Fatti Maschi Parole Femmine

2012 Art Summary! Some months were far more productive than others (ugh, June). And since taking my Digital Painting class I think I’ve definitely improved on that front. Though now I worry that my traditional drawing skills will slip away from me. Forever anxious.

Looks like about halfway through the year, Meristem related artwork took a nose dive down :-(. But seeing how much art and time I had devoted to it also reinvigorates me to carry on with it as well. I know I’ve said that the reboot is coming, and it still is! But because it means quite a bit to me, I want to make sure its in tip-top shape before letting it out into the wilds of the internet. This sort of “nursing” sentiment is a dangerous path to go down, I know, but at the same time I’ve also experienced the “drowning” sensation of diving in too far, too soon. And looking back on some old Meristem work, I really feel like the quality suffered greatly due to lack of preparedness. So I want to do it right this time. Thanks for your patience :-).

A Meristem County Update:

Yikes! Its been awhile since I’ve updated this blog with some art of my own. Sorry for the radio silence guys. Since Small Press Expo ended, several pressing things in my personal life demanded most of my attention, the biggest was my mother getting really sick for an extended period of time. A lot of my energy spent between work was to visit her, help her run errands, make phone calls, and doctor’s appointments. She’s finally on the upward curve of getting better and ready to go back to work again though! What this means though, is I haven’t been able to devote as much time as I wanted to personal artwork, and Meristem County.

However, the reboot is still happening! But as is pretty much obvious, my original deadline of “sometime in September” has passed, and the site is clearly not ready. Within this week however, I’m going to take down the site as it is and put up a completely new layout with a countdown to the legit restart. Thanks for being patient!

As I was working on retooling the plot and presentation aspects of Meristem, I’ve also found that I’d like to redesign some of the characters themselves. Above is a sketch of a slightly modified Pomme, with a slightly more somber color scheme. I plan to put up more sketches of other characters soon! 

Meristem County is going to take a short break til September. This is for several reasons. 

Recently I’ve felt that the way I’m presenting the story and characters of Meristem simply feels insufficient. That gnawing feeling has really staggered my confidence in how to proceed with the comic. Rest assured, I’m still committed to proceeding to the end, but the question that I’m struggling with is still “How?” Or rather “How can I do this so that I won’t feel like taking it all apart and starting from scratch again?” A part of that I think rises from one, my fickleness, and two maybe starting down the hill before I’ve got both ski’s strapped in. So I’d like to take a little bit of time to go back to the drawing board, figure out the story and character execution, and the overall style of the comic, before digging myself in deeper. The website of Meristem is also due for an overhaul, so hopefully if all goes to plan, the website redesign will coincide with a better tune-up for the comic in general, and with that readjustment, I hope to be able to follow a more reasonable update schedule as well.

My second major reason for taking this break is that its recently dawned on me that it has been a little over a year since I’ve graduated from college. In that time, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes in life and career, and I’d like to think I’ve learned from it. While I’m in a better place now than I was this time last year, I still feel like I could be doing more for myself. So its time to step into gear. For a long time I haven’t been able to decide upon what I really want to commit myself to in terms of career, something that plagued my collegiate academic directives too, whether I want to seriously do comics, illustration, animation, video games, or teach. And while I still loathe to give up on any of those interests over another, I’ve realized that I should at least find one of those things to set in stone as “THE” day job, so that I’d have to worry less about how to pay next month’s rent and more about which weekend to make time for the other stuff. Therefore, I’d like to take this time to get a portfolio for various disciplines ready, as well as begin studying for my PRAXIS exams and hit as many applications as hard as I can at once. Then we’ll see which opportunities open up for me and I’ll decide on the next step then. It seems a bit like I’m rolling 20-sided dies to determine my next career move in life, and that’s pretty much true, but I’m tired of angsting over what may or may not be my “true passion”, and to just go for them all and see what happens. Whichever situation I get accepted into however, I’ll always come back to my own story to tell and my own characters to play. Thanks for understanding.

However, I will still continue to update my work to this tumblr! So please follow along as we continue our art adventures together :-P. 

Meristem County updated!!! I meant to put this up yesterday, but I was simply too exhausted from Otakon. I am trying a slightly altered style with this page though. Please check it out! I’m looking forward to getting this chapter moving at a more regular pace.

Speaking of Otakon (since I clearly haven’t mentioned it AT ALL)…

I got Pomme commissioned by cubewatermelon of Kiwi Blitz fame! I was super excited to get to meet her, as I’m a big fan of her comic, and her rendition of Pomme is just so cute!

“Succession (The Great Grey)”, graphite, charcoal, watercolor, and Photoshop.

First of my “Paradigm Athena” series of illustrations depicting women warriors, scholars, or explorers with species of owls. 

I’m cramming like crazy trying to finish things up in time for Otakon this weekend! Tina (tealeaves9) and I will be at table K11 and I’ll put up a map later. I’ll have prints of the above illustration, plus its two sister images, as well as comics, and FANSTUFFs (given I finish everything before Thursday!). I’ll also be doing postcard commissions, and as I finish more things, I’ll put more previews up on tumblr. Some fandoms I’ll have things for MAY include:

-Legend of Korra
-Motorcity
-Avengers
-Adventure Time
-Gravity Falls
-Ghibli
-Utena
-Princess Tutu (is there even a fandom for this? I feel like its so obscure, but its my FAV.) 

Don’t forget you can also pick up a free Meristem postcard, if you swing by! Speaking of which…I AM SUPER SORRY Meristem is so late this week! Otakon preparations, plus classes and the teaching job combined has consumed my life of late, but there will be a new page up this Sunday after Otakon ends. If you happen to come by our Artist Alley table, you may even see a glimpse of it in progress!

Hey! Meristem County Updated!!! Please go check it out.

Ta-dah! Colors! I’m pretty happy with this, its probably the best digital coloring job I’ve ever done. I’m usually super bad at it *cries*.

Again, these are going to be FREE postcards at Otakon. If you’re interested, now is a good time to get caught up on the story, read the webcomic here. And if you like it, please tell your friends!

WIP. Inks for a promo postcard that I’m going to hand out for Meristem County at Otakon this year! Be sure to stop by the Artist Alley if you’re going, this will be the first time I’ll have fan-art-y things on top of my original comics and illustrations for sale at a con!

Once more a Meristem “Update”. I’ve received my scanner recently, but I’m having issues getting it to work with my computer, even though the product info says it is compatible with Mac OS X??? However, I anticipate that once I get this figured out, the comic will be back on track! The eta for the next Meristem comic will be next Sunday, July 8th! In the mean time, why not click on the pic to go to the site and get caught up from the beginning :-P?

Thunderstorms are taking their stuff out on us around here, so here’s an early update of a quick sketch portrait of Pomme in her new outfit. I based it off of “Madeline”! Gotta go, before electricity gets knocked out again, toodles!

Not a comic page update at Meristem today, because I’ve finally ordered a scanner and I’m waiting it to get here! I decided to hold off today’s comic because I’m through with wasting money to suffer Fedex-Kinko’s horrible scan quality. I’m going to wait for the scanner to arrive, then re-scan the past few pages so that they’re all up to par. That means no comic until the scanner gets here (which SHOULD be by next update, but you never know). In case the scanner doesn’t get here in time, I’ll be uploading some Meristem character sketches. So please be patient with me, and check back if you’re interested in the sketches.

This one is of one of the new characters this chapter, whose name will be revealed soon! I painted him through the Procreate app on my iPad. Compared to brushes, this app is A LOT more fluid and multifunctional. It also exports in PSD format with all the layers non-compressed! I’m very impressed by it!