Finished projects

So I have finished my work on the new anthology, as far as I know anyway. These last set of pages are now inked and colored. I put a lot of love and effort into them and tried to make them look as good as I possibly could.

With this project put to bed, I now have to think of what is next. To some degree I want to get back to more writing. I haven't published an article with helium in some time. Also there is a long list of illustration ideas that need to be looked into. There is also the matter for doing a promotional mailing which has been put off for too long.

Today specifically, I want to get to my NY Times round up, as well as maybe a food blog post. I have a bunch of content that I could put up, and I want to get to it before I forget anything.

Anyway there is always more to do.

Inking Progress

So despite the snow, I was able to get several things done as well as shoveling the driveway. I was able to finish inking this set of pages. Now I can make some copies and do some color studies. Color studies are almost, if not more, important then ink studies. I feel the color has some many more options, and thus opportunities, to screw up. Much more then ink could provide.

Tonight, I have work at Dowling. I have a good list of things that need doing in the studio, which i will get cracking on as soon as I walk in the door.

Busy, busy busy...need a couple of more hours in the day.

Another snow day?

Despite the snow today, I still got up and got to work before the sun. Though if you look outside, you really can't tell that the sun came out. AS Louis Black has said, 'It just gets greyer and greyer and then one day you wake up and its the greyest day you've ever seen, and then the next day its even greyer!"

Aside from the though the snow isn't as heavy as last week, so I actually hope to get somethings done today. Most of the inking is done on these next pages, and while I've been inking I've been thinking of how to color it. My plan, as with the inking, is to keep and even enhance the abstract style of the penciler. To push the loose simple style, so everything seems to work fluidly. Hopefully this will work well with the story and overall.

Once these pages are done I can focus on the list of illustrations ideas, that I made some times ago. Also I need to focus on setting up another mailing/promotion round.

Also on the horizon is some non-pronto inking. I am going to be working on an anthology book for CAG, The Comic Book Artists Group. They are a good group of writers and artists trying to promote and help up and coming creators.

So luckily things are getting checked off the list, albeit slowly.

Working on the weekend

As the title suggests I worked this weekend, though this is not news, I work every weekend. I worked all day on Sunday, and while doing so I got some inking done and then proceeded to continue inking later at home.

Things are moving along well with the pages and I hope to have them done by the middle of the week. Then I can send them to the penciler and he will add the text.

Aside from that though the weekend was pretty standard. Things are going well, not great, not terrible, but well.

Snow day

So today is a day off due to the snow. Dowling waited to the last minute to close, but close they did.

So what to do today...

Shovel will be high on the list I am guessing.

Also because of the weather I won't be catching the same amount of extra work I thought I would be getting at the gym.

Oh well, the best laid plans of mice and men often go agile.

Still there is always something to do, and I have plenty of projects both professional and personal to work on.

Day off tomorrow?

Now with the never ending news coverage of this storm coming our way tomorrow there is the possibility of me having a day off. Supposedly the storm should start tonight at 11 or midnight and keep going until 6pm. I start work at 5:30, so there is a possibility that the college will close and I won't have work.

As nice it would be to have a day off, it will also cost me in terms of not working. If I don't work I don't get paid and thus is the quandary of my life as I have designed it, thus far.

If I do have the day off tomorrow, it will balance out as I was on schedule to working around 50 hours this week, catching extra shifts at the gym. So instead of 50 hours it might be more then 45, which is still over full time and more money in the next round of paychecks, so that is always nice.

the one thing that I plan on doing with the extra free time, as well as extra work time is to wrap up my inking projects. I have read the story of this second group of pages and studied the pages and made my game plan. Tonight I plan on doing some ink tests and then some color tests, to create the necessary road map. I am pretty confidant that by the end of the week/next Monday I should have this project completed.

So things are moving along at a good pace. I still need to work on my balancing act of work/art/writing/promoting. Sometimes it seems like I have it just right, but then I start working on this inking projects and things get skewed, and I want to be able to work on special projects and still have things running along smoothly. I suppose it is the perfectionist in me.

Clearing the way and a light at the end of the tunnel

Last week I didn't really make any postings on this blog. I just didn't have the time. I was finally putting to bed the 1st set of pages that I was inking for the new Pronto Comics Anthology which should be coming out in March/April.

Now that that 1st set of pages has been completed I can move onto the second set form another artist. These pages I will not only ink, but also color them as well. It should be a fun process though, as this penciler has a completely different style from the last and will allow me more freedom in how I treat the pages.

When these pages are finished things should be pretty free for me again. I should be able to move onto my own projects and get back to a regular writing schedule as well.

Something else that is now over is my practice and preparations for a non-art related event that happened on Friday. I enjoyed preparing for this event, but it did take up a lot of my time and to devote myself to it I had to put somethings on the back burner. Now that my schedule is a bit freer everything should be just that little bit easier to accomplish.

Busy weekend

This was another busy weekend. I worked my regular two jobs as well as working on projects.

On Saturday I had work at Dowling and there was much to be done: organizing the studio, cleaning and mixing glazes. I was busy all day.

Later that night I went home and worked on the pages for the new anthology. Right now I am focusing on the backgrounds. One panel was an entire establishing shot, possibly one of the most complicates panels in all the pages I have. It took me quite sometime, but the panel looks good, as does the rest of the page.

Sunday I opened the gym and then came home at noon. After eating, I went to work on a laundry list of things that needed doing. First was cleaning my studio area, sometimes too much stuff piles up and it needs to be addressed. Then I organized my files into multiple categories such as alcohol, food, finance and so on. Once things we finally in their place, I started working on a long overdue food blog. I then moved onto the weekly Times roundup. The day finished up with me working on a sketch for a logo design for a company that contacted me last week.

All in all it was quite busy, unfortunately I wish I got more time on the inking.

Hopefully today I will get more time to work on them.