drawing fotozozo personal work quotes the what and the how uncategorized work for hire writing
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.
This issue is out at the end of February, I think, so here’s one of my favorite pictures from last year.
During the silence while I was finishing the A+M comic, I forgot to mark the occasion of the blog making it through a full year. Hooray. I still think it was a good idea.
So what now, in year two? More new pictures, hopefully, and maybe more personal stuff beyond the new years cards. But since new work doesn’t exist until it’s complete (I have by now finally learned not to announce anything except in retrospect), today a few more bits from the archive — one of the many obsolete versions of a next thing.
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 —
“(…) to affirm life without lying about it.”
Robert Adams
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.
read the whole post —
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.
read the whole post —“The point (…) isn’t to imagine a parallel universe in which things were easy, but to raise the possibility that they might in fact be easy, here and now.
(…) the irony of what’s going on here is that this prospect – that something meaningful might prove easier than you imagined – can itself be a source of discomfort. Many of us were apparently raised to believe not just that important things can feel difficult (they can!) but that they must feel difficult; that the measure of accomplishment is how much effort it took. And, moreover, that effort is a measure of self-worth — that if an achievement comes easily to you, you must somehow be cheating, or that you just got lucky.
It feels somehow illicit to consider the alternative: that you might already have all it takes (…)”
Oliver Burkeman
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:
I haven’t yet figured out the format for photography, so here’s just a few from today’s early morning on planet Toronto —
Sometimes a cover is best as a simple picture of the person standing there, or a dynamic action shot. Other times, a completely different approach works out better and leads to more interesting places. Here’s a case of the latter working out better. How did I end up with these circles?
read the whole post —
I had a few directions for this one, from the maximalist “just put everything in there” to a 3D one (using the model I made sometime in the middle of issue four of Skulldigger and Skeleton Boy and then promptly forgot to actually use for reference for the rest of the book.)
All the posts and files and comments have been moved, and everything seems to be up and running at the new place smoothly, without locking me out whenever I want to upload more than five pictures.
Ideally, this is the only post you were notified about if you’re using a reader, but I’ll give it 24 hours to settle and then post more pictures.
(I will be moving the blog to a faster and more reliable host over the weekend. Ideally everything will be done by tomorrow, and just keep working — but there’s a chance some (or all) old posts show up again in the RSS feed. Also, if you don’t hear from me in months, maybe you’ll need to re-add the blog — same address, tozo.today — to your reader. But fingers crossed for the transition being invisible.)
Sometimes the cover needs a twist, other times the best course is to draw the thing. This was one of the straightforward ones.
read the whole post —The other day I got really fed up again with only posting covers, them being the only new material to put up here.
I had this sketch around which seemed like an easy candidate to finish and make into a stand-alone picture: just two guys and a robot. You know, the sort of thing people post. Free-floating art on the internet. “Warmup” drawings. What ifs. Ads for more substantial things that don’t exist and probably never will.
I didn’t need it to mean anything, I didn’t even need to particularly like it. Just something small and sort of finished and new to put up1, a throwaway image.
read the whole post —drawing fotozozo personal work quotes the what and the how uncategorized work for hire writing
