So I'm participating in this little thing that the Nelson Fine Art Gallery in Johnson City is throwing, called the Bill Counts October Game. The rules are simple: create a new piece of art every day for the month of October and send it in before midnight. The pieces will be posted on the Facebook page I just linked to. If you miss a day, though, ALL of your work is removed. So, you know, NO PRESSURE. I'm one of up to 25 artists participating, and I think there's 18 so far who have signed up. I've been working on sketching out a bunch of ideas for stuff I want to do.

There’s a conflict in my brain when I’m thinking of ideas and making art, that of my desire to be a super detailed illustrator like Geof Darrow/James Stokoe/Moebius/Brandon Graham/etc. VS super clean design work like the Designers Republic/Brian Wood/Ashley Wood/etc. Some of these sketches are me attempting to find some kind of happy medium between the two. I mean, I guess that's always been a struggle of mine for some time now, but this is the opportunity to REALLY focus on it.

The only other preparation I’ve done is saving a SHITLOAD of images from Tumblr, deviantART, and other places as inspiration.

My initial plan was to just do a drawing every day, on 11x17 paper or some such, and leave it at that. But that’d get boring, so I’m going to do a lot of digital stuff too, I think. I know after the first week I’ll probably hit a wall of exhaustion and will turn lazy and sloppy, but hopefully I’ll be able to push past that into some new, more interesting territory in order to keep from being bored and giving up. Desperation may force me to get more creative, yeah? That's my hope, anyway.
It’s going to be difficult, because I still want to get work done on Other Sleep as I do this, working my job, and maintaining a healthy social life with the girlfriend. It’s a daunting thing to think about yes, but I think it can be done.

I don't know whether I'll be uploading everything here onto this site or not, maybe they'll get their own gallery once it's all over with, provided I don't die or go mad in the process. Everything's gonna be posted on that Facebook page for sure, and I may throw everything onto my Tumblr as well, so if you're interested in keeping up with it, those are the two places to watch.

LET'S DO THIS. ART OR DIE.

[Brett]

And here we are, in the year 2012, waiting for the Mayans to rise from their graves and obliterate civilization as we know it. Or something. I'm not so sure.

Here is my final drawing made in 2011, drawn while watching Top Gear and Louie:
Remember when I said I was considering doing more stuff in the same vein as Embrace Infection? I wasn't kidding. I already have a model lined up to do some shooting next weekend.

I am basically leaping headfirst into 2012 with guns blazing. The first half of 2011 absolutely kicked the crap out of me, I sincerely felt like I was at my lowest point. But I got back up and proceeded to repeatedly throatpunch 2011 into submission before finally setting its head on fire and graduating from ETSU with a BFA in Graphic Design. Whatever obstacles or challenges lie ahead for this new year? I say bring it. I will tear 2012's throat out with my teeth if I have to.

I usually never do resolutions, but I have some for this year: Make more comics. Travel more. Be even more awesome.

On the comics front, I completely finished Zimmik Looks For Love in a Barren Land yesterday. Sterlin says he'll hopefully have everything for the anthology book thing together around February to print and distribute, and is letting me come up with a cover for it. Then of course there's Project Sense, and then I'm also brainstorming on some stuff to submit to publishers. Zimmik, being only 5 pages, is also the perfect beginning for a Burst Reach #2, wouldn't you say?

The plan is also to go to several comic conventions this year. Especially Heroes Con, which I really wanted to visit last year and missed out on. I was also told my the wise man Massie that I would probably do well with my work at anime cons, so I may look into a few of those too. And if I know anyone going to cons that I can't make it too, I want to throw a bunch of work at them to hand out to people at said cons. They can be my representatives, yeah?

The idea behind doing more Embrace Infection type stuff is to keep me on my toes in between comic related things, to strengthen my skills in all areas, and if I churn anything particularly good, I want to try and start selling prints. Possibly through deviantART, maybe Etsy, but if nothing else then on this site. I'm going to have to do a bit of research on that. But not all of that will be digitally done. I've started painting again at work, trying to finish a barn I started painting for my mother over a year ago, and I think I'd like to try my hand at doing some acrylic and watercolors of strange mutated naked people, yeah?

I also need a new computer soon, because if this laptop finally gives up the ghost then I'll be stuck on the side of the road for a while...can't forget that...

So there we go, my plans for this new year. Who knows how much of it will actually pan out. I may not make it to more than one or two conventions, I may only come up with a few things to pitch to publishers and most likely none of it will be accepted, but still, I just have to try. I can't stop moving.

For the time being, the Portishead song "Machine Gun" is my anthem for the new year. I'm honestly not sure why, aside from the fact that it's Portishead, and that discordant beat is absolutely SICK. Also because someone decided to set the music to clips from Tetsuo the Iron Man, which is pretty awesome:

That's it then. Let 2012 know who they're messing with. What are your plans?

[Brett]