The Inbox Blues

I enjoy drawing, writing, coloring, and making coffee so much, that sometimes it’s very easy to just wait one more day to reply to e-mails….

And then, two weeks later, I’ve got a mountain of correspondence – thoughtful and brief inquiries that I’ve been blowing off for way too long.

Well, it’s time to get crackin’!

Which is why I’m getting distracted on my blog… Hello!

Liz’s e-mail responsibilities entail collecting, logging, and notating all of our order info. Interestingly, her duties always seem to done in a timely manner. Maybe I should clone her. Then again, another reason to…. Never mind, heh.

She probably shouldn’t be handling my workload right now anyways, seeing as she had a Tegu hanging off her finger earlier. Her skin’s pretty much intact, but that creature needs some more handling. Evil, evil, evil – pure evil, wrapped in a tubular form. I should let him run for public office… Ever since we put that Chinese dragon sculpture in his aquarium, he’s had such the ego.

Anyways – this is supposed to be some semblance of an update on stuff.

I’ve been getting Chapter 7 thumbnail layouts done – almost half the chapter is thumbnailed out now. Commissions are gearing up – fun! It’s been such a long time since I had commissions open online, I’m having a blast with all the different ideas. To keep some momentum on book work, I’m alternating. A few commissions done, then switching to a few more page layouts, and back again.

In the midst of this, my little Prelude backlog dried up, and I struck bottom. Had to jump on the next strip, but it’s drawn out and should be done about on time.

Website work has taken a back-burner to this other stuff, but I still want to get the new Vivid page up this week. That way, I can have somewhere to direct retailers and dealers for book sales and information.

In other news, I met with some library people this past week about doing a presentation at the local high school this fall. I’m really excited about that! I don’t know if I’m a fitting paragon for success or anything… Working a night-job while I pursue my aspirations. But, things are going rather well – and I am very happy! Hard to put a price on that. For my presentation, I want to incorporate a lot of video, visuals, and hopefully get my speech content to be entertaining. I don’t want to get up there and bore everyone to death – but hopefully if I’m engaging enough, my nifty little life lessons might sink in. I’m just looking forward to getting up in a public school and telling students they need to think for themselves and question things. Maybe the walls will ignite. Damnit, now my hopes are up.

Well, back to e-mails, and blocking out reminders of my neglected art accounts...

-David

V3 Sneak-Peek; Chapter 7 script & concept sketches.

Well, it’s been quite awhile without updates, but things are finally getting back up to speed! It’s been a full and diverting summer… Getting the Volume 2 print run in, packaged, and shipped out in April / May, prepping for the Anthrocon in June, and then finally getting married in late July – it feels like things have been happening almost non-stop! Even though work has been happening on Volume 3 for some time now, website revisions and redesigns have until recently been dominating the forefront of my attentions… Although as browsers of the site may have noticed, only a few of the pages are dolled up in the new style -the rest are still the original (craptastic) versions. I figured I needed to get some pages up, and move along. Besides the actual designs of the pages themselves, I have a lot of new content in mind that I would like to include - and if I try to create ‘THE PERFECT SITE’ in it’s entirety, it’ll turn into one of those never-ending self consuming projects. It’s going to be more of a process - a page here, a page there. Besides, I’m itching to burn some rubber on Volume 3 - oh, yes! This update is supposedly on that topic.

So far, it’s going great, and I’m getting very excited for the art to get rolling! Liz and I have written out the story for Chapters 7, 8, and 9. We’ve collaborated and finished the Chapter 7 script, with the exception of some mild fine-tuning. I’m hoping to get started on layouts in the next week or so, and get thumbnails put together. The story for this book is shaping up to be a blast - Bast, virtually a background character in Volume 2, finally comes into play. The chemistry of the main characters begins to progress, and the plot elements begin to move forward and broaden… Volume 1 was the introductory book, Volume 2 tied the characters together- but Volume 3 is really going to start moving the plotlines forward, begin unraveling a few things, and establish a broad base for the saga to build from. I’m having that annoying urge where I want to start spewing about all the story features that are exciting me, but then I would be spoiling the story…
I do have some concept art to share, though. In Volume 3 we get a glimpse of some other facets to Anduruna - the criminal street-clans that infest certain areas of the districts. Now, Mace & company aren’t exactly law abiding cherubs - But this group isn’t on the same endearing level of misbehavior. Think more along the lines of organized extortion, prostitution, substance abuse, etc… I'd like to think we'll be the first people to ever create a book that has a sea-horse whore. It's good to forge new ground.

These aren’t finalized sketches, just visual brainstorming…

That’s about it at present. I’ll be working on layouts for Ch.7 next, in between doing commissions and ordering more Volume 1&2 print runs. I’ve had commissions unavailable for so long, I really need to get moving for all the people that’ve been waiting… If you’re reading this currently, and you want a commission, keep an eye out on the website! They’re either already open, or will open in a matter of days.

-David

Awesome internet skills

Okay, websitey things are actually going together... Blog may actually be seen by humans soon. Testing stuff... Can I put picture images in my blogs? Let's see.

Huh! Lookit that. Now, I wonder - can I delete blog entries that are pointless? Liiike this one? ...If you're reading this, then I guess the answer was no! Or, yes, but I have a profound respect for posterity!