State of the Artist 6/4/2012

View halloo, all!

It's Monday, and so, it's time for the weekly State of the Artist update (on time, even! :D)


Weekly Words

Doing a straight-forward, clear-cut task that has a beginning and an end balances out the complexity-without-end that often vexes the rest of my life. Sacred simplicity.

-Robert Fulghum 1937-



Current Project

I've got one commission still sitting on my plate, and it's complex and challenging and in a medium I don't often work in, but I'm enjoying it. While, working on it, though, I took a break to doodle around with my concept of the jellyfish/octo-mer project of years ago, that I never ended up doing anything with.

I DO have plans to tackle this project, once I figure out what I want it to look like, what size I want it at, and what medium I want to work in, none of which I've settled on at this point. However, I was struck with the urge to try tackling the mers separately in hopes of nailing down some specifics of the two people I want to put in this piece.

First up is the octomer. Now, he's not new, he's been floating around my sketchbooks for quite some time, but never as fully realized as I saw him in my head the other day. With that strike of inspiration, I sat down to doodle him out... and once I did that, he called for some more mass and definition. Hence, I sat down at my computer and carved him out in Photoshop.

*as always, clicking the link opens the full-size image*





I'm pretty much set on him at this point... the jellymer on the other hand, is proving to be a bit more undecided... there's just *so* many different varieties of jellyfish to pull inspiration from! O.o

I am pretty pleased with the way he came out, just grayscale like this with a touch of blue. I might end up selling him as a print (along with the jellymer when I finish her.) Might also end up doing a traditional media painting of him alone (again, along with the jellymer) and then do the painting of them together.



Near Future

The Near Future sees my convention schedule set for the moment, the same as last week's. In the next two months I have Florida SuperCon and Otakon coming up, after that, it remains to be seen.

I *might* be sending artwork to AnimeMidAtlantic this year, but the mail-in deadline has caught me completely unawares this year, and I don't know if I have time to get everything together and out the door.

I'm contemplating a Kickstarter project or two of my own these days, and I've been kicking around ideas (no pun intended) with MCA Hogarth for possible projects, as well as a possible collaborative project!

Have anything you'd like to see come to life as a Kickstarter project? Maybe a sketch-to-painting from a piece you particularly like, or a sketchbook project? Leave suggestions in the comment below! :)


Thank you all for joining me for this week's update, hope to see you all again next week!


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