I found a tutorial on how to use the “Art History Brush” in Photoshop. I didn’t know anything about it before, but I think it’s kind-of cool. It does make me question a lot of digital art now, at least the stuff that looks photo-realistically proportioned. (I don’t think the art at this link was done in Photoshop, but when I see this type of artwork, I know it can be, and faster.) Even that type of digital painting takes an artist’s eye-hand coordination and plenty of knees-bent-advancing behavior, so I’m not knocking it. Just questioning how it was made.
I used the Art History brush on cat’s fur. Don’t like it as much as the flat tones, but I shouldn’t have used it with the ink drawing. Would have been better fully-painted.
I have an issue about food in the bathroom. I don’t think it should be there. Often, somebody at work will bring their lunch or their snack, uncovered and exposed, into the men’s room. This room was built with the rest of the place sometime around 1950. Venting technology had not yet been invented, apparently, so the air in that room tends to be warm and acrid. I’ve seen sandwiches in the men’s room soaking in the bad air. I didn’t have the guts to save it.
The image above isn’t really about that. It’s just a drawing I did to try and make Jen laugh while we were at the library the other day. I got a giggle out of her.
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
- Jabberwocky
Balance and order have returned to my studio space. After a couple of weeks of crunching out a mini-comic for S.P.A.C.E, things were wild in here. New creatures made of eraser-shavings and paper fringes sprung up and began to act … began to learn. They soon learned the toughest lesson of all: though it may take an eternity, the broom will eventually come to sweep you away. Don’t fear the broom, but be aware of its eminence.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, SPACE. I finished up the book late Friday night. It didn’t go exactly as planned. Specifically, the silkscreen cover didn’t work out, so I printed the cover on my inkjet. I’m going to try silkscreening again, but not now. The pain is still too near.
I also had to go back to the archives and use an unfinished story for the mini. Just ran out of time to do the new things. This gave me a chance to complete Emet: The Gumshoe Golem, but it left me with a scattered feel to this little self-anthology. It also had a Jhomm the Orc story and a Gweeb comic strip. The book as a whole doesn’t really have a unifying theme.
The Gweeb strip was far and away the story most liked by the folks that stopped by my table.
I ended up selling about 25 books and giving away 6 or 7. I’m pleased with that. More importantly, I got some good direction on where I want to go with this little self-publishing thing next, thanks to the inspiration of some cartoonists who were there.
Huge thanks to Tara and Dave for stopping by, and a love-n-thanks to Jen for hanging out with Steve and I at the table all day.
I just finished my first “website-that-wasn’t-for-me” website. It’s for Jeff Smith’s Bone comic. We mixed in a blog, a discussion forum and a bunch of pages and came up with something that seems to work pretty well, for now.
I used WordPress, an open-source blogging script that I’m really into. It’s very easy to use. Dreamhost is our webhost, and I would recommend them to anyone looking for a friendly, responsive host. The rates are decent too. We used phpBB for the discussion board. I’m so-so on that: It’s easy to set up and really functional, but the template engine stinks.
Within an hour or so of being live, Jeff’s first post received 5 comments, and the discussion boards received 4 posts! People love that Bone!
It was really cool being a part of this and learning more about being a real webmaster. Check out the website here: http://boneville.com
(The image above is from a prototype I put together for Jeff. The prototype established the look and feel, but we ended up changing it up a lot.)
