015, I made a piece of Captain Falcon and Sam Wilson as Captain America.

When I first heard that Falcon became Captain America in the comics, I thought the idea of “Captain Falcon” being in the Marvel Universe was funny to me.

Falcon & Falcon

If you want this, you can buy from the Ebay page. You can also email me or message me on the Contact Sheet from my About page!

Returning to the Real World

I’ve made myself busy over the start of my new year and I already feel stressed out with all the stuff I put on my plate.

Currently, I’m video editing stuff from my art streams and game dev progress on Twitch, and I having trouble deciding out what to keep or dump. I’m doing what I can to not worry about doing a phenomenal job and just focusing on getting some clips made.

Along with this is some gift pixel art I made for my 100th follower on Twitch! Thank you and here’s to 100 more!

From my January 29th Twitch stream, I made a tutorial going through the basics of animation with a ball bounce! It might be rote, but it’s a good primer to get people to started just drawing objects multiple times and staying consistent with them. It went smoothly if you ask me, so I’m interested in doing more tutorials when I scrape up the time!

Most of my art time has gone to freelance and big book projects like Flawless Extra-Ordinary Super Heroes, so my sketchbook has been getting neglected. I’m trying not to let it burn me out since I am drawing “useful” art. But here’s art from the past few weeks that I have scanned.

I’m in this odd in-between feeling of having plenty of free time for personal projects but no free time because I’m taking on so many projects. I’m still not good at relaxing but old habits die hard.

My sketchbook priorities are going to the purpose of writing and rewriting the Blackmask story to a real plot. My programmer has plenty of character assets, so now I’m working harder at sketching environment assets.

I keep psyching myself out over how much this matters to me and I need to remember to ask for help and not take this insane stuff alone even if I think I’m bothering people about my obscure ideas that I struggle to explain.

Somehow, I’ve self-published and sold comics,yet I still feel like I’m stumbling when I’m trying to convey the overall direction I want to take Blackmask’s story. I’m sure I’ll figure out sooner or later, since the game will be edited and iterated on as it goes.