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.

Tags: comics, doodles, journal comic, ukulele

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?

Tags: comic, comics, snooglezoo

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.

Tags: art, comics, doodles, drawing, owls, polymer clay, snooglezoo, works in progress

Sorry, Ma. Still in a bad mood. Actually, it’s a whole new bad mood.

It must be the beginning of Fourth Quarter- the weather has turned cold and everybody and their grand-pappy wants a new commercial RIGHT NOW OMG in time for the Christmas rush. I’m busy, and cold, and grumpy. Happens every year.

Tags: comics, journal comic, monsters, work

I have been daydreaming and doodling a lot because it frees me up in a way that “sitting down to Draw” does not. I can sit and stare at a blank page for hours and get nowhere, or I can make my pen move and come up with a page full of stuff like this. The choice is obvious.

I can always extract stuff from these pages full of doodles and make them into something finished later. But right now the key to staying in the habit of drawing seems to be to keep the pressure off. So I haven’t been making comics, and I haven’t been adding designs to my Zazzle shop, but I have been filling up my sketchbook with pages and pages of stuff!

I made the drawing of myself, and then turned the book 90 degrees and did the rest. At first I wanted to present the page oriented the way most of the drawings were oriented, but it started to seem kind of self-portrait-like the more I looked at it with me oriented properly. Plus it fits my blog design (which I have decided I hate and will be changing again soon) better.

Tags: being blocked, comics, doodles, drawing