Sketchbook 2014

Hey y'all, I've been sitting on this news for a little while and while I wait to get some stuff IRL in line, I wanted to show you a new item I have been working on for YOUMACON.

I've been to a lot of conventions where wonderful artists have wonderful things called SKETCHBOOKS. Namely, they are usually staple-bound books containing all sorts of doodles, sketches, and sometimes the occasional finished piece inside. It's kind of like an art book, but instead it's filled with doodles and sketches.

HOW COOL IS THAT?!

(and if you've been following me, you probably know how much I love artbooks of any kind!)

I've loved collecting them over the past couple of years. I figured it was time for me to join the fray and try to put one out there myself! It was hard to decide what to put in there (as I am planning a 2015 one as well - which will contain more sketches from this past year), since I discovered I had a lot more drawings than I had believed to have.

I'm also going to preface this that I have fallen in love with Adobe InDesign. I took a class on it, probably over 4-5 years ago, but it came in the bundle I bought from Adobe (before all this creative cloud nonsense), and I have to say it was probably one of my better purchases over the years! I love doing layouts, WHO KNEW? I know I didn't.

So...without further ado, here's the cover!

Because EVERYTHING has stripes at my booth...

I chose to make the booklet 8.5x11 sized because so many of my pictures are actually quite larger, and I felt shrinking them down would loose a lot of the detail, as well as make the book like, what, 60 pages? Unless y'all wanted only 15 sketches or something. I wanted give you all more!

The book itself is 32 pages long, and has three main sections: By the Roll of the Die (sketches based on tabletop game characters I've had), Sky's End, and then Miscellany (all the other stuff, like Inktober)

There's a couple of color pages hidden within the book, because I felt festive, and wanted to show off some of my color work that DOESN'T get made into prints.

I love making layouts way too much.

The rest of the book tends to look like these pages:

I love that RAWR picture.

Where they have all sorts of sketches and doodles I've done in either character prep or comic prep. It took me quite a bit of time of work to get the booklet to print how I wanted it (namely because I don't have a huge printer at home to do it for me, I had to hand-put-together each spread to be printed duplex at the store, and frankly, I don't trust my local commercial printer to understand what I need them to do - I haven't found a good local business yet to try).

A space to draw in, perhaps?

And that's it! The book itself is 8.5x11 (the size of a sheet of paper/magazine), and the cover is a matte-glossy cover. It's supposed to be gloss, but when it prints it's not as "shiny" as I'd expect gloss to be. Maybe it's considered a "satin" finish? EGH who knows. Either way, the cover is a very nice stock of paper, and all the pages are 32 lb paper.

The book itself will be on sale for $18 at the next two shows (Youmacon & Nekocon) after which, I'll probably place a couple in my Etsy shop. Each book comes with a free exclusive 5x7 print which I'm currently working on, so you can't see it yet!

I don't have a table placement yet, but come and find me in the alley! I should have these books, matted prints, as well as a portfolio binder, sketch cards, and a brand-new SKY'S END BANNER. See a picture of a girl falling out of the sky? THAT'S ME!

Youmacon approaches quickly, and I'm still finalizing how I want my booth to look, but it's coming underway, and I'm very excited to (hopefully) be revealing my "new look"! Meanwhile, it's back to the presses with me, and cutting mat boards, making books, and drawing comics!