Sketchavember 2012 - Part 3!

Sketchavember 2012 - Part 3!

21 - Meilee, my adorable and awkward factory girl. She always looks pretty gormless, because people leave you alone if they think you're an idiot.

22 - Lin, who came to the same conclusion in the boy's side of the factory. Also has the misfortune of being on the back of Jemima's page, which I shaded with markers.

23 - It got to about 11:30pm and I was falling asleep, then I remembered I hadn't done a picture, so I drew Coda falling asleep.

24 - I almost got through Sketchavember without drawing Duo again. Almost.

25 - Noone, the main character of a graphic novel which I planned and then scrapped. I still want to do something with the characters though.

26 - Haha, I tried to draw a demon but he kept going wrong, so I rubbed him out and drew an angel instead, which was a million times easier. I wonder if that says anything about my psyche.

27 - Ah, here's the demon.

28 - Having developed a character model for Hephzibah, I completely failed to make one for Gorse. Oh well.

29 - A Vrega, having a nice stretch.

30 - Last but not least, Kero. Originally he was some kind of alien that resembled a demon, but I've been thinking I might just make him a sort of feral demon instead.

And that was last year's Sketchavember! I hope you enjoyed this insight into my pathological fear of drawing anything that's not people. XD

Until I'm done with a few projects, have some more thank you letters! I seemed to have so much more success getting them sent on time when I drew pictures on them that I decided to keep doing that.

They did turn out thematically more boring than the birthday ones though, on account of my spending all the money I got on the same thing. Oh well, it was expensive!

Happy New Year, peeps! I thought I'd make a post with what I think is my best work of  this last year. In chronological order, these are:

The Mysterious Land of Under-Noodle, from the Inspired Eat Me! anthology

The Mystery of the Night Boy, a Patience mini-comic

The Hyaku Monogatari feature from the Hallowe'en issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf?

This Is Not A Serious Music Publication, a collaborative music zine I made with Sammy, which is probably my absolute favourite thing I did this year.

Two postcards from my Autumn 2012 set.

I think what I learned this year is a) I do some of my best work under extreme time pressure, and b) I also do my best work when I'm really excited about it. (Both apply to the music zine.) Possibly also c) due to being willfully contrary, bad reviews only make me draw MORE COMICS.

Unfortunately I also learned that it's very easy for me to get caught up working on small press comics and zines because they're a lot of fun to make, neglecting the work which would get me closer to illustrating actual books. Hence my plan for next year is to manage my time better and prioritise book-related work, even if it means making fewer comics. This was a really difficult conclusion to accept because I really love making comics with my friends, but I only have so much time in the week after going to my day job, and I just can't do comics (in the quantities I've been doing this year) AND do the work I need to break into book illustration. Not until someone starts paying me to draw things anyway.

So... I hope 2013 brings me people who pay me to draw things? 

AW YEAH NEW YEAR!

Sooo... Rupert Everett came to the tea room on Monday. He had an earl grey and some coffee cake.

In other news, I'll be doing commissions at London MCM this weekend! We've started offering sketches and inked pictures at a couple of conventions, but this time I think it's just me, as Sammy's been very busy and wants to relax behind the table.

Still, we're loosely using Sammy's normal prices:

A5 sketch - £6

A5 inked - £8

A6 sketch - £4

A6 inked - £5

mini card sketch - £2 

mini card inked - £3

These are four more art cards I whipped up for the farmer's market. If you got the Eat Me! anthology, you may recognise these as the leaders of the various Broth Sea tribes in my comic, The Mysterious Land of Under-Noodle. Going clockwise, these are the Wise Woman of the Noodle People, the Prime Minister of the Wonton Isles, the mightiest warrior from the Cliffs of Pork, and the Chieftain of the Lettuce Hunters.

You can tell they're the leaders because they wear the most clothes, haha.

These are five of the ten new postcards I made to take to Thought Bubble. I'm really pleased with them, I think they show improvement from the last batch, which is always encouraging. Part of it might be because I really tried to limit my colour palette for all the new postcards.

They're all my own characters this time. There's Meilee and Lin, who have fallen asleep in the rain because they can't find any shelter, Shasta contemplating a remnant of the Old World, Jessie looking out over the castle town in her Patchworker uniform (it's a sort of messenger and general dogsbody, if you're curious), Louise being led into the woods by some fairies (they're still after that key), and the Crowboy giving Lottie a little gift.