Alot of tweeking on Issue Zero and sketching for Issue One.
Here's a page I"m working on. It's good to see it in a different form, helps me to see needed corrections before I reach the inking stage.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Work work work
Productive day.
Alot of tweeking on Issue Zero and sketching for Issue One.
Here's a page I"m working on. It's good to see it in a different form, helps me to see needed corrections before I reach the inking stage.
Legends of Katainia and all respective characters are (c) Spyderdust Comics 2011
Alot of tweeking on Issue Zero and sketching for Issue One.
Here's a page I"m working on. It's good to see it in a different form, helps me to see needed corrections before I reach the inking stage.
Inner Focus
Today seems much more positive. After returning from my recent trip to the home of Comic Con, I've come to a few realizations, including how fleeting life is. It has been ten years since I graduated high school, 7 years since college. Where had all the time gone? Did I waste it?
Happily that is not the case. I have been very passionate in my living and my only "art sin" has been that I haven't sketched enough. If I had published my work four years ago, it would have been sub par, if I had not returned to school, I would nave never met those who have impacted me so greatly nor stepped to the other side of the convention table to sell my work. It has been a challenge no doubt. I will be attending Fanime as an artist this year, and it will be my largest con to date. But if I don't bring in a good amount, it will be a costly investment and hardship. I am very much at a make it or break it moment.
I have to focus, regardless of life's circumstances. Cause all I got is now.
Happily that is not the case. I have been very passionate in my living and my only "art sin" has been that I haven't sketched enough. If I had published my work four years ago, it would have been sub par, if I had not returned to school, I would nave never met those who have impacted me so greatly nor stepped to the other side of the convention table to sell my work. It has been a challenge no doubt. I will be attending Fanime as an artist this year, and it will be my largest con to date. But if I don't bring in a good amount, it will be a costly investment and hardship. I am very much at a make it or break it moment.
I have to focus, regardless of life's circumstances. Cause all I got is now.
Screenshot of my work in progress, the cover of my comic Legends of Katainia: The White Dragon Warrior- Issue Zero: Origins
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
I need to vent.
Sometimes when I'm this tired and burnt out, I drown in my sorrows. I'm not sure if anyone really reads this but it's good to have a place to go and vent.
The big news is, that I am no longer associated with my previous publisher. But I haven't announced it, why? Perhaps hesitancy comes from expected retaliation. Which brings me to my next thought. I've been through so much this year, my last bout of employment wounded me deeply into my psyche in ways I may never fully understand. I am afraid to be hurt, controlled, stripped of my individual freedom to express myself. I want only to live a quiet, peaceful life. Artistically uninhibited.
But I am burnt out, in alot of ways. In the mundane world, where I have to pay bills, eat, care for hearth and home, I'm stretched so thin no wonder my art suffers for it. And when I am able to work, every project or commission I accept means saying no to myself, to LoK. Don't get me wrong, I am truly grateful for the work I do get, when I get it. I just wonder if I will ever have the luxury of working on LoK the way the pros do. The way I want to do. Not a single day goes by that I don't pick up a pencil these days, but I secretly wish that I could delve into LoK in ways that I used to, almost lost in it, as if Katainia was a real place. I miss those days.
I do find however, that life is starting to settle. That perhaps, with the right amount of scheduling, I could find myself immersed in my story universe once again. I find that any other task that is not for my own, although it expands my skills, prowess and notoriety, is becoming a detrimental distraction from my own body of work. Legends of Katainia has always been my dream, for nearly two decades now. But when am I gonna get my head out of the clouds and make it a reality? This is something, that once again I have to do on my own. You know the old saying, if you want it done right....
The big news is, that I am no longer associated with my previous publisher. But I haven't announced it, why? Perhaps hesitancy comes from expected retaliation. Which brings me to my next thought. I've been through so much this year, my last bout of employment wounded me deeply into my psyche in ways I may never fully understand. I am afraid to be hurt, controlled, stripped of my individual freedom to express myself. I want only to live a quiet, peaceful life. Artistically uninhibited.
But I am burnt out, in alot of ways. In the mundane world, where I have to pay bills, eat, care for hearth and home, I'm stretched so thin no wonder my art suffers for it. And when I am able to work, every project or commission I accept means saying no to myself, to LoK. Don't get me wrong, I am truly grateful for the work I do get, when I get it. I just wonder if I will ever have the luxury of working on LoK the way the pros do. The way I want to do. Not a single day goes by that I don't pick up a pencil these days, but I secretly wish that I could delve into LoK in ways that I used to, almost lost in it, as if Katainia was a real place. I miss those days.
I do find however, that life is starting to settle. That perhaps, with the right amount of scheduling, I could find myself immersed in my story universe once again. I find that any other task that is not for my own, although it expands my skills, prowess and notoriety, is becoming a detrimental distraction from my own body of work. Legends of Katainia has always been my dream, for nearly two decades now. But when am I gonna get my head out of the clouds and make it a reality? This is something, that once again I have to do on my own. You know the old saying, if you want it done right....
Saturday, February 12, 2011
"Like Lightning"
Memories and inspirations from my childhood come to mind.
Bob Hoskins says to Dustin Hoffman, "I just had an apostrophe."
Dustin Hoffman says, "A what?"
"L, lightning has just struck my brain" says Hoskins.
Dustin Hoffman rolls his eyes, "You mean an epiphany."
Yeah, one of those. It's a curious feeling, knowing what I realized. Sharing it with everyone yet feeling that no body knows it and that I'm utterly alone.
My "apostrophe" is this: most of my life, nearly all of my life, I have drawn (replicated) what I see in the world. Very rarely, although it has been know to happen on occasion if I vent, do I draw inspiration from within and this inward reflection usually results in a self-portrait sketch. I have not made, since grade school any significant portrait of myself, and why is that? Denial perhaps?
The accumulation of hardship, lack of sleep and prompt feminine hormones resulted in a painful summarization of everything I have experienced last night, crying quietly, for the first time not wanting anyone to see me feel this way. When I emerged, during the witching-hour alone and wide awake. Something in me did not want me to sleep. I couldn't. I couldn't do anything. I sat there frozen for a minute trying to determine what it was that my subconscious brain needed to bring to the surface in order for me to learn and heal. When the lightning struck, it was neither convenient nor practical. It was inevitable.
For the first time ever, without self-duplication, I had to draw from within- I HAD TO.
But I didn't draw abstractly. I drew what was most familiar, most precious but this time it was different. I had drawn something akin to it before but never quite with this magnitude. It was bubbling just below the surface until finally it broke through.
I drew myself in my character.
My character is and always was: me.
Gender is of no significance, but of course, I have always felt as such. But it shows, deeply as the work progresses through the story that I was drawing a representation in my head of what I envisioned the story universe to be. As the page turns, suddenly it's there with no apologies. It is a stark obvious transition that I am no longer drawing what I see, but what I feel. Not what I love or enjoy, but who I was, am and will be.
Of course I am thrilled at this epiphany. I am extremely exhilarated at the prospect of what this means for my art and body of work. It is amazingly liberal to know that I can share those feelings somehow, out on the Internet with you all.
I had wanted to start a blog for Spyderdust Comics, or at least for my self as an artist, (TheSpyderDuster) but didn't know how to go about it. I had old forums that failed, and a long time intermittent blog on Deviant Art.
But now I have reason to blog my own and share it.
And I hope you enjoy it too.
Bob Hoskins says to Dustin Hoffman, "I just had an apostrophe."
Dustin Hoffman says, "A what?"
"L, lightning has just struck my brain" says Hoskins.
Dustin Hoffman rolls his eyes, "You mean an epiphany."
Yeah, one of those. It's a curious feeling, knowing what I realized. Sharing it with everyone yet feeling that no body knows it and that I'm utterly alone.
My "apostrophe" is this: most of my life, nearly all of my life, I have drawn (replicated) what I see in the world. Very rarely, although it has been know to happen on occasion if I vent, do I draw inspiration from within and this inward reflection usually results in a self-portrait sketch. I have not made, since grade school any significant portrait of myself, and why is that? Denial perhaps?
The accumulation of hardship, lack of sleep and prompt feminine hormones resulted in a painful summarization of everything I have experienced last night, crying quietly, for the first time not wanting anyone to see me feel this way. When I emerged, during the witching-hour alone and wide awake. Something in me did not want me to sleep. I couldn't. I couldn't do anything. I sat there frozen for a minute trying to determine what it was that my subconscious brain needed to bring to the surface in order for me to learn and heal. When the lightning struck, it was neither convenient nor practical. It was inevitable.
For the first time ever, without self-duplication, I had to draw from within- I HAD TO.
But I didn't draw abstractly. I drew what was most familiar, most precious but this time it was different. I had drawn something akin to it before but never quite with this magnitude. It was bubbling just below the surface until finally it broke through.
I drew myself in my character.
My character is and always was: me.
Gender is of no significance, but of course, I have always felt as such. But it shows, deeply as the work progresses through the story that I was drawing a representation in my head of what I envisioned the story universe to be. As the page turns, suddenly it's there with no apologies. It is a stark obvious transition that I am no longer drawing what I see, but what I feel. Not what I love or enjoy, but who I was, am and will be.
Of course I am thrilled at this epiphany. I am extremely exhilarated at the prospect of what this means for my art and body of work. It is amazingly liberal to know that I can share those feelings somehow, out on the Internet with you all.
I had wanted to start a blog for Spyderdust Comics, or at least for my self as an artist, (TheSpyderDuster) but didn't know how to go about it. I had old forums that failed, and a long time intermittent blog on Deviant Art.
But now I have reason to blog my own and share it.
And I hope you enjoy it too.
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