Some Dr. Strange love.

More messing around with Photoshop. I've been trying to develop my style into a more simplified way of working to accommodate my limited time and this was kinda of an experiment that I'm pretty happy with. I usually go nuts with my pencils filling in the detail and this is the most minimalist approach to pencilling I think I've ever done. I then just imported it into Photoshop and started painting. Didn't take very long, about 3-4 hours one evening. I think I'll be attempting more stuff like this in the future.

The Sorceror Supreme:

And the pencils:

Later

3 months

So my little girl turned three months old last week and that made her old enough to be able to come to the gym with me. More specifically to the childcare that CalFit offers and of course, the pool. Here in Sacramento it's hot as balls already and I've just had my first sunburn of the season. Gotta love being Irish and living in sunny, O-zone depleted California. Anyway, little Morgan did pretty good for her first time in the pool. Didn't know what the hell was going on at first but she got into it pretty quickly. We'll have her swimming like a fish in no time. And I'm getting back in shape again, was without a gym to go to for a good 6 months since we moved, been waiting for April 1st to come around for the new California Family Fitness to open up near our house. I hate being out of shape. Hate it. Months of playing WoW and then not having a gym was turning me into more of a doughynutcase, but that's over with.

I quit WoW in December before my daughter was born and haven't even considered playing it again. That alone has increased the quality of my life more than I thought possible. I know people who still play/love that game will mock me or think I'm just being a douche but that game is a poison. It changes everyone who plays it and never in a postive way. I've managed to get a couple people I used to play with to finally give it up and they love NOT playing WoW now. They actually go do things they enjoy doing and have much more energy and free-time. I'd urge anyone who stills plays to just walk away, sell your account and never look back. Rediscover the joy of casual gaming as opposed to career gaming where there's no payoff and no closure. I sold my account to some jackass for $500 and used that money towards my gym membership. It still blows my mind that some moron paid five-hundred dollars for my toons. And another $50 on top of that to transfer them to another server. And he already has a lv 70 Warrior in full Vengeful gear... he just wanted to see what playing as a Shaman was like... I feel a little bad enabling him like that, but if he's determined to throw his money away it might as well be in my direction, I definitely need the money. Well, that's my WoW rant and with that I'm done speaking about that game. I'm stepping down off my Epic High-Horse.

There's a couple comic-cons coming up in the next few months that I'm gonna have a table at and will be trying to sell some stuff. So I'll be busy trying to get stuff together for that. It's been slow going with taking care of my daughter all day so it's gonna be a grind finishing stuff up in time but I won't start getting stressed about it until the week of the first show.

Now, here's some pics of my ladies at the pool.

And some recent work:

Later

Digital painting

Messing around with Photoshop.  Trying to figure out all the different ways to do this shit digitally is kind of a pain in the ass, sometimes it seems like it was easier to just apply paint to paper.  Takes some getting used to I guess.  Here's what an evening of dicking around produced.

Artwork

Just some recent artwork. Went to the local Sacto comic con over the weekend. Made a few connections with local creators and publishers. Plan on having a table at the con in June and having some stuff to sell and showoff. Hopefully the first completed issue of my own comic.

'nutcase... OUT!!

Pop!!

There goes my blog cherry. Should I expect some mild bleeding? Anyway, I intended to start writing in this thing like six months ago. Not sure what exactly. Figured I'd just use it as a place to post some artwork or something, maybe bitch about stuff (as I'm known to do). But I reckon I'll open with a little bit about the biggest change in my life: becoming a father. Almost two months now. S'crazy. Hard to describe the feelings I have for my little Morgan. One minute I'm happy as hell 'cause she cut loose a fart that could easily have been mistaken for one of mine to being scared to death the next minute because I know sometime in the future something bad might happen to her and I might not be there to prevent it.

Changes yer priorities quite a bit. I barely game at all anymore, and I really don't miss it. Shit like having high Arena ratings in WoW (god, I fucking hate myself for playing that shit game for so long) really become instantly silly. Though I appreciate and actually occasionally power on my 360 these days. That thing's been collectiong dust for a very long time. But when yer daughter refuses to sleep anywhere but in yer arms it's possible to fire it up and play something for maybe an hour. Not so easy to do that with a PC.

So yeah, gaming has definitely taken a backseat. No more bug up my ass to go out and buy every cool new game that comes out. The insect that now takes up residence in my colon is one that nags me to finally accomplish shit I shoulda accomplished years ago. For far too long I've been working shit jobs, whatever I can do to make money and get by. The cost of that was that I let my goals get farther and farther away. Hadf you asked me ten years ago what I'd be doing when I was thirty I'da said that I'd be working in the comic book industry for one of the big companies and I'd have a screenplay or two in production somewhere. And I woulda been damn sure of it. Here I am today and I've barely drawn in the last five years. To the point where I'm having to re-teach myself the basics. The good news is I am back into it. I draw everyday and try to write a little every night. Progress is being made. I'm setting goals for myself. I intend to be able to tell my daughter what I do for a living and be proud of it.

I live in Sacramento and while it's a tiny, shitty little city, it has one cool feature in that it has a local comic convention every three months. The next one is this Sunday, and while I have nothing prepared for this one other than to continues talks with some small local presses, I fully intend to have a table at the next one where I'm pimping my own work. Hopefully the first issue of my own self-published title.

Ok, I think I'm about blogged out for the moment. I'll leave you with some pics of my baby girl and the most recent drawing I've done.

Morgan Kaleigh Roberts:

Later,

Das beef