There is an explanation for why this happened that I think would take away from the glory. Or the horror, depending on how you interpret this. Anyway, I will just let it stand without editorial comment.

As for how it happened, I spent my coffee break very hastily putting this together in Illustrator and ImageReady in response to a brief exchange I had this morning on twitter. I make no apologies.

Prance, pretty unicorn. Prance the day away!

Sat down after dinner tonight with no real plan, so I opened up a blank Photoshop file and started scribbling. I thought I was drawing a bird until I started seeing the hat. I’m looking for a hat kind of out of season- it’s wool-ish and kind of like a pageboy cap only maybe a little baggier, but every time I find such a cap in a catalogue it’s Just Not Right. This happens to me a lot with certain items like coats or bags; I’ll get it in my head that I want such a thing, and proceed to quest after the One. The Hat to End all Hats.

Just a quickie today- something to prove I’m alive and working on stuff other than just SnoogleZoo (which is going pretty well, by the way. Have you had a look lately?) I got a haircut, so that coupled with the new (non-purple) uke I got for my birthday, I decided it was time to draw up a new profile picture for Facebook, and show that off here.

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I’ve been filling up plenty of pages in my regular sketchbook, as well as this other grid-lined notebook I’m using for journal-comicking. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to post the gridline comics- I kind of like having one project that’s just for me; it frees me up and lets me explore in a way that the imaginary audience looking over my shoulder might not be able to appreciate. Some of it is kind of dumb, or too private for the internets, or too  sloppy to publish. But I’m having fun with it, and I suppose some (actually readable) images from there might end up on here.

Fun Fact: I am using the same ink-and-brush combo to ink my comics as I am to paint my birds. If anybody tries to tell me that comics aren’t hard, I have a portfolio full of wobbly-lined comic pages and sharply detailed birds that prove otherwise.

I’m lending Scruffy MacRuffin my birds for his field notebooks, so I thought I’d include a closeup of that panel here. Anyway, new page is up, and it’s glorious! Why not go check it out?

I made my little owl  buddy out of polymer clay today. He’s tilted at an such an angle that he’s looking right up at me when perched on my tilted drawing board.

I also did a bunch of drawing for SnoogleZoo today.  I have a one-off, and part of a longer story arc in development, and I just need to get them out on paper. It’s hard starting over, but I’ve missed those little guys and I only ever stopped because I set the bar a little too high to begin with. So I’m taking more of a quality-over-quantity approach this time, which means I probably won’t manage a regular update schedule for a while, but at least each strip will be something I can be proud of. I’m working on drawing everybody consistently, and trying out a couple of different ways of inking- I think it’d be neat to ink SnoogleZoo with a brush because it seems like all the fur on the characters would work well with a fluid line, but then there are small details like the little round eyes that I’m worried I won’t be able to pull off with a brush. Plus, technical pens are just so darn comfortable. But really, how am I supposed to get comfortable with a new tool without using it?

I have to be careful about letting all this noodling get in the way of my actually moving forward with the project. I can keep practicing forever and never get a strip together If I’m not careful. So I’m aiming to at least start posting little paintings, if not a proper strip, by May 3rd. Yep, that’s  a week from tomorrow! I’m going to be pretty busy this week making that happen.