Here’s an incomplete list of what I’ve been doing since I decided to step away from making comics on a serious basis back in July:
-Painted Slimepunk and Faerie Ishee on an underwater adventure for my girlfriend.
-Tried to raise sea monkeys and triops that my girlfriend got me for our anniversary. The triops never hatched and the sea monkeys died within a week of hatching. :(
-Started exercising again, bought a jump rope.
-Been watching a lot more movies. Movies are cool, I like them.
-Bought an N64 and over a dozen games, most of which I’ve barely even played.
-Started playing Final Fantasy VII for the first time since…middle school or high school, probably? Got out of Midgar, stopped.
-Drew a great big mutant family reunion as a commission.
-Appeared at Kil’n Time Contemporary Ceramic Studio as a guest artist for a local monthly thing called Art D’Vine, where people visit the galleries downtown to look at art and sample wine and cheese.
-Cleaned a LOT of old videogame cartridges.
-Designed a couple flyers for friends.
-Figured out what Slimepunk’s insides look like, drew them.
-Got better at cutting my own hair with clippers
-Read all 14 volumes of the Neon Genesis Evangelion manga.
-Finally got Other Sleep added to ComiXology, available now for only $4.99!!
-Went hiking, stood nude atop a waterfall.
-Figured out how to switch my Roomba’s language from shouting at me in Russian to shouting in English.
-Got excited about the Asheville Comic Expo, which is next month!
-Started playing more with traditional art materials again.* Did 4 mixed media portraits of characters from Mad Mad: Fury Road.
-Cursed the transition from summer to fall and the drop in temperature that accompanies it.
-Started a new comic in my moleskine, did about 5 or 6 pages in a week, haven’t really touched it since.
-Wrote for Gamervescent about mediocre SNES and Sega Genesis games, and how the new PS4 Godzilla game compares.
-Started to make more serious attempts at digital painting by copying photographs found on Tumblr.
*I’m participating in the Bill Counts October Game again this year. The idea I have this time around is…a little different, maybe. I went back through a stack of old sketchbooks and notebooks, writing down things I found interesting, mostly quotes and lyrics that I’ve since lost any context for. I also went through tweets I’d added to my favorites on Twitter (I had over 600!), things on Tumblr, et cetera. Altogether I now have close to 60 little things written down to serve as ideas, prompts, or titles for illustrations to be made in whatever way I find fitting. I only need 31 of those, so at least I have no shortage of words to work from, right? I’ve also combed through a lot of art and photography I really enjoy as a go-to inspiration guide for the month. All the mixed media stuff I’ve been doing, attempts at copying photos and paintings in different styles, are kind of a crash course for when October hits next Thursday, so I can work in whatever way I want and at least pretend I know what I’m doing. Like grinding before a particularly challenging dungeon in an RPG.
So, you know, I’m probably going to go insane again. It’ll get pretty weird pretty fast. Should be fun.