How did I go through the entirety of February without writing a new blog? Wait, I think I know why: I never stopped working on things.

First off, issue 6 of Slimepunk is COMPLETE. Half of it, the first 10 pages, is online to read, with the full issue available to $5 Patrons on my Patreon. The next big step is getting the whole thing print ready and figuring out how to release the collection out into the world. Should I give crowdfunding a try? My audience is so small that I don't have high hopes for that, but it could also potentially mean getting more people to see what I've made. I want to also serialize the volume on Webtoons and/or Tapastic as another way to expand the audience. All the while, I've nearly got the outline for volume 2 done and issue 7 is almost fully written and thumbnailed. So...that's a lot of Slimepunk stuff to work on. It's a bit hard to think about right now, having just finished issue 6, but I should have a plan for all of this soon.

I also spent the entire month working on this:

I bought this giant purple Alien Queen toy at Walmart at the end of January, and thought it'd be awesome to paint her to sell as a print. I was foolish enough to think she'd only take a week to do. Of course, I have little digital painting experience, and the Queen is quite a daunting subject for a first attempt. I quickly realized how difficult it'd be, and felt like I'd really bitten off more than I could chew, but I just...kept at it. I chipped away at her nearly every day for 30 minutes to an hour at a time, and after weeks of work she was finished! I think it was worth the effort, and it was an incredible learning experience. I now have other things in mind that I'd like to try to paint, things that are uh, hopefully a little easier, we'll see.

(If you want to see process shots of her, you can find nearly weekly progress updates over on Patreon at the base $1 subscription level! Plus lots of other stuff! I uh, lost a patron not too long ago, so please consider supporting me!)

I also started a new painting series that's loosely connected to Debris Field and my Entropy paintings:

Along with two self-portraits, one with my figure drawing group, that can be seen on my NSFW Instagram account and on Patreon.

The next dream comic with Ninel has also started. I don't have anything I can show just yet (except, once more, on Patreon), but the finished product will be three pages and should be up by the end of the month. Until then, you can reread Other Sleep in its entirety for free and look at Mutual Friend if you missed out on it back in January!

And finally, I hosted figure drawing on the 23rd and modeled for a couple poses after drawing on myself too! It was a lot of fun. You can follow our Instagram to see sketches from everyone who was there, and of course Patrons at the $3 level get to see everything I drew that night!

I took a break last week after figure drawing, finishing the Alien Queen, and Slimepunk, but this week I'm already back it. I learned about a daily art challenge for this month called Monster March, where each day you try to draw a different kaiju, following a list released last month. The 1st was, of course, Godzilla, and I busted this illustration out pretty quickly:

I made a *PUBLIC* Patreon post about the making of it, including my really awful first attempt, if you need a laugh! The others are all on Instagram and Twitter as well.

It's nice to be really on top of things right now, consistently working on different projects. This sort of thing doesn't happen often, so I'm just enjoying it and rolling with it while I can, staying inspired and busy. Hope you all are doing well, too!

HAPPY YEAR OF THE RAT, EVERYONE!

January 2020 has actually been going alright so far after a rocky, emotional start.

I'm making good progress on issue six of Slimepunk, and I'm hoping I can have enough done so I can start posting again next month. The pages that are finished so far are being shared on Patreon with folks who are subscribed at the $5 tier, if you want a headstart on everybody else.

My first painting of the year, depicting a bellydancing friend in an inflatable Godzilla costume, can be seen over here. I also did my first real fanart work last week, my own attempt at drawing Shin Ultraman:

And I've posted another weird, personal, NSFW painting on my weird, personal, NSFW account End of April, if you follow that, with some words about my figure drawing friends who appear in it.

Speaking of figure drawing, the first Defining Bodies meetup of 2020 was this past Sunday, and it was absolutely what I needed. I've updated the figure drawing album on here with some recent work, but it's time to promote my Patreon again by reminding you that $3 subscribers get to see EVERY drawing I do at our monthly meetings, no matter how bad or ugly they are, along with rambling about what I was trying to do.

The Shin Ultraman and NSFW painting went up over there first, too. Basically, most everything I do now goes on Patreon at least a few days before it goes anywhere else. Even just a dollar a month gets you access to a bunch of process posts and things!

It's also where I first revealed Ninel's return in a two page dream comic I made called Another Dream: Mutual Friends. The comic itself is up on Other Sleep's website now, but patrons got to see the full process for it, from the original thumbnails and scribbled dialogue to the finished pages.

So yeah...not a bad way to kick off January, I guess. I have several other, more personal goals I'm working on this year too. Last year I managed to keep track of my spending habits, and this year I'll attempt to do a better job of saving money. I've decided to stop drinking alcohol for at least this year, just to see what it's like. I made the decision to quit last month, so I already have a good head start.

I had some other, bigger goals last year that I never managed to pull off. Rather than try again, or double down and try to make up for it, I'm trying to think a little more modestly this year. My big exercise goals always fall through, so this year I'm scaling it back to just a little light jogging and/or some pushups here and there each day rather than trying to stick to a demanding routine. Washing my face daily too, it's a small thing but it's reasonable, and I can build off of it.

I dunno, I'd read something last year that talked about how, if we try to make a bunch of changes all at once, we're doomed to fail. It's better to start small, build a good foundation that you can later expand on. I've always felt like I'm super scatterbrained, and maybe there's no way to completely rewire myself out of it, but I realized last year that part of the reason I never feel like I know what I'm doing is because I never really spent time building any foundations.

Studying anatomy for months last year was a good, solid thing to do. I didn't feel super productive when it came to making finished work, but it helped me regain at least a little confidence, and I want to keep at it this year, relearning and better understanding what I'm doing with my art, how I'm doing it, and how I can improve, rather than sitting paralyzed and directionless.

Things aren't stopping: I will be printing the first collected Slimepunk volume this year for sure. There will be more dream comics with Ninel. I'm working on a cool project with my friend Mark O. Stack that will have a Kickstarter next year. I have so many paintings I want to do and I'm getting a clearer understanding of how to make them. I will be at KapowCon in May and RobCon in June. Defining Bodies will continue to meet monthly as long as I can host and convince people to come model and draw.

And if I fail to succeed at any of these things, if any of it falls through? It's not that big a deal. I can start again, and I think I finally know how to look at my failures and learn and grow from them, making the next try a little easier.

It's hard to look at everything happening in the world and not feel despair. But I think it's important to know how to work on in despair. Take care of yourself, and if you have the strength, look after those around you as well. See you soon.

Hey everyone!

October was...holy crap it was a lot. Physically, emotionally, the stuff in between, the month just never let up. I'm glad it's behind me, but I still feel like I need more time to recover.

And now I'm sitting here thinking about how little time there is before the year (and this decade) ends, and how really it felt like the bulk of 2019 was A Lot, just an exhausting gauntlet of a year altogether, and how little I have to show for how/why I'm worn out from it.

I certainly feel like I didn't accomplish much as far as art goes. I want to say I've just been grinding away, plotting to really break out and do some cool new things next year, and while I think my anatomy studies were extremely useful, I haven't really built anything off of them yet. I've spent most of this year scribbling out half-thoughts and incomplete ideas and just pushing them aside, repeatedly reevaluating my own work to figure out what I should do next and coming up uncertain. Just a lot of wheel spinning.

But let's set that aside for a second: what HAVE I accomplished this year?

Well, I've hosted Defining Bodies figure drawing every single month except for August, with our November meetup coming this weekend. I finally created a Patreon, which, well, still only has the support of three people, but I've been semi-consistently posting to it all the same. I made a Faerie Ishee minicomic, I taught a comic class, I've drawn 42 pages of Slimepunk (just finished inking one today!), I most recently got paid to draw mutant portraits of children at a Halloween event, I started a new Instagram account for my more adult themed art, I had two REALLY successful cons and some other not so successful, I helped judge a sculpture competition, I licensed more art to a friend's brewery in Florida, I got paid to model nude for the first time, and while I didn't participate in any gallery shows this year I got to see a bunch of friends find success with their own and made good new friends in the process of all of this stuff. And yeah, I spent close to three months just studying anatomy on an almost daily basis, developing a better sense of the human form than I've ever had before, and I've been studying from a huge stack of art magazines I got talked into buying from the local library as well, taking in as much as I can.

I've also been learning a lot of new things about myself, stuff that I'm still working out and will be for the foreseeable future, and have been on a bumpy road dealing with family illness stuff. Oh, and developed a dumb thing where my stomach produces too much acid when I stress about stuff. So, if the above paragraph still doesn't sound like much, at least I have reasonable excuses for the lack of finished work.

And despite how I feel about not having accomplished anything solid, I can also say I don't feel like I've wasted my time this year or could've used it any better.

Except for maybe the gouache painting I started this month and finally abandoned yesterday when I finally decided it wasn't working. But let's not talk about that.

I have no real plans in mind for the future. The aforementioned family thing keeps me from thinking as ambitiously as I'd like. I know some things are happening: figure drawing will continue for as long as I can host and as long as people are willing to come pose and draw. Slimepunk will continue, even if it takes months between page updates on the site. The next FRAG show is hopefully on December 14th. I will certainly be painting things as gifts for family, too. Plus, I think I'm teaching a class on how to draw mutant portraits early next year. That may not be much, but I'm still keeping busy.

...Um, that's it I guess. Sorry this was a weird one. It's getting colder, and the holidays are coming up, so before things get nuts again I guess this was a good time to type up a bunch of word vomit before I fall into a new cycle of doing a lot of stuff.

Hope you find some space to sit and breathe in between whatever you have going on yourself. Take care, I'll try to write again soon.

Hey everyone! Things slowed down for a little bit there, but September wasn't quite as uneventful as I'd expected.

First off: issue 5 of Slimepunk finally concludes this Wednesday. That one was...a bit rough. Between shows I was doing, taking a vacation, the complexity of several pages, and other things, it took forever to get finished. Slowing down to just posting a page a week definitely helped, but I never really caught back up or got any kind of lead going like I'd hoped it would accomplish. And it'll be some time before you see anything from issue 6. I don't have a single page drawn of it yet, and want to actually have that lead built back up so I can post twice a week once again. Fingers crossed.

I wrapped up my anatomy studies early in the month and spent some time studying everything about the human head once again to get better at drawing portraits. I haven't gotten to put any of that to practice yet, but if nothing else I can definitely tell a difference in how I look at and draw things. It feels like it's a little easier for me to understand whatever subject I'm looking at, I have a better idea of how to break it down and draw it how I want, if that makes sense? I'm not sure if my recent work looks much different from what's come before, but it feels a little easier now.

At the beginning of the month I set up a new Instagram profile called the End of April. It's dedicated more to nude and queer art stuff, with lots of self portraits and stuff. If you wanna see that kind of stuff and don't mind seeing me naked all the time, that's the profile to follow. I've just lately felt weird about posting that kind of stuff on my main profile for whatever reason, so having a separate space for it feels right.

(I also came out as non-binary last week, so you'll probably be seeing more stuff on the new account regarding that as I work things out, SO)

My comics class at the William King Museum was on the 15th, and it was a lot of fun. I taught three kids and one parent, and they each made their own unique things. One kid, obsessed with Guns 'N Roses, made up a band based on them, drew each member on tracing paper, cut them out, and pasted them to make something more like a concert poster. Another kid showed up with a bunch of her own comics in her bag, which was super impressive. It was a really fun experience and I wish I'd remembered to take pictures. I think early next year I'll get to teach another class there, on mutant portraits instead!

Last night was figure drawing. It was a chill session, only a few people came, including a new member who models AND draws, but it was still super fun. The next one is...well, just two weeks away because it's literally the only Sunday I can host in October!

Also, if you subscribe to my Patreon, you'll get to see EVERY SINGLE DRAWING that I did last night, along with everything I've drawn at previous meetups this year. You should consider it!

So here's how October's looking:

This Friday, the 4th, is a Drink and Draw at Bloom Cafe hosted by local artists and friends Brian Serway and Richard Graves (who I roped into figure drawing earlier this year). This is the third one of these being hosted at Bloom, but will be the first one I can actually go to. I'm looking forward to it.

October 13th is when we're meeting up for SPOOKY figure drawing. I'm excited for this one.

October 19th is the Frag-O-Ween show! We're gonna have live music, free booze and snacks, around 40 artists showing and selling their work, a burlesque troupe, and probably some other things I've forgotten! You need to come! Go RSVP to the event to get your name on the guestlist! I've been working on new stuff for this. Check out this Godzilla I painted with metallic watercolors:

Been touching up a few paintings from past figure drawing meetups too, as well as doing new sketches and sketchcards to that I have a decent amount of cheap new things for people to buy!

Finally, October 26th is when the William King Museum hosts their Haunted Hill event, where I'll be set up doing FREE mutant portraits for people!

Because of all of this, I will be skipping out on Inktober once again. I just don't have it in me. I did feel like I was missing out last year, seeing other folks I admire cranking out amazing daily work, but I just really don't have it in me to run myself ragged so much anymore. Best of luck to everyone going for it!

After these things I have no plans. I'd like to just sleep through November, but I'm sure something will pop up, and when it does, I'll let you know. Take care, see you next time.

Hello. My mind has been as scattered as always lately and there are days where my body doesn't feel like my own, but here I am. Still present and accounted for.

Slimepunk slips further and further behind. I moved to posting a page a week last month to try and catch up, which hasn't really worked. I thought I'd plant myself and crank out pages, but that's not what's been happening. Here are things that have been happening instead:

This is a painting I did of one of my figure drawing group's frequent models. I took the pictures back in June and finally did the painting last month. The only other place I've posted it before now is on my Patreon, where you can see process shots I took as I went along.

I've been watching episodes of Ultraman and Ultraseven that were directed by Akio Jissoji. One of those is the tragic My Home is Earth, featuring the kaiju Jamila. There were shots in that episode that really reminded me of Neon Genesis Evangelion, so I tried to put that kind of spin on some fanart of him.

Back in mid-June, I decided to buckle down and study human anatomy in a way I previously hadn't. I started by going through my copy of Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet, which I'd bought after graduating from college in 2012 but never actually made any real effort to READ. It felt like a workout, studying a small section a day, working my way through the skeletal and muscular systems. After that, I went to my copy of the Art of Drawing Anatomy by David Sanmiguel, which is less intensive. Both cover the same ground, but in different ways.

I think it's been super useful for me to do this, though I can't say for sure yet whether it'll change my approach to figure drawing much. My understanding of muscles is still kinda shaky, especially the complexities of the forearm and back, but it's more than I ever grasped in school, at least. I did realize though, that learning these two systems isn't quite enough. They're incredibly important, sure, but when it comes to observational drawing, nobody really looks like a skeleton or muscular diagram. It hit me that neither of these anatomy books, nor any of the other half dozen or so figure drawing books I own, really account for body fat. It's especially notable that they all use fit, athletic models, men and women who'd be considered traditionally attractive, with very little bodytype diversity. I knew I wanted to study bodyfat, but didn't know what to do.

After a few days of being unsatisfied with cartoony guides found on Tumblr that don't really describe how fat develops and shapes the body, I stumbled upon a book called Morpho: Fat and Skin Folds, by Michel Lauricella. I ordered a copy immediately and started reading it when it came in this week.

It's been an almost daily practice, this studying: I've filled 42 pages in my sketchbook, and it's been good. The human figure is clearly my favorite subject to draw and paint, learning these foundational elements has been long overdue. And it's something I'm doing entirely for myself, which feels good. There have been more days than I'd like to admit where it's the ONLY drawing I did, of course.

There's an idea slowly developing in my head as I study: a possible revival of something like Reflected Gaze, but with more of a fine art approach to it, drawing and painting different people with different bodies in a way that illustrates their own feelings about how they see themselves. If I want to be a better advocate for body acceptance, I have to do the work at drawing and painting more marginalized bodies, because my own relatively fit, cisgender, white body doesn't get that message across at all.

We'll see. I want to do more pieces that are overtly about nudism as well, which is even more difficult.

Speaking of Reflected Gaze: the blog still exists, and just last month I posted the entirety of How I Feel Human: A Zine About Nudity and Anxiety over there. Which, yes, is all about me, my body, my mental health, but still. Go read it if you haven't.

And yeah, these things are partly why I'm so behind on Slimepunk, because that's where my interest is right now. But also, I keep getting down on just how much work I'm putting into a comic while being completely unable to tell if anyone is actually reading it. I don't get any feedback at all. I feel like I'm just throwing pages out into an open street, hoping somebody will pick one up. If they do, are they just leaving it where they found it, throwing it away, taking it with them to show others? I have no idea. I still want to do it, I want to keep making this comic and putting it out there, but it feels like focusing on it above everything else is not the best decision right now.

I've also finished some commissions, which I've only shared on Patreon and Instagram. I dunno, I'm not really keen on sharing things on social media much lately, but haven't been able to figure out why. I guess finishing something and then posting it EVERYWHERE all at once just feels weird and exhausting. That's another thing I've enjoyed about the studies: I feel no pressure to share all the work. I take a picture of each day's completed notes and sketches and post it to my Instagram and Facebook stories, just to show I'm putting in the work, but this is my first time really talking about the work itself. I dunno. The internet isn't as fun as it used to be, I guess.

Oh, things are happening in the real world that I should tell you about:

Next week I'm taking my first vacation since late 2017! Ashley and I are going to Charleston for our 7 year anniversary! I've missed beaches. A lot.

After I get back, August 24th is the Johnson City Zine Fest, one of my all time favorite shows! Literally the only new thing I'll have there that hasn't been available at other shows will be the Nodzilla stickers I had made last month. If you're a fan of my chinchilla, you should come get one.

On September 15th we're giving my minicomic class another try at the William King Museum. Hopefully people sign up this time!

Aaaaaaaannnnnnddddd October 19th will be FRAG's Halloween pop-up show! We're going for a sort of zombie beach luau vibe this year. It's gonna be fun! I think we're still hoping to do the Holiday Bizarre in December as usual, too.

That's all. Gonna keep feeling scattered and weird until something changes. Take care of yourselves, folks.

Hi everyone. We're halfway through the year now. I was lucky enough to end that first half on a high note, though there's no certainty that this second half will be any similar.

I had two shows these past two weekends: LibCon III at the Johnson City Public Library was the first of those. I gave a talk early that morning on worldbuilding for Slimepunk, which, well, was only attended by two people. I had two times to choose from, and I picked the earlier one because I knew there wouldn't be many people in case I screwed up, and because I knew that if I picked the later one I'd be sitting there at my table the entire time panicking. My plan is to post what I'd typed up for the talk, along with the slides I made, over on Patreon for people on all levels to read, so if that sounds interesting, consider throwing a dollar or two my way now!

I unveiled a couple new kaiju prints there. You've seen Hedorah already, but I did this psychedelic Space Godzilla too:

I also got to judge an art contest at the show with a couple other artists who were there. There were three categories we looked at: children, teens, and adults. It was the most difficult picking the three best out of the children's category because, holy cow, there were so many wild and different pieces, all extremely colorful and imaginative. That was definitely the highlight of the day.

Doing those two things meant I didn't get to spend as much time at my table, which definitely affected sales, especially when a storm rolled in shortly after the art contest judging. But it was still a fun time, and the thank you note I got in the mail from the library yesterday with handwritten notes from two of the staff members was wonderful. Libraries are awesome and you should absolutely visit and support the ones closest to you, okay? Do it.

After that was RobCon this past weekend. I was...concerned. Last year they'd moved to a new location and things were kind of disastrous behind the scenes, and not doing too well at LibCon made me wonder if it was a good idea releasing four new prints and the Faerie Ishee minicomic all at once. Those fears quickly dissipated though! I started selling stuff almost right away after doors opened, and ended up surpassing my scribbled out weekend sales goal within that first day, making this year better than the last two or three RobCons I've done! It was also super nice that we were set up next to our friend Gregory Dickens, who'd come for his first Tennessee show. After the first day, we kidnapped him and another friend to go to our favorite Thai place in Kingsport. It was closed, so we went to the OTHER Thai place, one that Ashley and I hadn't been to yet, and enjoyed the heck out of it.

The next day, I wore a dress.

I think I mentioned in the last blog post that I was leaning more into my feminine side, yeah? I'd gone downtown a few times in dresses before, always with friends, but this was my first time wearing one ALL DAY, and surrounded by loads more people. I was expecting my anxiety to be through the roof, but...I was fine! Even walking around and browsing vendor tables by myself didn't feel too strange. I got a handful of compliments from people, but the biggest thing for me was someone running up to me as I was leaving the restroom, hands clasped at their chest, to excitedly tell me that they support me and that they're trans. It was really lovely and cute, the awkward earnestness of the moment. I kind of just sputtered thanks a few times before they turned and left, but I wish I'd told them that I support them too. Or at least found them later to give them one of my Fuck Transphobia buttons. But still! I talked to a handful of other young people who were also queer, and probably more experienced in being out and open about it than me, and that was nice too. That it was the final day of Pride month made it nicer.

Sales weren't as good as Saturday, turnout dropped, but I still did better than previous years, and grabbed a couple Godzilla toys that I'd been eyeballing the day before. On the way home we stopped at Target so I could get Super Mario Maker 2, and I didn't bother changing into regular clothes beforehand. My anxiety shot back up in such a wildly different public setting, but I made it through and I feel a lot less sheepish now.

I'd also worn a different dress the Friday night before RobCon to see a favorite band play downtown, and that was a lot of fun. I actually danced! I dunno, wearing a dress just feels better and I feel more like I can be myself in one. It was good thing to learn this past weekend.

So what's next? I'm not sure. Right now I feel like crap, so I should probably rest. Issue 5 of Slimepunk has begun, but I do not have the kind of lead I wanted. I spent two weeks feeling sick, had to do lots of prep for the two shows, plus the pages keep getting more and more complex, so I'm not sure I'll be able to hold onto the current schedule. Still, I think the comic looks better than ever, so hopefully it's worth it.

I've got some commissions to do too, I've just scheduled July's figure drawing meetup, and for the past few weeks I've been studying my copy of Anatomy for the Artist, trying to learn more about the skeletal and muscular systems to improve my understanding of my favorite subject matter. If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you've probably seen the sketchbook pages I've been posting in my stories. It's kicking my ass, it feels like a real workout, and I'm enjoying it.

There may be some other shows this year, but I don't know yet. We'll see. Until then, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. You do the same and take care, okay?

Hello. Things have been bumpy. Not everything, just a few things.

I've pretty much only been working on Slimepunk lately. We're more than halfway through issue four right now, unless you're subscribed to one of the higher tiers on my Patreon, where I posted the entire finished issue just last week, along with a process post this week for one of its pages. I've got some new prints coming soon for it plus some other things. I'll probably do what I did last time and take a break once issue 4 ends, especially since I've not really started on issue 5 yet, oops.

There's also the Faerie Ishee minicomic, being serialized exclusively on Patreon for now. It's, visually, a bit different from Slimepunk because I wanted to aim for a more illustrative feel with the backgrounds. I did make the first page free, so here it is:
I'm halfway through serializing it, too. I finished drawing the final page of it the other day, and I'm trying to finish coloring and lettering it this week so I can send it off to print ASAP. All Patreon subscribers will get a free PDF when it's done and people at the $10 level or higher will get a free physical copy mailed to them!

Oh, I should make some Faerie Ishee buttons, too.

I'm trying to hammer these things out quickly because next month will be kinda busy. I'm signed up for two shows at the end of June: on the 22nd I'll be a guest at LibCon III, hosted by the Johnson City Public Library! The show has a cosmic sci-fi theme, and that morning I'll be giving a talk on Slimepunk, focused on my worldbuilding process, inspiration, generating ideas, that sort of thing. And June 29th and 30th will be Rob-Con!

There was a third show the week before those, but I just backed out of it last night. It's never an easy decision to make, but a certain requirement for the show was just too difficult for me to pull off and it was causing me a lot of stress. I still feel pretty shaky about it, but I'm sure it'll be good for me in the long run.

It also means planning figure drawing for next month will be a little easier too. I'm excited for our May meet-up this weekend, though it feels like this year I've just kinda been on autopilot and not really pushing myself much. I feel dopey plugging my Patreon again, but there's a subscription tier where you get to see me post all of my drawings from each session with random commentary, if that interests you. That's kinda why that particular portfolio hasn't been updated at all lately.

Oh, I did find time to do another Social Justice Kaiju. This time it's Space Godzilla:

It felt particularly relevant and important for me to do this because this year I really have been exploring my more feminine side and trying to break away from traditional, masculine standards. I've taken up sewing, cooking more, and most recently have started wearing dresses. It's fun and cool and it feels good to be doing these things, although there are some days where I don't feel like I have as solid a grasp on myself as I used to. Going out in public has taken on an extra level of anxiety, too, which was to be expected. I'm figuring it out, though, and I'll hopefully feel a lot more stable about it before the end of the year.

I think that's it. Take care of yourselves, do what's best for you, and just keep at it.

Hey folks! Lots going on, so I'll try to be quick.

First and foremost: I'M ON PATREON NOW! I just launched it on Monday, with 4 reward tiers available, all affordable. My first public post on there laying out some plans I have in mind (including serialization of the Faerie Ishee minicomic) can be read here. Please consider signing up for it, or spread the word! I think it'll be fun.

I've been thinking about making one since...probably 2016 or 2017, and even had it on my list of goals for last year. I kept getting cold feet because I couldn't think of what kind of rewards to offer and also figured nobody would support it. That's still fully possible, but at this point I was tired of being paralyzed with worry. Whatever happens, happens.

(There is also still my Ko-Fi page if you just wanna throw a few bucks my way, which is also much appreciated)

That and Slimepunk things are really all I've been working on lately. Issue 3 ended earlier this month, and I've been on a break from posting in order to try to build up a decent lead once more. Issue 4 will start next month! The cover goes up next week! Excitement!

I'm a little bummed that the comic workshop I was going to teach at the William King Museum a couple weeks back got canceled, but not enough people signed up for it. We're going to try again in September, I think. I had made three little example minicomics for it, which I've since made copies of and will be trying to sell at upcoming shows and things. The prep work and notes I made were super useful for figuring out how to talk about comics and my process, so it still feels like it was a good use of my time.

I haven't really felt like doing much other than comic work lately, but I feel that's about to change soon. I haven't painted lately and I'm getting the itch to return to that, plus I'm wanting to play around more with different media when Defining Bodies meets up. We got together Sunday and I tried pastels for the first time since college. The results...aren't too great.

(oh yeah, one of the reward tiers for my Patreon lets you see EVERYTHING I draw at our get-togethers, the good and the bad, along with a lot of rambling about figure drawing, so if that's something you're interested in, go sign up for the Figure Drawing Fan tier!)

If nothing else, I need to play with other things in order to keep burnout at bay. Buying new vinyl kaiju toys on eBay has certainly helped:

Those were done entirely in Clip Studio Paint, as I need to practice more with digital drawing. I'm getting better at it, I think. The Hedorah in particular will be released as a new print at an upcoming show!

I think that's where everything stands for right now. I've been able to keep a good flow going, chipping away at things every day, but I just know that won't last. It never does. I've been knocked off my feet by so many things this year, and I know it'll happen again. The important thing is getting back up and back at it more quickly than I have been. I've got a checklist now, a routine of sorts, things to do and motions to go through every day no matter what happens, and sticking to it has helped immensely.

We'll see if I can hold my form. You hold yours, alright? Take care.

We're just over a month into 2019 and things haven't quite let up. I'm getting things done, at least.

I was going to write about how tired I am, the way the holidays drained me and how every time I've had a chance to recover something else has come up, including some of the worst news of my life, new aches and pains in my body, and other stresses. How I've spent most of this year so far just being Not Okay, but...eh, no point. Everyone's going through stuff, right? If you know me well, you know what's going on, and we'll leave it at that. I don't have time for pity parties.

Every year I set a bunch of goals to try and achieve. Last year I wanted my own solo art show, and I somehow landed three. I wanted to move out of my apartment, and I wound up with a brand new house. I wanted new glasses, so I got an eye exam. I'm not quite so ambitious this year, but progress is already being made towards the things I'd like to accomplish this year.

I decided that, as far as paintings and figure drawing go, I need to do more portraits and focus on faces, because there's a distinct lack of them in my work from the past two years. I started, of course, with myself, for a self portrait contest that my girlfriend's mom sent me:

Followed shortly after by this portrait of my good friend and art sibling Maud:

I've got at least two more lined up to paint, one of which I'll be starting on this week.

I'm keeping track of how much I spend on a weekly and monthly basis to see if doing so will help me scrutinize my habits a little more closely. I'm doing good so far on the keeping up part! It's the spending part that was a little out of hand in January. Gonna have to dial some things back this month for sure. It's definitely a good thing to be mindful of.

One of my more unusual goals I guess was to be photographed nude by someone who knows what they're doing. It hasn't happened quite how I expected to, but I did have a friend and FRAG member take pics of me as I modeled for a figure drawing night last month, and the results are quite lovely. Turns out I look really good wearing thigh high stockings, who knew? You can read about that (NSFW) experience over on Reflected Gaze.

A goal I kind of failed on last year was to cook more, and to try new things too. I'm a little more determined this year, but off to a slow start: I've cooked for my figure drawing group once, and tried my hand at making stuffed baby bella mushrooms and chicken enchiladas, both of which were a success. The quesadilla I tried to make last night with the leftover chicken? Not so much. We've been watching Master Chef lately too, which has been inspirational.

I got back into exercising 5 or 6 times a week shortly before Christmas, but I've done some things wrong and pushed myself too hard, so I've slowed down and focused more on doing yoga and finding ways to relieve the various pains I'm dealing with. Still beats being lethargic, at least.

It's all slow progress, but it's progress nevertheless.

There are other goals that I'm working towards: some kind of social nudist stuff with friends, learning to be more emotionally expressive in person towards people (especially family members), maybe trying to buy a long desired kaiju toy if I can spare the money, and doing more to push my work.

I deleted my old Big Cartel page that only one or two people ever bought from and switched over completely to Gumroad. On top of digital versions of most of the comics I've done, you can also get physical comics and Social Justice Kaiju button and sticker sets! I'm hoping to expand it even more soon! I still contemplate Patreon, but keep seeing more and more lousy news surrounding it and wonder if I wouldn't be better off doing something else.

Cosmic Adventurer Slimepunk is still updating every Tuesday and Thursday, to the delight of at least one person who's reading it. I haven't figured out how to get the word out to more people on this thing. What should I be doing to promote it? Are there press people I can reach out to? Should I (gulp) pay to advertise it somewhere? I have no idea! Add to it that I've fallen behind schedule once again thanks to the holidays and terrible news, and it's clear I'm not sure what the heck I'm doing.

But I'm doing it all the same. There will be a Faerie Ishee minicomic later this year too, just so you know.

As far as shows go, I won't be seeking out as much this year. There are a few people I'd like to talk to about having solo gallery shows with, but haven't really put in any work towards that yet. The Bristol Bizarre will be returning, and I'm excited to be a part of it. I'll try to be involved with whatever FRAG does, and I should be doing a couple local cons as usual, but I'm not going out of my way to pay and do any bigger shows.

OH! I'm teaching a comic illustration class next month at the William King Museum! I'll be showing people how to make little folded minicomics on a single sheet of paper! It's going to be cool, you should sign up for it.

So yeah! Lots to look forward to! Just gotta keep at it, right? Right.

The year is at an end. It feels like it's gone on forever.

Over the course of 2018, I attended and sold my work at twelve different events. Seven were conventions, three were FRAG shows, and two were receptions for my own art. I had three solo art shows too, and my figure drawing group Defining Bodies met up eleven times altogether, including our public event at Bloom Cafe. I hosted seven of those meetups in my own home.

I did 34 paintings this year, more than half of which were done for those art shows. Over the course of those eleven Defining Bodies meetups plus one FRAG get-together, I did well over 130 figure drawings. I also got back to work on Cosmic Adventurer Slimepunk and did my minicomic zine How I Feel Human. Between those two, I've drawn 42 comic pages this year.

I finished and released the first issue of Slimepunk in July. I made and released How I Feel Human in August, I think, and sold every copy I printed. I finally sold out of my remaining copies of Other Sleep and the Nation Mutation Coloring Zine, and nearly sold out of Debris Field. I debuted a bunch of new prints from the paintings I'd done, which sadly weren't too successful. I started making and selling buttons, with the social justice kaiju being the big hit there, along with the stickers I started selling.

Also, the Kickstarter for mine and Danny Djeljosevic's comic BattleArc 2088 was a real success, making almost twice the amount of our modest goal. I just got my own copies of the book in the mail over the weekend, which I'll start selling soon! It was a long time coming, and I'm so happy it's out in the world now.

Amidst all of this, I finally got new glasses and my dad built me a brand new house which my girlfriend and I moved into at the end of August, among other, smaller milestones with my life.

I'm exhausted. It was a pretty big year, all things considered, but it still doesn't feel like much here at the end. Feels like I'm still just spinning my wheels. I couldn't have done much more, but I feel like I could've done better, you know? Looking at how I did at those twelve shows, only two or three really stick out as hugely successful while the others were kind of middling, and I want to change things up a bit to try and sell more in the future.

Plans are already underway for next year, though. Slimepunk will keep rolling along, I hope, and I have some spin-off things in mind to go with it like a Faerie Ishee minicomic and maybe a coloring book. I'm still going to try to do fine art, though not quite as much as this year, and in a different direction too. I hope to keep Defining Bodies moving as well, and need to try to plan our next meet-up soon. I want to sell more online, and do more commissions and professional work for people. I'll be teaching a comic workshop at the William King Museum in March, and presenting at the Johnson City Public Library's LibCon in June. I'm not so sure about other shows yet, but I'll always try to be involved with anything FRAG does, of course. They're currently plotting a potential spring show that sounds like it'll be wild fun.

That's already quite a bit to be excited about. So long as I keep working and don't idle, things should be okay. It's been a long, rough year, but we made it to the end, so surely we can make it through the next one as well, right?