Thoughtful Dinosaur’s KickStarter Run is Done

thoughtful dinosaur comic panel promo

Oh. My. Holy. Banana. Pants.

Thoughtful Dinosaur has been fully funded for its first print run, and we got way over our initial goal! So now backers will get not only the books, but they’ll get KickStarter-exclusive postcards and buttons (or pins, if you prefer to call them that). Pretty. Darn. Sweet.

Further updates regarding Thoughtful Dinosaur will now be happening over on the KickStarter page, and the updates will be public – for the most part. Of course there will be backer-only updates with information that regards them in particular, but everything else will be available for the public. That means you’ll see updates on how the book printing is going, what the buttons will look like, and lots of other fun stuff!

Again, be sure to check the Thoughtful Dinosaur page for more updates.

In other news, I have a timeline in mind for leaving the day job (yes, I have one. If you want to know what’s going on, read this post). It’s not immediate, but the goal is to be able to leave there and get something new going by April 2017.

What’s the plan for work after the day job? Right now my mind’s on freelancing full-time, which means saving back money until I can make the leap, but nothing is set in stone (yet). I want to stay open for new possibilities!

One possibility is doing more gallery work – Patrons on Patreon know I’ve been working on some new illustrations and paintings, as they’ve been getting snapshots of my works-in-progress. There’s a local gallery looking for new artists, and the deadline to submit a portfolio is December… or possibly January. One of the members there told me it changes depending on the weather, literally.

PLUS! I’m getting The Case of the Wendigo ready for launch within the next two weeks! Stay tuned for more updates.

So there’s some excitement on the horizon! Be sure to check back again by Tuesday.

Thank you for reading.

You. Are. Awesome.

Making an Illustration in Colored Pencils

colored pencil art and illustration set up

This post is going to be informal because that’s how I do.

Normally I work with Copic markers (they have SO MANY colors available and are easy to blend, but are pricey like woah).

However, I’ve been itching to do some new illustrations in a technique I haven’t employed for a long while – colored pencils. It’s not that I don’t like colored pencils. It’s just I don’t get to use them everyday because my default when it comes to coloring anything is markers.

So I’m making what I call a “test illustration,” an illustration made just to practice with the tools. Kind of like my Native American woman, my last illustration I made with watercolors.

First thing I did was I drew – and shaded – the whole image with graphite pencils. Continue reading “Making an Illustration in Colored Pencils”

Native American Woman Painting from Start to (Almost) Finish

A little while back I did a watercolor painting of a Native American Woman in a headdress (I’ll get into why I made this painting in a minute). I started with the sketching process, which is documented in this time-lapse video. Then I moved on to the washes…

Native_American_Woman_Painting_1

I started with the background (always start with the background first). Then I waited for it to dry before moving on to the next color, the hair. Then I waited for THAT to dry before moving on to the next color… Continue reading “Native American Woman Painting from Start to (Almost) Finish”

Fan Art (Among Other News)

Not gonna’ lie, most of the art I’ve made this week has been… fanart. Of Dragonball Z.

You have no idea of how much love I have for this series. (I wrote a little about it in this post.)

metacooler from dragonball z return of cooler

I also wanted to try some things in Manga Studio because I haven’t fully experimented with it until recently.

Anyway, the characters I’ve been drawing actually come from the movies in the Dragonball Z series, especially Return of Cooler and Bojack Unbound. Continue reading “Fan Art (Among Other News)”