Three quarters of this year were an unusable crawl, and the remaining quarter was working under an NDA, but for the holidays it’s personal program only, so the next* new years card is in progress–
Advertising work generally isn’t too exciting to post, since it tends to be a person using a new phone, or a closeup of a shoe, and usually there’s about six minutes total to draw it all, but a while back I did a few pictures for a sports promo that had a different setting — not sure if it even got shot, but drawing the rain was fun (for six minutes).
(These could, as always, also be filed in the “why don’t you just draw comics this way (and at this speed)” folder.)
Maybe I can’t do comics just yet, but I can do pictures that take as long to read as one — this cover was for an old friend Goran Sudžuka’s (and Stephanie Phillips’) new book, so I wanted to go all out on it if I could.
A hiatus with work and blog (and literally everything else, but that part’s not new), because of the body very much not cooperating again, but there’s still covers I didn’t get to here. More unexpected subject matter too. In anticipation of the last cover, here’s the first four —
(you should be able to click on them and just use the arrow keys)
I don’t draw animals that often but I had a stretch this year where for a few weeks everyone asked me to. This story at least suggested a very graphic treatment. (The cat one was my favorite as a picture, though this one is better as a cover.)
This inverted version, when I was mailing the file, was also fun, but the cover was already finished, so it goes in the “accidental good ideas” folder for some future use.
I continue to work on a couple of stories after the new years one, and I continue to not want to share them before they are done — but I also get tired of only posting covers, so here’s a rough panel from one of them that doesn’t spoil anything.
Today’s small part of this year’s program of allowing myself to put in at least as much time and effort into personal work — off the clock, on my own time — as I would put in on work for others.
Or, since I can finally allow such a thought: more.
One from last year that was just too slow to make it to press in time– I remember it being a particularly impossible period so I’m amazed I managed to draw even the patterns — though without the color I probably consider it only 40% done, if that much.
More impossible times lately, but trying to use the few OK minutes to work on the card. I missed pages. I only did two in all of 2023 (the previous card). Here’s to more than two in the new year, and I hope you’re all having a nice quiet time until then —
Done during one of my more uphill times, but I was happy to be able to do a cover for Ben Stenbeck’s creator-owned book. And since it’s for another artist, I allowed myself to do it almost how I’d do it for myself.
When I did the other Christopher Chaos cover, this was the only alternative idea I had, and the editors approved both (hooray!) so this one was done for a later issue, out in December.
When I did the Inktober book back in 2017, I did some sketched-in copies, and then I colored a lot of those sketches for my own fun. There were enough of them for another book, but I don’t make sketchbooks. Yet I did do a mockup a couple of years ago [for redacted reasons], and I ran into that tonight while clearing out some shelves, and enjoyed seeing it again.
Today I did start the day with a “personal 30”, thirty minutes carved out of any viable work time, because I needed to draw something – anything – just for myself. What I draw for myself:
