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.
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 (…)
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:
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 didI end up with these circles?
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.)
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.
The second hardcover omnibus volume is out now, collecting the last (and best) volume I did with John Arcudi, Pirate’s Ghost and Metal Monsters of Midtown, as well as the first book, The Iron Prometheus by Jason Armstrong and Mignola, and short stories that were originally collected in the fifth paperback, A Chain Forged in Life. Roughly 470 pages of Lobster.
What can be done? Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognise him or herself in you and that will give them hope. It’s done so for me and I have to keep rediscovering it. It has profound importance in my life. Give that to the world, rather than selling something to the world. Don’t allow yourself to be tricked into thinking that the way things are is the way the world must work and that in the end selling is what everyone must do. Try not to.
(…) Do you. It isn’t easy but it’s essential. It’s not easy because there’s a lot in the way. In many cases a major obstacle is your deeply seated belief that you are not interesting. And since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen, take it off the table. Agree. Perhaps I’m not interesting, but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare and it will help.
Continuing Lobster week and stepping a year earlier with this one. All the covers back then started as watercolor thumbnails. That was a pretty satisfying way to figure things out, as well as a good method of keeping it simple in terms of color.
Hey, pencil and paper. I don’t remember why this one wasn’t finished (or why it was started) – maybe I gave up when I got to the part that included any actual drawing – but it’s a view into how things were (not) done circa 2014.
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