My Mom's Cousin Wayne Brink, Page 151, & Arisia 2015

I have uploaded page 151 of Zheph Skyre. It might have been a few minutes late the other night, but please excuse my tardiness. My mother's cousin, Wayne Brink, passed away last Friday January 16th, and I had attended his wake on Wednesday the 21st. Many friends and family had gone to Wayne's wake. He was a very active hiker/explorer of nature, a photographer, a Vietnam veteran, a professor at Quinsigamond college, a loving husband, an interesting father, and an eccentric friend. He lost his battle against multiple forms of cancer. My earliest memory of him was when he invited my family and I to his summer barbecue. He did not serve regular hamburgers, but served buffalo burgers. I ate a chewy, white meat from a shish kabob and was told afterwards that it was alligator meat. After that, my family was invited to his Swedish, Christmas Eve Parties he held at his house every year which had various, interesting Swedish dishes and ended with drinking glogg. I was a little skeptical of these things at first, but along with Wayne's friendly personality, it was always an awesome time. Christmas Eve will never be the same without him now. Here's to you Wayne, there are many people who love you and hope you are at peace now.

Here we see Zheph wake up from a deep sleep and recollection of years past, or at least up until a certain part... He awakens to find himself wrapped in bandages and taken care of by Jahovac. It is is a little  unexpected, but it makes sense in the end because Jacques hired Jahovac to capture Zheph to use him for his knowledge. Zheph is useless to Jacques dead. Jahovac doesn't seem to be too comfortable with this arrangement though.

Arisia 2015 was enjoyable. I did not sell nearly as much as I did previous years, but I got to eat a lot of free food and I went to my sister's condo, my friend's apartment, & the MFA while I was in the area.

Here's the business card of Theresa Mather. If you like fantasy art, you'll like hers. She does a lot of dragons, cats with wings, and other mystical creatures.

Another flyer for Nauticon 2015. I have signed up for the Artists' Colony at this convention, but I have no idea if I will get it or not. If I do, I will be sharing the space with Frankie Stevens, author of the book "Polarity Breach: The Divine Spark."

Here is a flyer for a Masquerade at the goth club, Haven, tomorrow night. It sounds interesting, but due to the incoming snow storm, it might be postponed. I do not believe I have a good enough costume for this nor much money to spend.

Another flyer for RavenCon, a sci-fi/fantasy convention in Richmond, Virginia. They are celebrating their 10th year!

Here's a flyer for Chessicon, a sci-fi/fantasy convention in Maryland. They did accept my artwork for this convention and I mailed it to them. I could not attend myself because it is a far drive for me, it was right after Thanksgiving, and I do not have much money to spend on a hotel.

Here is a pamphlet for artwork by Laurel Cunningham-Hill titled Capsulariums. It is artwork using tiny bones of rodents and displaying them in tiny frames or hollowed out chain watches. She makes some very interesting stuff! Don't worry, these are bones left from owls and are sterilized beforehand.

Here's a flyer for a new LARP called the Accord. It made me a little angry that their symbol looks way too much like the one I have on my portfolio site! I I'm trying not to let it get to me.

Page 148, 149, & 150 Are Up

Sorry I have not been updating this blog as often as I used to, but I am hard at work on this web comic story, I have been working on getting everyone their rewards for the Kickstarter, and lately I have been getting ready for the Arisia Art Show of which I will be attending this Friday.

Here is page 148 of my web comic. Zheph and his family appear to be set on leaving in this flashback. They appear to go through certain lengths in order to do so...

After such a terrible tragedy with their house being burnt down, the Skyre family appear to be optimistic as they leave Corthon behind, but Zheph appears to be having a hard time remembering what exactly happened after he left the city. He seems to be troubled with something.

I realized a while ago that the tear and sweat drops I had been portraying in my web comic have not been the best. I was simply trying to fill in the outline of the drops with a light, white fill. I knew that it made the water look milky, but I wasn't sure what to do instead. It wasn't until recently that I discovered a different method of portraying such water drops on people. I might go back into previous pages and make the same changes if I get the opportunity.

If you are wondering why the laughing speech bubbles are red and black, it is simply that the character or characters who are laughing are laughing maniacally and are not normal human beings.

Here is page 150. Zheph stands among many creepy eyes and smiles, but the largest are terrifyingly soul piercing!

I love this page! I decided to have this page as a double page with a single image because I wanted to portray just how intimidating this unknown force is. This page took quite a bit of time to complete and more layers than I thought I was going to use. I'm going to show this page at Arisia this weekend.

Arisia 2014 Video

Here's my video of Arisia 2014 that I filmed for my internship at WCCA TV13. I uploaded it to my web comic site and my Youtube channel. I'm just glad I finally got to upload this because it is another chance to show my artwork.

There's no web comic page this week. I am trying to get all of the pages that are behind done as soon as possible.

Arisia Art Show 2014 Business Cards

As I stated a little while ago, I went to the Arisia 2014, the science-fiction and fantasy convention in Boston. I did not sell too much at the art show, but I did give away a few business cards and flyers for my web comic series. Here are some of the other artists I managed to get business cards from.

I will post a video of what I managed to record on Youtube later.

Here we see a business card for David Lee Pancake, an illustrator and sculptor.

Here is a business card for Andrew Sprague.

Here is the front and back of Jennifer Hunter's business card.

Here is a business card for Kendra Tornheim, who makes jewelry.

This is the front and back of a business card for Matt Mrowka, who makes oil paintings, illustrations, and tatoos.

 This is a business card for Sara Felix.

This page contains artwork by the main guest artist to the convention, Lubov.

Earth Dragons

I couldn't get the latest page of my web comic Zheph Skyre uploaded due to the Arisia convention this past weekend, so I finished this art piece of two Earth dragons and uploaded it instead. The next page and the previous page will be finished soon.

I've been working on this image for quite some time. My drawing tablet has not been working that well for some time, so I have to use my mouse for now. I will either get the replacement part I need for my tablet's pen or get a new tablet altogether.

Arisia 2014

(Both images are from http://2014.arisia.org/)

Today I went to Arisia 2014 in order to drop off my artwork for the Art Show. I brought a total of 9 pieces and 5 small prints for 8 of them. I also brought business cards and I am truly hoping to make some money and some publicity for my web comic series.

I was able to get some video footage for WCCA TV13 of the convention while I was there. However, I was not nearly able to get as much footage as I would have liked because I didn't have a press badge too. This press story was sort of a last minute thing and I have work this weekend, so I couldn't stay for the whole convention. I will go back on Monday and film more as I pick up what is left of my art.

Arisia 2014

I just got an email from Arisia again. They invited me to participate in the Student Art Show again for next Year's convention taking place January 17-20. I signed up for it again!

For those of you who don't know, I had taken part in this Science-Fiction/Fantasy convention in Boston last year. I brought 4 pieces of artwork and numerous prints to be sold. This year I might have more artwork, but I am going to simplify things for myself. I will get them printed and matted in a cheaper/easily transportable format so that I am not driven insane. That may also go for the prints to be sold separately as well.

Arisia 2013: Part 2

 There was quite a bit to see besides the Student Art Gallery at Arisia. There were panels, merchandise, advertising, and other things going on at this convention. There was even free food in this one area. Unfortunately it was all mostly cheap snack food that with a "first come first serve" rule, but most conventions I have been to only had free water available. There didn't seem to be any known restaurants in the immediate district of the Westin Waterfront, so they probably didn't have many options. Sure the hotel had a food cart selling food, but it was all considered expensive for cheap food.

I ran into two people I didn't expect to see at this convention. One was a college friend, the other a former coworker. I was really glad to see them both. All three of us appeared to be there not just to see the convention, but to participate in it as well in one form or another.

Among a few of the panels I went to were "Artists as Entrepreneurial Heroes", "Write What You Know?", "All About Kickstarter", and "Making a Video Game". These panels seemed very interesting and very helpful for certain aspects I am considering.

 Here's the Program Guide they gave everyone for the convention, of coarse there were other forms that they gave as well in order for people to figure out where and when to go. It was a little complicated, but this was an interesting image to see.

There are plenty of conventions for all sorts of reasons everywhere you could possibly think of. I even picked up a form for a Fairy Convention. There's a science convention that will be at the Westin called Boskone, there will be a 21+ Anime convention in Provincetown in Cape Cod called Nauticon, and there will be a science-fiction/fantasy convention in New York called Lunacon. These are only a few conventions on the East Coast of the US. There are a great many more conventions on almost any subject. It will usually just require for people to save up money to go to.

 There were quite a few tables selling merchandise ranging from board games, cards games, and video games to used books and leather gear. Here we see a business card for Crossed Genres.

 Anna Erishkigal, author of the fantasy book series "Sword of Gods" had a table at this convention to advertise her books. I found the covers interesting to see, and from what I heard, this series is about warring angels including Lucifer.

Arisia has already picked out a date for next year. I find that hard to believe considering that most conventions I have been to have withheld posting dates for next year until after a few months go by.

Page 53 of Zheph Skyre and I am Back on Twitter

I have uploaded page 53 of my Zheph Skyre web comic. Here we see Vanessa leaving the dinner table with her food. She seemed to be troubled at Luther's last comment, so what is she going to do? Her father and Luther appear to be clueless about her behavior, and her sisters are trying to give her a hard time. Vanessa's mother however appears to share her pain.

I have decided to try to update my Twitter account as much as I can. I'm not sure if I update it as often as my blog, or if I will be able to update both of them every day. I was suggested to update my Twitter feed before I try to get funding on Kickstarter. I could really use a new computer, and I might require some help to print this as a graphic novel once I am finished. I might even try to get funding to make this into an animation series some day if I get enough funding.

Arisia 2013: Part 1

I had just come back from Arisia 2013 yesterday. Supposedly this convention ended today, but I only went to it on Friday to drop off my artwork, Saturday to check out the convention itself, and Sunday to pick up whatever pieces of artwork and prints I had left. Unfortunately I did not sell that much, most likely because my artwork itself was mostly expensive. I am glad I at least got to get a little word out there about my artwork.

There were quite a few pieces of artwork on display. There were many fantasy pieces, a few science fiction pieces, some strangely humorous pieces, and a whole area of three dimensional artwork was on display. There was quite a few pieces of artwork that truly impressed me. I was glad to see some pieces received an award for popularity.

Here we see some artwork done by Ruth Thompson. Mostly her artwork is very dark, which I prefer. I think I might have seen some of her work on DeviantArt.com though.

 

I forgot who painted this, but it was surely impressive. I believe this was an older, more experienced artist though.

Here we can see some 3D artwork done by Kristian Brevik. I really liked the paper creatures she made, especially the spider hanging on some string. The detail appears to be very intricate.

There were many cosplayers at this convention. Here, we see a mermaid laying down having fun just letting people watch her and take her picture.

Here was my artwork. The only piece that sold was the painting in the top left corner. I was at least glad to see someone appropriate my work enough to buy it, even though it sold for the cheapest bid.

Now at Arisia

(This image is from http://2013.arisia.org/)

 

 

I was not able to upload the next page of my web comic today. I had to upload an image from the Arisia convention website instead. I had no access to a scanner today, so I had no choice.

 

Next Monday things should be back on track. I will upload some pictures I will take at the convention tomorrow.

Arasia Preperations

I have been working on the next few pages of my web comic and have been trying to get ready for Arisia. I am hoping to get something up for my web comic on Friday before I have to drive out to Boston. This trip might cut into coloring the next two pages by Monday.

I've added mugs to the list of prints I am bringing to the convention to sell. I have a feeling that the cheaper items will more likely sell.

I'm hoping that while I am at the convention, I might get some work done on my web comic and some sketches.

Arisia

(This image is from http://2012.arisia.org/)

I had received an email offering me a chance to display artwork at the Arisia Art Show. From what the website says, it is a fantasy and science fiction convention that will take place at Westin Waterfront in Boston from January 18th to the 20th 2013. I have decided to purchase an art panel in order to display some of my artwork. It is true that I still have to frame some of my artwork, but that should not be too much of a problem. If this convention is anything like Anime Boston or Connecticon, than it should be a fun time.

(This image is from flickr.com)