Pretty Serious-ly Awesome!

I got a little surprise package in the mail a few days ago.

Samples from the Pretty Serious line!  Whoo!

Thank goodness she sent 5 colour of polish (and one very tasty smelling tube or lip gloss!) so I could try out a colour on each nail.  From thumb to pinky the colours are Gargoyle Ganache, Mummy Mush, Into Dreams, Morning Java and Tux.

Since I was going to a Halloween party a 2 days later I thought the black Tux colour would look pretty awesome.  It's black with a shimmer of blue in it.  Classy!

Thanks to Karen at Pretty Serious for the treats!

Pretty Serious

For almost a year now I've been working with this fantastic entrepreneur who started her own cosmetic company called Pretty Serious, in Australia.  It all began by doing a header for her B movie review blog, B Movie Chicks, which then lead to me doing pinups for her different lines of products.

Creating her logo design is what lead to the girl painting her nails that I've been using on my blog and website.  I also helped design the packaging for the products.

Hello World!

This one is based on computer lingo.  I've always been an Apple girl, so I've never witnessed a Blue Screen of Death but I'm sure the colour is nicer than the situation.  See the colours HERE.

In The Night

This on is based on an old SNES game, which I never played, but I recognized the character design.  See the line HERE.

Monster Mash

Ok, this one I really enjoyed doing.  Anything kind of monster related and my eyes and ears perk up.  You can probably guess who each of the little, soon to be blended, monsters are based on.  See the colours HERE.

Emma Louise

Last and more definitely not least is the charity driven colour.  To celebrate a friend's birthday, she got to design her own colour with the profits of the sale of this colour going to her favourite charity.  It's a limited edition too!  Read more about it HERE.

It's been a pleasure working with Pretty Serious these past few months.  Me being in Canada and her being in Australia hasn't hampered our work.  It just bends my mind a bit thinking she's replying to my emails from the future because of the time difference.

FanExpo 2012 Wrap-up

So this sketch pretty much represents my feeling for the FanExpo.  Me being the girl, my art being the cat.  It was a bit of a bust.  Don't get me wrong, there were thousands of people walking around, there were some pretty big corporate displays like Lego, Marvel and Ubisoft with displays and demos and freebees, there were some pretty amazing A-list celebrities, but all of that didn't add up to a great weekend for us in Artist Alley.

The organizers moved Artist Alley from one long wall along the back of the room to a shorter wall along the side of the room.  We were 3 rows from the farthest corner of the room.  The main feeling was that once people started at the opposite end of the Artist Alley, got to the half way point, they either got tired or ran out of money so they turned around and didn't make it to the final few rows where we were.  We were also quite close to the CTV area (a TV station here in Canada) so I think people saw that and figured 'Boring, I'm here for comics not TV' and turned around.  We were also close to one of two giant TOWER OF T-SHIRTS! towers so people saw that and probably figured they'd seen one, they don't need to see another.

So overall it just wasn't as successful as last year's FanExpo.  I would like to thank those who did stop buy to chat or buy, especially those of you who remembered us from past years and always seem to buy something new from us.  Thank you!  You made my weekend.

Something else I think messed me up was autograph hunting.  I haven't been the one who goes out for autographs from the celebs, I sit back and watch the table while Andrew does that.  There's never been anyone who I just really, really wanted to meet.  Until this year.  Yes, I scraped up the courage from somewhere and got Alan Tudyk's autograph on my Tucker and Dale image.

I was taking a walk and happened to see he was there a day early so I thought better do it now before I lose sleep with anxiety and anticipation.  So I got in line and the volunteer announces that the line is now closed.  I was the last one.  What?!  So I joke to the guy in front of me, 'Does that mean I'll be the one he remembers out of everyone today?'  And he says 'Yeah, when he's lying in bed tonight he'll be thinking of you.'  WHAT?!  And the volunteer jokes that I should toss my hair and be all flirty.  Double what?!  Like I needed all of that to make me any more nervous.  But he was very kind, shook my hand, seemed to be amused by my piece (I gave him one with my autograph on it :P) and signed it as well as the photo that I got for the price of the autograph.  As I walked away I thanked him for not cancelling to which he smiled and nodded a 'You're welcome' kind of thing.

I also got Norma Reedus and Jon Bernthal (from The Walking Dead) autographs for my Mom since she's a huge fan of the show.  That should be a fun addition to her birthday presents!  Sarah Wayne Callies who plays Lori just showed up out of the blue at Norman's table while I was lining up but I didn't have enough money on my for her's too.  Talk about awkward.  She's twiddling her pen as I'm standing there waiting for Norman, NOT getting her autograph.  But she did compliment me on my owl t-shirt.  

So all that autograph stuff had me on edge for three days.  Right now I'm suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.  I keep flashing back to how much of an idiot I may or may not have made of myself.  I haven't even looked at the few photos I got of me and them since they were taken.

So that's sort of it in a nutshell.  We hung out with some convention friends (Ghoul Friday and Mummy's Little Monster, I'm looking at you!) I bought some great new art to freshen up our art wall.  I'm not quite inspired to jump back into my own art right now but I'll give it some time.

I have a lot of merch left over so I'm planning on opening at etsy.com store.  I figured people might trust that more than just buying directly from me.  Worth a shot I guess.  I also might try the tumblr thing and start one of those.  Like I don't have enough places to update when I have something to update with, but what's one more, eh?

Flashback

So looking for inspiration for something to draw, I thought I'd try revisiting some of my previous work.  I did that a while ago with some old pinups (my pirate, cupid, mad scientist, spacegirl) and it worked out well so here's my revisiting, gulp, Lucha Babes.  Yikes!  That was 2004!  8 years ago, 8 YEARS AGO, when I wrote, drew, inked, lettered and published my own comic book.  Every one was doin' it so I wanted to see what the big deal was.  What a crazy kid I was!  Seriously, what was I thinking?  There was SO much work involved.  It really gave me a huge new respect for those artist who go it alone.  Good on ya!

Then.  Hand inked!  By hand!  With real ink!

Now

I still have a soft spot in my gut for my drawings, dated as they are.  It was actually pretty hard to capture what I remember being so easy to draw back then.  And to think I had 8 masked female characters!  I'm please how Desnuda's (I remembered her name!) sketch turned out so I might colour her in sometime when I'm bored.

FanExpo 2012

I'm a-goin'!  I'll be sharing a table with Andrew of Notchordamnatchoz fame.  They're pretty on the ball this year as we already know where our table is.  I'd post it but I'm lazy right now with a head cold and don't feel like searching for it.  I'll update later.  We've got a few months to go.

I still have lots of prints to sell from last year.  I'm thinking of reprinting some of the ones I sold out of, like my Tattooed Lady and Stare.  I'm also putting together an art book (mainly for myself, details TBA) so I'm excited to get that done.  Plus buttons, buttons, buttons!  Cheapest (in price, not quality) buttons in the room!

I've got a few months of spring and summer to produce some new art for the show and the book.  Not feeling very creative that way right now but things change so fast, you just never know what might come into my mind!

More Wrestling

Yeah, yeah, more wrestling.  We recently went our first live WWE event (you can read more here) and had a great time!  He wrestled a broom.  So now I'm a fan of Dolph Ziggler.  Couldn't resist doing a pin-up of him since I bought his pink t-shirt.  So there.

I'll see myself out.

Fight!

Remember the old Mighty Men and Monster Maker toy from when you were a kid?  Yeah, me neither.  But Andrew from Notchordamnatchoz remembers it, he HAS one and he's started a fighting competition using it!  I've made my first attempt at recreating the first Mighty Monster.  Check it out at the Championship League of Champions blog.

Every two weeks there'll be a new monster created and anyone who wants to can create their own version of that monster.  It's just starting out so the more monsters, the better!  

Livestock

This past Saturday I went to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair armed with a small sketchbook, a grey marker and a black pen.  It's been about a year since I tried drawing anything from life like this.  You always see art students there with their sketchbooks and I'm a little envious of them since they're drawing all day, every day while they're in school so they're already in the zone.  It took me a while to warm up but I'm happy with what I did.  I wanted to just relax and draw gesturally.


It's quite a spectacle being around so many large animals!  I was little freaked out being so close to such HUGE cows, like they're right THERE, no fencing.  Not like I was worried about being attacked by one but they're so BIG and HEAVY it's quite a sight when they suddenly decide to lay down or stand up.  Besides the cows there were the usual mix of sheep, goats, pigs and horses.  We missed the horses, again, this year since they're kept in a separate building and we always forget about them until we've already left.

It's also pretty neat seeing a whole industry that I know nothing about.  In the Exhibitors area there are a few hundred stalls selling horse and farm paraphernalia.  Saddles, crops, machinery, jumping posts.  I don't even know what half the stuff is called or what it's for.  There's also people selling local food and merchandise.  It's like a comic con for horsey people.

Notchordamnatchoz: SHIRTPUNCH!

Go on, it's his birthday today. Make him happy by buying one of this shirts!  The real teen-wolf himself, Michael J. Fox tweeted about it! 

Notchordamnatchoz: SHIRTPUNCH!: Starting at 12 AM NOVEMBER 10, 2001 until 11:59 PM NOVEMBER 10, 2011 you will be able to buy t-shirts with that above image on 'em. Where, ...

Time for a little self promotion

My 1950's ladies and gentlemen are now available at My Tubed Art.  This is the ONLY place that sells them and that means if you didn't get them there then you're using them without permission, you naughty people.

My disguise pinup and my sugar skull are up at our CafePress store on a bunch of different items.  But it's the t-shirts that only really sell...

I helped Andrew with a short comic for Strange Kids Club a little while ago and now it's in print.

I've done a piece for Doo Wacka Doodle's tribute to The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra which I'll post when she does!

Ok, that's all.  See?  That was a little self promotion.

Paint your nails, ladies!

Some commission work I did a little while ago is now LIVE!  So I'm happy to point you towards Pretty Serious Cosmetics where two of my ladies are being used for a new line of nail polish. 

This one is an unchosen sketch that I really liked so I coloured it up for myself.

Yes, I'm watching wrestling again

And yes, I'm a fan of CM Punk.  And YES, I drew him.

I still need to work on my men, uh, meaning I have to practice drawing men so two interests collided and here's the result.

Just random photo reference used so I think I got a vague likeness bodged together.  The tattoos are IN NO WAY ACCURATE.  I really need to figure out a good way to blag tattoos.

It was Punk's speech from RAW that I saw online which got me curious to start watching WWE again.

In college my roommates and I would ALWAYS watch wrestling on Monday night.  And way before that I remember watching it saturday mornings with my Dad when it used to be WWF.  I think we stopped watching a few years ago because the story lines became kind of boring and repetitive and there was a while where every single match seemed to end in a disqualification because someone would run in and disrupt things.  That's fun once in a while but when it happens during every match in one show, it's a bit much.  Then all the wrestlers started to look the same, bald with black trunks and knee pads.  Then the fun stuff went away like monsters, voodoo guys, clowns and crazy people.  So we slowly started not watching it until we didn't anymore. Then this Punk video showed up on thedailywh.at and Andrew and I decided to try wrestling again.  Boy, the stuff we've missed over the past few years!  We spent about a month just throwing out names we remembered and trying the "where are they now?" game.

Then just by coincidence I saw that Scott Hall was trending on Twitter a while ago so I clicked to see why and saw this short documentary on him: The Wrestler: The Scott Hall Story and now I'm all weirded out and sad thinking how I used to watch him on WWE and WCW and I hope he ends up ok.  I guess that's also what inspired the CM Punk image since he's "straight edge"so I hope he ends up ok too.

Halloween Music

Thanks to Devil's Night Radio I learned about the Nekromantix.  I love this song now.

Songs for the day

Thanks to halloweenhitswebsite.com I've found some amazing new songs to help set the mood.

A Classical Experiment

This weekend Andrew mentioned how Walter from the show Fringe would put on classical music to help him think.  That sounded interesting so to see how it worked I listened to a classical music radio station all day.  And, daggnabbit, I think it worked!  I've had such a short attention span lately for working in front of the computer that I needed something to keep my bum in the chair.  I managed to work 6.5 hours today without fidgeting or checking Twitter, my email or my usual time-wasting websites.  I'm really impressed with myself!  I now have another trick in my bag to use when I need the bump up my concentration.  I think it has something to do with the fact there are no lyrics to listen to, no words your brain wants to understand whether you care about them or not.  And the music goes on for longer than 3-4 minutes which about the average length of a song.  Pretty neat.

In other news, I'm signed up for the Countdown to Halloween!  So starting October 1st I'm going to try and post as many Halloween related things as I can.  I can't promise I'll post every day but I'm hoping to at least draw everyday and then post a few things at a time.

1950s Phone Call

As I was colouring this all I could think of was the speech from the MST3k version of Manos: The Hands of Fate. where Tom goes on and on and on about his 20 year plan.  That cracked me up so hard the first time we watched it years ago and I still think of when someone's on the phone for a long, long time and I'm like "Just shuuuuuuut uuuuuuuuup already".  I didn't really want to transcribe the whole thing myself but unbelievably, searching for "manos, mst, year, plan" resulted in the very first link being a page where someone else already did it!

Here's the photo reference I used:

I made her a lot more psycho looking but that's just how my drawing evolved.  Once again, the photo is from Tackorama.  I think the women are out of my system now and I'd like to sit and try my hand at some of the men's photos.  They're just as wacky as the women's.

1950s Secrets....

Yes, another one.  Here's the reference photo I use from Tackorama:

There were quite a few of ladies sharing secrets but this one seemed the most typical.  "I got my hair done at...!"  "My husband always..."  "Mary down the street doesn't...."

I need to find a book of these kinds of photos.  Drawing off the computer can kind of suck at times.

Andrew Barr's Monstars

Andrew Barr has created a blog specifically for his Monstars! Right now he's reposting a lot of the earlier ones with a new one mixed in. You can also follow the blog on Twitter and see when he's posted something:

Andrew Barr's Monstars: Bad Ash: First appearance: Army of Darkness (1992)

Illustration Friday: Mysterious

I had this one sketched already and then saw the Illustration Friday word of the week was "mysterious" and I thought she would be appropriate.

Not really going for a 100% caricature, but using the photo as a jumping off point.

This is the photo I found at Tackorama.com

FanExpo 2011 - the sketches

FanExpo 2011 is now over and I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  I think I needed to take a break from it for a few years.  We were in an area with some great artists and it felt like we really belonged in that spot!

This plague doctor is because our table was directly across from Ghoul Friday and got to look at her amazing figures for the weekend.

These two are just for kicks.

I'm really considering doing it again next year, sharing another table with Notchordamnatchoz again.  I managed to sell a HECK of a lot of buttons and some prints.  Me thinks maybe an artbook next time...?