Catching Up

Back from a self-imposed hiatus. It's been an odd week or two for me. I do apologize for my absence, but every once in a while I have this weird need to just... be alone.

Kinda like I want to hide away from everything and everyone and just work on stuff. I will be the first to admit that I suffer from (most likely) some sort of Social Anxiety, let alone General Anxiety, and it'll build up. When it gets too unbearable, I kinda hole myself up and just work on things. 

Probably not the best way to deal with it, but during that time, I tend to not want to deal with ANYTHING. Thank goodness Dave is a patient human being, and very observant. He'll often point it out before I realize I have it.

ANYWAY, that's another rant for another time, as I'm still partially hermiting, but I wanted to let you all know I am still alive.

IMPLODING MY INBOX

In other news, I'm finally organizing my "business account" email for my commissions, conventions, hotel reservations and the like. I had an old copy of outlook that I used a long time ago, so I installed it and filtered all of my business email to it.

Needless to say I had a lot of messages.

Don't worry, they weren't all unread. Just loaded in.

It took me the better part of an entire day (wherein I was having depression issues, so I felt the compulsive need to clean and/or organize ALL THE THINGS) to filter all the emails into various folders and subfolders to get a hold of this.

I love you Gmail, but your organization skills as an email client still SUCK. Since I can't have folders (and I've been working at businesses with Outlook for over 6 years now), I tried their "label" thing. It didn't work. Every time I opened that email I was just bombarded with emails, and it felt so awful cluttered that I didn't want to check it.

Now I can have outlook up all the time and it checks it for me. And will let me know I have a message. Yay!

I suppose now I should try opening up commissions...

WEEKLY ARTIST CHALLENGE

Hey fellow artists! I had this idea (as I'm trying to get more things to blog about in general - I SWEAR THE GENCON POST IS COMING. REALLY.).

I am thinking of issuing a "theme" at the beginning of the week, probably Sunday, and then having a drawing, writing, poem, photo, whatever, based on that theme by Friday. It doesn't even have to be a completed picture, it could be a pencil drawing, a doodle per se.

I know I get stumped sometime, and we all probably need to draw more or whatever.

Anybody else up for this? I think it sounds fun.

TUTORIAL TUESDAY

Another idea I had was "Tutorial Tuesday" where I gripe talk about how to do something artistic. (apparently this is a thing other people do too. hm.)

Other blog subject ideas are also welcome. Let me know what you want to hear about!

Drawings! I'm Drawing. WHUT.

Now that the office is all set up, I've been doing some color tests along with comic page tests. Which hopefully I'll have figured out by the end of this week.

In the meanwhile, I've done a couple of drawings:

The first was a birthday gift for Trishstuff! It is a character from a tabletop game that she's in (and really, asides from Sky's End and Tangerine Wings, it's my NEXT favorite thing to draw. Original characters, in case you're confused...)

D: I drew FACIAL HAIR. OMG.

Next up is another character design I'm working on. He's a little old (as of like, last year) but he's getting an major update on his outfit, role, etc. His picture is also the first test of my "new comic style".

Which is the equivalent of the following process:

1. Sketch image
2. Outline in ArtRage on the computer
3. Print on nice cardstock (laser)
4. Color with Copics
5. Scan in
6. Enjoy!

And yes, it looks cumbersome, but it solves two of my problems: a.) I can't outline with regular pens or else I get instant carpal tunnel and b.) I can't color on the computer. Maybe I'll write up a tutorial once I've got it down to how I like. I just know I'm a LOT faster with copics IRL than I am trying to color anything in Photoshop, Sai, or whatever other program you might suggest....

Maksim

Oh, and I totally just used a texture for the background. I found it on Google, but I'm not really going to be selling the image, so I'm not as worried about it. I just wanted another color in there.

Okay! Back to more work for me...

Ermahgerd! A POST. With a TON of Updates.

Wow. Sorry for being off the grid for like... a month.

MOVED!

A lot of things happened over here at Crash Bang Labs. The first largest item being: WE MOVED. Yes. Again. We've moved like, three times in three years, and frankly I'm getting really tired of putting all my crap in boxes and hauling it around.

I used this image before, but frankly, I felt it fit.

Namely, we're hoping that this time we'll be here for at least a couple of years (and give me time to pare down my stuff. I swear it multiplies in the dark!!)

AnimeWorld Chicago & More

If you remember my post regarding AnimeWorld Indianapolis, it turns out they DID need help with their Alley (namely separating it from Vendors and have a dedicated DH, rather than it being spread out). I actually ended up inheriting the Alleys (if I am understanding correctly), and will be working with Anime World from now on as the DH.

I had a bit of a monumental task, but with help from my fellow staffers, and some old fashioned artist networking, I was able to fill my alley, and had a smashing time. However, I was so busy, I have like, NO PICTURES or wrap up to write. It mostly would consist of "I worked" and "I slept on the bed" and of course "I sewed in the room".

I am now in the process of catching up on my emails and will be seeing if there's any AnimeWorld stuff going on yet (probably not, as we just finished the last one for the year). Augh! It's such a busy time.

And WHYYYYY was I unable to catch up on my emails?

Well, I happened to visit...

GENCON INDY

This is a 4-day long gaming convention in Indianapolis that Dave and I visit each year for fun. Well, last year wasn't as fun (I was working at it, BLEH), but this year I had a bunch of seminars planned and hijinks ensued.

I learned how to paint minis and finally had my "Homestuck Coming Out Weekend". That's right folks, I'm a 'Stucker. I'll have more on this in the next post ("GENCON RECAP"), so never fear. Also, don't be afraid I'm not going to inundate you with Homestuck too much here that's what Tumblr's for.

In the meanwhile, enjoy these pictures:

But wait! THERE'S MORE:

So really, I just did this giant post to get to this last part, which probably has the MOST IMPORTANT part of my announcements. Due to a TON of fortunate events in my life (I am eternally grateful for) I have been able to take the next HUGE step in my life.

I have quit my regular day job...

So I can do art 24-7.

That's right, I'm doing this art thing FOR REALS. Starting around September (it'll take that long to finish unpacking and preparing all my materials), I will have all new products up in the Crash Bang Etsy store, along with offering commissions, and if I can get cracking down, I'll have a constant stream of comics updating between Sky's End and Tangerine Wings (and possibly an Art Book in the next year).

I'm super nervous, so I may ramble a bit now and again (and possibly go stir crazy as I am working from home). I'm planning on reviving the Crash Bang FB page (WHUT) as well as working on the Crash Bang Tumblr (NO WAY).

I also have made my official "office" at the new place!

It's not fully done (I need curtains n such), but this will be where the magic is made!

Here's a version without the text if it was way too much for you.

So yeah! That's all the updates for now. I'm off to do some drawing or something! Gotta flex those muscles again, after all my gallavanting.

Also Not Dead!

Hey guys. Lots of big changes going on around here at Crash Bang Labs!

We moved.

I ran an alley.

We have another convention.

Honest. I'll be back and up and running sometimes next week once Gencon has passed!