Updates: New Art, New Conventions

I'm alive!

So my new job took some time to settle into, but I think I've got it now. As promised, here's some new artwork!

Andromeda

First up is this thing. I thought I was done with it the last time I showed it but it turns out that I was not. There was a lot more that I could do and so, I did. I'm much happier with it now and it has turned out to be a great seller at the comic conventions I've attended so far this year.

I still never added a background because I wanted to give the sense that she IS the universe. I have been thinking of doing more ladies along these lines but I haven't really had the inspiration yet to do more.

Owls for Grandma

Next is, "Owls for Grandma," named so because that's exactly who I did it for. She's not really my grandmother, she's my cousin's grandma, but she just enjoys being everyone's grandma. She had a rough year last year, a lot of deaths in the family.

I had told her a few years back that I would paint her an owl and I just never did. Truthfully, tried a few times to digitally paint her an owl and it never turned out right. Maybe I was hard on myself I dunno.

Eventually I bought a wood board and decided to do this with acrylic paint instead and that turned out to be a good decision. What started out as only being one owl, turned into three when I realized that eastern screech owls were really tiny and the hollow in the tree was a little large to put just one in there.

Oliver Lucas: The Staff of Moses

When all was said and done, it's not the most amazing masterpiece ever but I am happy with it and my grandma is too!

to the left here is a finished commission done by myself and my usual partner in crime, Nga Nguyen. (Her lines, my colors as usual) I went to a small one day show in Richmond VA, where I met local author Andrew Linke. We are currently working on book cover number two!

This was a pretty ambitious piece with all the hieroglyphics in the background. Not to mention that making something look old and a bit distressed is somewhat difficult to do in photoshop. sometimes your textures tend to come out too perfect to look right.

Anyway, I hope to have the second cover done by mid September. Nga is always super punctual with her work, but me? Not so much. Just another something I have got to work on. I need to make myself work more. I run on inspiration far too much.

Clockwork Koi

 Next! "Clockwork Koi" I've been working on this thing since last November. I'm not sure what inspired it really. This is one of the rare times that I drew exactly what I set out to draw. That is always difficult for me for some reason. Probably goes back to that "running too much on inspiration" thing I mentioned earlier.

My job deals a lot with machines and I actually enjoy it. I'm used to seeing metal, rivets, nuts and bolts, and hydraulic lines, so I incorporated them into my art here.

The lotus flowers seemed out of place and far too plain when I added them next to the mechanical features of the koi. After a little thinking, I decided to go with an antique lamp look. My grandmother had one of those antique stained glass looking lamps, so I used those as a reference. I eventually want to draw a dragon to match it, but that will have to wait until I've cleared my commission list.

Love you to the moon and back

Last but not least! Here's the latest artwork. This isn't the whole thing and it actually can't even be finished until after the wedding. It's a guestbook idea that actually came from pinterest but my friend here had me do my own spin on it.

I told her I'd do it and decided to have it done in watercolor but didn't stop to think that I haven't actually seriously used watercolor paint. I don't think that el cheapo watercolors when I was ten years old really counts as practice. So I may have panicked a little.

I watched a few tutorials, grabbed a few supplies and just hoped that it would turn out okay. I'm happy to say that she loves it and not too many people could tell that I'm a total watercolor n00b. What can I say? I learn really fast. I have to. If I had to list a skill as my best asset, it wouldn't even be art, it would be the ability to bullshit like I know what I'm doing until I actually do know what I'm doing.

In any case, that's all I have for the moment. It makes me happy that this is the most artwork that I've updated in a while. I'm getting more time to do it these days since I ditched that old job and found this one. I just... feel better. It's amazing how much your job affects your life. Since ditching my old job and getting with this new one I've lost nearly 20 pounds, I've completed four more artworks and sketched many more, and I've signed up for the most conventions I've ever done in one year.

Speaking of conventions, I've also updated my convention schedule page. If you know of any that I may be interested in, feel free to comment! I'm always looking for more!

Talk to you again soon!

Spark, out.

New Artwork, New Year, New Job

As of right now I'm snowed in, so I had time yesterday to work on something. I wasn't feeling particularly like anything so I just painted and whatever came out of it I rolled with it. Not a bad idea. It's not getting a lot of love but I enjoyed painting it anyway.

Andromeda. You can see more at my DeviantArt page. :D Prints of this are also available.

I'm feeling a lot better these days. I have started hitting the gym every day even if I just run on a treadmill for 30 minutes. Personally I like weight training so I've tried to do as much of that as possible. Only two weeks at the gym and I already feel much better and my gut is visibly shrinking. Hooray!!

F*** you, F*** you, F***you, You're Cool, F*** you, I'm out.

I also managed to snag myself a new job! That's right, I am finally getting away from this soul sucking pit of hell. Two weeks from now, I will officially have my weekends back! Now I can spend some time with my baby, AND do significantly more artwork.

That resignation letter was the shortest one I think I have ever written. You know what they say, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all... obviously I didn't have much of anything nice to say. I am doing all I can NOT to send a mass e-mail with the scene from Half-Baked in it. That would definitely be frowned upon and it's not that I hate everyone there. Just like... one or two people. The job itself is much worse than the people I work with.

I'm looking forward to having more time in the new year to actually be a mom, get to more artwork and complete projects for once.

This couldn't have come from me... Too adorable.

In other news... Alex got to see her first snowfall,it was adorable. She's killing me with cuteness.

JUST LOOK AT THE CUTE!

Anyway, I'm out until I have something else to show lol.

I want to thank all of my current followers for still watching out for my posts. Thanks so much! I know I'm slow and not always coming out with new stuff but any little bit of support helps. I appreciate it.

Spark, out.

Hard Times: Finding Time

Hey everyone, just letting you guys know I'm still alive!

Feast your eyes on this CUTENESS!!

As of right now I haven't completed any artwork in ages. It's not really got much to do with having a baby. I know that people will tell you all the time that having a baby will cramp your style. You have to give up everything for the baby. That is really only partially true. She's nine months old now and while I do have to sacrifice a lot of me time for her, I actually feel like I don't get enough time with her.

This is how she wakes up...

I actually enjoy being a parent. Everything she does is cute (Except the pooping ... that's not cute.) I really don't feel as burdened as people told me I would. I even had someone tell me that my life was over because I had a child. No, no, on my rare days off I can take her out places. Sure it takes me longer to get out the door but she's plenty portable and really enjoys getting out.

I take her everywhere.

I suppose I also got lucky and have probably one of the happiest, most well behaved babies on the face of the planet. So far, I have never had to take her screaming out of a restaurant and at the moment she mostly sleeps through the night. She wakes up SMILING every day for crying out loud! I wish I could do that!

I could not have even imagined a more perfect child.

The only thing she didn't like was Santa.

I think I can live with that, she'll probably get me back in a few years.

She wasn't looking at the camera she was looking at me.

My life with a child is just fine.

The soul-sucking, time-destroyer is my current job.

It's awful and I hate it. I have a hard time even getting out of bed in the morning because I dread it that much. Every time I pull into the parking lot and realize that the building hasn't been burned down overnight, I just want to cry. I have been working overtime every week. I can't get away from overtime. I work six and seven days a week. Seriously there are some weeks, I walk into the break room and see the schedule and I don't even have a single day off for the whole week.

Don't even get me started on the fumes in that place. Plastic injection molding plant with no ventilation? They're asking for a lawsuit and I feel like complete crap when I get home. I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to get much of anything done until I can ditch this job for something that pays more and actually gives their employees more than just one day off a week.

I work so much that I feel like I don't even get enough time with my daughter. Before the Christmas break, she would treat my grandmother like she was her mother instead of me, because I was gone so much and my grandmother takes care of her while I'm a work. It was heart breaking. I was so depressed I felt like just driving my car into the nearest telephone pole on the way into work because I didn't want to be there. This job makes me feel like a failure. I've failed to get a good job, and thanks to this job I'm also failing at being a mother. One of the most natural things ever and I can't even do that because this god-forsaken job is in the way.

I need a scanner so bad.

The holiday was a much needed break, but it's gone right back to the way it was and I'm honestly not
sure that I can take it much longer. Luckily I've got a few job prospects lined up now that it's the beginning of the year and a lot of places are looking into hiring. I just need to actually get hired by one of them. I've got three chances to get hired in the next two weeks, someone's gotta take me so hopefully this debacle will be over shortly and I can get back to doing some artwork.

I've been sketching some when I can find a spare moment. Over the past few months the only thing I have worth showing is an anime style original character and a steampunk koi fish.

Well I guess that's some kind of progress since I rarely do my own line work. If anyone can help me figure out Adobe Illustrator, I'll be forever grateful! I want to turn the koi into a t-shirt design because I think it could be a hit.

I like it anyway and I don't usually like my own things.

Anyway, hopefully next time I'll have something to show and I can start making updates for just artwork. That's what I eventually want to do with this blog. An article every week, and two purely art posts. I haven't given up yet! Just give it another month...

Spark, out.

Sailing On: Winds of Change

Hello again!

No, I'm not dead. Things could be better but I'm certainly not dead lol.

A lot has happened since my last blog update! I'm not talking about small changes either. There have been quite a few large ones.

The Job Front

As most of you know I was laid off last year. I didn't manage to make art a career before my job at the gun factory left. Supposedly I had until August of this year, but they decided almost last minute that my last day of work there would be December 13th 2014. This was especially frustrating for me because it meant that I would be stuck looking for employment while five months pregnant. Even in this day and age, when everyone speaks of equality, you can expect to have a very hard time finding work as a pregnant woman.

Step into my office...

Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about being unemployed for very long. I found another job at a fab shop only a week after being laid off. I rather enjoyed my work. Even though the benefits were lacking and the pay wasn't what I had gotten used to at my previous job, the people were nice and the atmosphere was very relaxed. I couldn't have found a more perfect place to work while expecting. Even more helpful was the fact that I picked up skills beyond working as a gunsmith. My boss even bought me books to study up on, which was very nice of him. It wasn't without its struggles though. I have a feeling some of the guys at the shop thought I was a sympathy hire. Hell, even if I did get hired out of sympathy for my situation I am totally not complaining. For someone without a college degree, experience is almost priceless. I was able to get away from solely working in the gun industry.

Don't get me wrong, it's so cool to be able to call yourself a gunsmith. Unfortunately it's such a niche occupation. Sure, this is the dirty South, there's a gun shop on every corner that would hire a gunsmith. But that's the thing, most places only need one or two and aside from the gun shop or a gun manufacturer, no employer around really cares how well you deal with guns. And the politics! Ugh! It gets exhausting to hear it around the work place every time some politician gets too big for his pants and decides to wage war on your way of life. For most people, it's not every day that some political dingbat reveals some plan to destroy their living, but for a gunsmith it's a regular thing.

Anyway, just when you thought life couldn't throw me another curve ball, right after the birth of my adorable baby girl, the company I worked for announced that it was moving away as well. If I hadn't already been contacted by an old coworker about a job, I probably would have been laid off for the second time within the course of a year.

Which brings me to where I am now, working quality control at a factory that deals in plastics. (truthfully I'm not feeling it... but it's work.) I'm still determined to do this art thing for a living, but until then it looks like I'm stuck with the smell of burned plastic every day.

BABY!

Alexandria Michele Altenkirch. Born April 3, 2015

So the last time you heard from me I was expecting a baby. Well she's here! And she's the most adorable baby on the face of the planet! (Oh no I'm not biased, not at all.)

I will admit that I was afraid of the whole birthing thing. I wasn't looking forward to that particular detail but it wasn't exactly avoidable. Thank God for modern medicine though! For the most part I feel like I got off easy. However, once the epidural wore off I wanted it back. Oh, the things no one ever tells you about having a baby. Specifically: the recovery. I thought, nah, I don't need six weeks, I can come back to work after like... three.

Now I can be close while I work

!

Needless to say, that definitely didn't happen. When they tell you six weeks of recovery, they mean it. I needed all of it. During my recovery I did manage to do a little artwork, finally breaking my artless streak, which pretty much lasted the whole duration of my pregnancy.

But hey! Look what I got out of it: A little girl lovingly named Alexandria. I love her to death, she's just so adorable and making her smile is the highlight of my day! She's growing like a weed and at two months old she's already outgrown some of her little outfits. Being a parent is something I never really saw myself doing and being responsible for another life is just terrifying sometimes but I think I'm getting the hang of this Mom thing.

Convention Update

Although I had plans to go, I didn't ever actually make it to MAGfest. I did, however, make it to Animazement again this year.

Unfortunately this was the worst year at my home convention yet. It seemed that I was somehow just invisible. I had next to no sales, I was lucky to break even. Everything that could have gone wrong did. I already hadn't been doing well in sales (the first time ever I made less on a Saturday than on Friday.) and to make matters even worse, a friend of mine knocked a cup of coffee over and it spilled all over the remaining prints. It was a total disaster.

This was quite literally the best part of the weekend.

 I actually had more fun exploring Raleigh than I had at the actual con. I don't know, somewhere I feel like maybe I lost the Anime crowd. I don't watch many of those shows anymore and the ones that I do watch are pretty obscure or just old. I mean Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Knights of Sidonia (ah netflix...), Utawarerumono? Anyone ever hear of them? Psycho Pass is probably the newest and most mainstream thing I've watched and actually liked. Where did Rurouni Kenshin ever go? I still see some Inuyasha hanging around, Sailor Moon never really seems to lose popularity but I was never really a fan. Full Metal Panic! Anyone? I feel like I haven't seen anything for that in years. I never really saw much fan art for it anyway.

So yeah... maybe I'm just not with it anymore.  I've decided to shift focus, and thanks to a fellow artist alley goer, I managed to sign up in time to make it into artist alley at NC Comic Con in November this year. Gonna be on the look out for more conventions to sign up for. Maybe NYCC one year? ;D (I can dream.)

Art Updates!

 I the job that I held up until I had Alex was so laid back that I did a couple of sketches. They're not my usual fare but maybe I'll paint them at some point. I did always tell my grandma I'd paint an owl for her one day. I've been working on my own line work for a while now. I'm actually pretty happy looking at some of my art. I mean, it's not perfect but the last three pieces I completed were completely my own. Making a little progress there!

I've also picked up a project, which I'm currently working on with Nga. I'm not going to go into major detail about it but I'll release a little information as I get permission to. It's gonna be awesome! So far it's hard work trying to balance a full time job, a new baby and art. I'll have to do it if I want to keep it up though.

I know I introduce myself as a colorist most often, but I have a confession to make... I have never actually colored frames. I'm not sure exactly how to keep colors consistent. It's alright everyone involved knows this is really my first try so It's bound to be a learning experience.


Now that you've read this wall of text (or at least some of it.) I will leave the blog open for questions! If you're curious about anything (so long as it's appropriate) please feel free to ask!  Anything from favorite music to what programs and tools I use for my artwork. I'll do my best to answer questions Thursday of next week if there's enough interest.

For now, I'll leave you guys with a few of my newest sketches and artworks. Remember, I am on more social media than just blogger! Check the websites and contact info tab on my blog to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, DeviantART, and a few others.

Until next week!

Spark, out.

Life: It Happened

So for those of you that were reading regularly, I am sorry for the long absence.  Life struck and I have been nowhere close to a computer for quite some time.  The past two months have been absolutely inundated with large events.  So we'll start at the beginning.  This may be a pretty long blog post.  Just a warning. 

BABY NEWS!

Some of you may already know this bur for those of you who don't, here it is!  Around the same time as Otakon I found out some really important, and kind of unexpected news.  I'm pregnant!  My husband and I will be expecting our first child around the first of April next year.  That has definitely preoccupied my mind quite a bit.  Not that I'm panicking or that I don't want kids.  They were going to happen sooner or later.  While I say that this was a surprise, it wasn't exactly an accident. 

So far I'm around five months along and we already know the sex of the baby.  It's gonna be a girl!  We've got a first name picked out, the last name is obvious, but a middle name isn't really coming so easy.  My husband wants to use my middle name, but I don't like that idea.  I didn't like that both of my parents name me after themselves, I didn't want to do the same to my own child.  So the middle name is still up in the air.  (suggestions in the comments are greatly appreciated! I'd love to hear some!)

Little Alexandria Altenkirch

For a while I was also worried that I would be a detached parent.  I'm not sure if it's due to my upbringing or what, but I have a tendency to be very... distant.  I thought, "what if I see my baby as just a thing?  Not a tiny human, but a thing that simply cries, barfs, and poops everywhere?  Wouldn't that make me a terrible parent?  What if I'm just as awkward around my own child as I am other children and even adults?"

The last ultrasound definitely pushed me a little further over that hurdle, as well as the fact that I can feel her moving now.  I've become quite paranoid of anything happening to her, even if she does like to randomly assault my bladder.  Nothing quite compares to that  ultrasound where you can see your baby's little head, and her hands and feet.  You can see your baby in real time respond to things happening outside your belly and it really starts to put things into a different perspective for you.

Over all I am definitely excited, just a little anxious for the future.  I will do the best I can to be a good parent and I know my husband will too.  I couldn't be happier for the supportive friends and the few family members that I have that have been very supportive as well.

CAR ACCIDENT

Before....

Now this one is sort of embarrassing.  I wrecked my car.  It all happened in the dumbest way possible too.  I ran a red light and smacked another vehicle and to this day I couldn't tell you how in the hell I missed the fact that the light was red.

Luckily it wasn't a terrible accident.  The car is still drivable and shockingly everything on it still works even though it suffered frame damage.  The air bags didn't go off, I didn't even get a bruise from my seat belt and the baby is just fine.  I'll be forever grateful that the car has some amazingly strong brakes!

This happened at the beginning of September so I wasn't even pregnant enough to show yet, which is probably a good thing.  All in all it wasn't a super traumatizing experience and no one suffered any injury.

However I've been pretty damn depressed about it all.  This was my first ever vehicle and it was still functioning well and it still looked perfectly fine up until I wrecked it.  The car is nearly 16 years old and I've owned it for the past eight years.  I used to wash and wax this car at least once a month.  I could shine it to such a finish, that the sunlight reflecting off of it could blind you.  I was proud of my car and I had been through a lot with it.

Now it looks like it's had a stroke.  I bought a new bumper for it, which has no paint on it and it's lopsided due to the frame being twisted ever so slightly.  The hood, and the headlights are both transplants from junkyard vehicles, one of them is foggier than the other ... holy crap this poor vehicle!  I feel so terrible for having wrecked it.  Mechanically, the only thing that was wrong with it was a busted radiator, which was replaced.  I still drive it and I still talk to it and love it, but looking makes me feel so guilty!  The inside is also a mess now, and still filled car parts that have yet to be replaced...

I did take the time off to go get the parts from the junkyard myself.  I normally go to the junk yard with my husband but this time it was my mess and I didn't feel like dragging him with me.  Being a petite woman in a junk yard, alone, now that was an experience in itself, which I may post an entry about later.  The way some of the men there acted upon seeing me you'd think they had just found a unicorn.

JOB LEAVING SOONER THAN EXPECTED

Yep, it is sad, and it has some terrible timing considering the baby.  I somehow knew that this would happen though.  I didn't want to believe it but, as my grandmother always said, "that's the way the ball bounces."  Work was getting pretty slow.  We were supposed to focus on a new product this year.  So much counted on these new products, and they never worked.  Last year work was plentiful, sometimes almost too much to handle.  We worked overtime until we were sick of it.  There were days during the winter that we never saw sunlight because we quite literally worked from sun up, to sun down.

We were supposed to launch something like two completely new products to keep us busy up until the lease on our building was finished in August of 2015.  They had hired a large number of temps to deal with this ramp-up in production, which should have happened as early as last year.  To put it bluntly, it never even almost happened.  The products in question still don't work to this day.  In the course of a year, we went from making millions monthly, to losing hundreds of thousands every month.

Due to this massive, corporate failure to function, my job will not longer exist as of December 13th, 2014.  Yes folks, that's about two weeks from now.  I think someone needed to explain to some of these guys that "give or take a few months" shouldn't translate into "give or take nearly an entire year."  If these morons were competent enough to plan more than two weeks ahead, this could have been avoided and I wouldn't be looking for a new job while nearly six months pregnant.  Your actions sometimes have adverse effects on other people kids, remember that.

Even though I really want to wash my hands clean of this company forever, I did have an interview for a graphic design position with them and maybe I'll get it.  The opportunity is great.  I mean let's be honest here, I didn't even expect to get an interview.  With my lack of experience as well as the fact that I have no college degree I'm shocked that I'm even in the running.  The design team seem like very nice people, and the interview I had with them was a far cry from the stiff, stuck up, know-it-all attitudes of most of the corporate people I had dealt with already.  I had to give some real thought to answering questions and giving my take on the scenarios presented to me.  If that kind of critical thinking is involved for this job then I have a feeling that I would love it.

Unfortunately, as well as the negative connotation I already have for this company, moving six hours away doesn't appeal to me either.  I don't want to uproot my husband and make him start over.  Again.  He's not from here, he's only been living in this area for about eight years now, and now that he's established with friends and my family, I feel like it would be unfair to him to make him move.

Even with all the negatives, I don't want to let my fear of the unknown keep me from finally having something that could create a more stable and enjoyable future, not only for myself, but for my family.  If I could chase this opportunity, I could actively support myself, my upcoming child, possibly even my spouse too.  We wouldn't have to go without and I could finally break out of treading the poverty line.  There's also the hope that once the company consolidates, maybe they'll finally get their shit together and things will get better.  Seems like a win/win situation but there's always more to it isn't there?

This is extremely conflicting to me.  I'm really not sure what to do.  It's overwhelming at times and this would explain quite a lot why I've been lacking in motivation lately.  I've been quite depressed and conflicted and I haven't finished a single art piece since the beginning of August.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE

I do have a few things to look forward to.  I had applied for MAGfest earlier in the year.  I was wait-listed but it seems that I may be going anyway!  A friend of mine scored a table and has offered to share that, as well as her hotel room.  I couldn't be happy enough to have such awesome friends!  I'll keep everyone updated as I get more info on this.

http://magfest.org/ visit it.

This is a bit of a pick-me-up since I'm excited to get back on the convention trail so early.  It's also a bit of a wake up call.  I need to get some more artwork done!  I still have a commission waiting in the wings to be finished and once I finish that I will be focusing on painting.  Actual painting, with acrylic paint on canvas.   I haven't decided exactly what I'm going to do with them yet but I have a stock pile of traditional art supplies from the years of Christmas gifts I have yet to use.  I should really stop wasting it.

The originals will be available in art auctions at conventions this coming year!

I won't be attending any conventions, February through April, due to baby.  I've been advised not to travel past seven months.  This does leave me time to apply for Animazement again at the end of may and I would love nothing more than to do Artist Alley at Animazement for a fourth year in a row.  It is by far my favorite convention to attend.

Keep an eye out!  I plan to start live streaming again in the near future as well!  This will probably especially pick up after the holiday season once I'm out of this dreadful apartment and into something more spacious and better kept.

Once again, I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who reads, for reading.  It does feel better to get some of this stuff off my chest sometimes.

Hopefully my next entry will have some more artwork for you guys!

Until next week!

Spark, out.

Scatterbrained: The Mysterious Red-head

I think my biggest hurdle when it comes to anything creative, is the fact that I'm so ADD about... everything.  So far I have two completely separate story ideas that have completely different sets of characters.  (I've been trying to curb my character recycling habits.)  When I try to work on one, I only seem to come up with ideas for the other.  Then when I actually attempt to write anything, I end up staring at a blank page for an hour or two before doodling something that may or may not have anything to do with what I was just trying to write.

doodles

Take this picture for instance.  I doodled it because I wanted to show the difference in this character from the time the story starts until three years in.  I don't even think I really accomplished anything but at least I got a picture out of it?

I sat down and tried to write again.  Seems like I just got distracted by photoshop again and ended up slapping some color onto one of the sketches.  I even tried to cell shade but that totally didn't happen.  I'm not sure whether to call it a failure or a win.  I don't hate it but it really wasn't what I was aiming for.

Yep, my attempt at cell shading went horribly wrong.

Some of you already know this character.  She's come up in multiple drawings but she always seems to look different.  Probably a product of my ADD getting the better of me.  Her name's Kyna and she's been in about three different plots now.  I've also kidnapped her name and appearance for a multitude of online games. (Hello PWI peeps!  Now you know where the infamous Kyna comes from.)

She started out, first as a character in a high fantasy story I started way back in high school.  As a matter of fact her name wasn't even Kyna to begin with, it was Rika.  I was a total Anime nerd and I seriously thought I could get by, writing some drabble that resembled just about any feudal Japan manga in existence.

I pretty quickly saw the error in my ways and backed off the Japan thing.  (Weaboo status avoided.)  I started making up more on my own and trying to mimic less.  Her name eventually changed to what it is now and I never looked back.

Originally, she was supposed to be mysterious, bad ass, and only sort of a traitor.  She joined the enemy with every intention of ripping them apart from the inside, but fell in love with them instead.  That version of her character is still very much an entertaining design to work with.  As a matter of fact one of our prints for the convention rounds this year features this rendition of the character.

Rika Herp-a-derp

I've long since abandoned that old story and I no longer have any intention of writing her character in this manner.  Despite having changed it from a mock-Japan, to a more original setting, the old story was still just full of plot holes!  I mean, come on, it was pretty much what you'd expect from a seventeen-year-old author wannabe.  Better than the fifteen-year-old terrible fanfiction writer, but still not great.

The plot was seriously cliche and predictable, the characters were often cheesy and just hopeless.  Nearly the whole thing was hopeless but it was my baby at the time and for years I didn't let it go.  The only thing that really stood out was the world that I ended up constructing.

When I scrapped it, at least some of the characters survived in artwork, and a few of them ended up integrated into a new plot.  Something more adult and less hopeless-romantic-teenager.  I do believe I mentioned it before in a previous blog entry.

The Original Kyna (Pencils by Nga, colors by Michele)

The name of the story was E20XX, a post-apocalyptic fantasy in which the apocalypse was caused by magic.  This plot idea allowed me to keep a lot of my old character ideas.  Some of them changed drastically to fit a new setting, others didn't change much at all.  

Kyna was one that changed a lot.  Possibly the one that changed the most.  In the old plot, Kyna was the pretty usual, mysterious antihero.  Honestly I liked her design more than I liked her character, she was just missing something.  That whole story was just missing something.  The new one I started and sort of began molding her character to fit the current environment.

Things didn't really add up though and I tweaked her personality.  Even then, that didn't seem like enough to make her a survivor.  Normally she is, yes, but in a more modern setting she wouldn't have had the same situations growing up.  She wouldn't have had this urge for revenge to keep her going.  That was a terrible basis for a character anyway.

So what did I do to give her character that extra "oomph" to survive the apocalypse?  I did what anyone would have done!  I gave her a kid.  It just seemed like a good solution and a pretty solid way to turn a somewhat normal woman into a vicious, battle-scarred, ass-kicking survivor.  Momma bear syndrome.

Hopefully this version of the character and this story turns out more productive than previous versions.  I'm sticking to it until it's done, let's just hope I can find my focus this time.

Maybe this will explain the red-head that keeps popping up in a multitude of drawings.  She always has the same colors, the same hair, the same scar on her cheek, the same name, but a constantly changing setting.

Otakon: Con Report!

So as you guys know, I went to Otakon last week.  I must say that people had told me about how large it was, but nothing they said could have prepared me for just how many people I saw.  This convention was ginormous!  I had a great time with my husband, as well as hanging out with my good friend, Jen.

So the ride there, while long, was very scenic.  We drove from my home town of Charlotte, North Carolina, all the way to Baltimore, Maryland.  It took us about seven and a half hours, give or take a few minutes. 

We left at around six in the morning just to make sure we could beat the traffic getting into the city and then went through the mountains on Highway 81 as opposed to fighting to get through Richmond and D.C. on Highway 95 like some people suggested.  I'm kinda glad we picked the less direct route, we hit very little to no traffic just as we planned.

Our Table!  Prints belong to myself and Nga Nguyen, perler Bead artwork and Origami earrings belong to Jen Austin.  Links at the end of the post.

Ah yes, planning, how often does that ever go right?  I'd say we were pretty darn lucky all things considered.  This was the first time any of us had gone to Baltimore, let alone Otakon.  We stayed with a friend who lived close to downtown.  She was super amazing to let us do that and I will

forever be grateful for it!  Hotel costs in downtown Baltimore are insane.

So we got to the convention, got our badges, set the table up and the rest of the convention was a total blur.  I'm so sad that my phone was perpetually dying!  I should have brought my camera to get more photos but I don't even know that I would have had much time!  I saw so many good cosplays! I've posted a few of them, the few I could get and I stole a few from Jen's Facebook page too.

So far as selling goes.  Friday was kinda depressing.  It usually is though, since most people are window shopping.

Half way through Saturday it was like the bottom dropped out.  I had a few people come by and spend a good $80 Just at our table!  I was pleasantly surprised by the attention that our artwork was getting!

I only made it away from the table a few times and that was in order to get food usually.  We didn't take very many breaks.  I got to explore a little bit.  I ventured around the dealer's room some, and I also found the game room and played a bit of Super Smash Brothers Melee. 

My only complaint was that things were difficult to find.  They seemed obsessed with having a designated entrance and exit to the dealer's room and to Artist alley and it wasn't really clearly marked as such.  You just had to go there and ask which one it was.  Quite irritating.  Once you were in only two feet they wouldn't let you back out either. 

Needless to say, I did a lot of circles.

I'm still kind of recovering from the whole thing, I have yet to figure out exactly what I have to split of the profits.  I do know that it was a profitable trip though, and if the taxes don't hit me too hard I will definitely be trying for it again next year!

We also made friends with the table next to us.  They were very nice people!  Also ran into a few online friends.  One was a pretty cool blast from the past.  She actually knew me from my time playing the MMO, Perfect World International.  I've long since quit but former guild members didn't forget the artwork!  

I am so thankful to everyone so far that has supported our artwork and to everyone that helped me along at Otakon this year.

You guys rock.

I may have to update my schedule soon since I signed up for a few more next year.  For now it's back to more artwork and more frequent updates.

Spark, Out!

LINKS

For Jen's Deviant Art page you can click here: OrigamiCrane12 She's starting to post more than she used to, which is totally a good thing!  Check her out!

Making Progress: Otakon 2014 and a Colorist Gig!

Hey guys!  Long time no see.

It's gotten super busy for me!  (not necessarily a bad thing.) which is why I've only been able to update the blog sparingly lately.  I don't really want to end up with a bunch of itty bitty short blog posts.  That can get rather boring I'd imagine.

Anyway, the map for Otakon's Artist Alley has been released at last!  With only a few short weeks to go I can tell you guys where we're going to be located!  Luckily, it looks like I won't have to try and shout at people from a desolate corner this time!  I'm actually decently close to the doors, which is a good thing I hope.  Click HERE for the map!

The print line up is pretty well the same as Animazement.  I think I'm going to add a few things though.  Tinkerbell will no longer be available.  For some reason she never really sold well, it took three conventions to get rid of twenty Tinkerbell prints!  I'd say that's not really worth doing over.  I have a few works in progress that I really hope to have finished by the time I make it to the convention!

That Daenerys print I was working on is still making progress.  Since I don't think there's much point in keeping around two prints of the same character, I plan to replace one with the other.  So Otakon will more than likely be the last place that you can get my old Daenerys portrait.


As you can see here, the old one is a little boring.  Very stylized, supposed to look sort of water color.  I mean let's be honest here, it was the best I could do with a cell phone picture of a sketch that I did a while back.

I was at least happy that the character was recognizable.  It made me happy that people loved it so much.  I have a feeling that the new picture is going to blow it out of the water.  I showed a small preview before and this is the only place online that I'm going to show a bigger one.

I am very out of my element with the newest painting.  I don't paint dragons well.  Or hands.  So far I'm pretty satisfied with how it's coming out.  It won't stay in black and white, but, unlike the other Daenerys print, this one will not come in an 8x10.  It is formatted for 11x17 and that's that.

I'll also be sharing my table space with a good friend of mine.  She won't have any prints, but she will have some really adorable origami crane earrings as well as some perler bead artwork!  I don't really have any pictures of the perler beads but here's a few of her earrings sets for those who'd like to see!

On top of everything here I've also been signed on to participate in a comic anthology.  I'll have more on that later, once we're further along.  Seems that there will be a Kickstarter for it soon, so not to worry!  You'll definitely hear all about it!

I'm excited about it since it is my first sorta serious job in comic books.  I can't recall ever having to sign a contract at least!  I was asked to color two, but between everything I have going on with my convention schedule, I could really only promise to color one.

Speaking of which, it's now time to stop writing.  I need to check on my e-mail.

I want to take a little bit of time first, though, to say thank you so much to those who follow my blog, whether it be on blogger, or on the numerous other sites that I post updates on.  I appreciate every +1 and comment that I receive!  Thank you also with being patient with me. I know that I was planning to update twice a week but my schedule isn't really allowing for it right now.  Trying to keep it to at least one random update every week.

Spark, Out.  Until next time!

Back on Track: More Artwork!

So, let's get back on track here with some art.

I finally finished the Punisher, Descent into Darkness piece!  Just in time too!  It seems that it can still be used for the Capitol City Comic Con, taking place in the middle of July.  Hooray!  I'm going to be honest, I thought that I was just going to fail this one and let down my client.  Which would have really sucked.  It was already long overdue and that alone made me feel terrible

Pencils by: Ace Continuado

I had some issues with it, one of those issues being how black everything was.  It was so heavily inked and I have never worked with anything like that before, it was definitely a learning experience.  I still kinda feel like I made a huge mess out of it.  The colors are bright, which is odd for me anyway.  Especially since the subject matter is so dark.  I guess at the very least it'll get someone's attention right?

On top of the colors, I've also been trying very hard to brush up on my own pencils and solo projects.  There were a couple that came out of boredom since work had slowed to a crawl for a week or two.  I'll admit, I may have drawn a few silly pictures and wrote some really nerdy things in box lids while I was doing inventory.  At least anyone who finds these boxes might get a laugh if they understand the references.

Someone's going to be so confused.

Hey, look!  Sarlacc barf!

Along with video game references, there were movie lines, silly "Confucius" jokes, an inside joke, which I'm sure no one will even understand but it sounded like a good idea at the time.  One said "Han shot first!" Another had a picture of a stop sign and then "Hammer time" down below it.  I think the "arrow to the knee" joke made it in there somewhere too.  

I even drew a De Lorean in one of them.  Yes, THE De Lorean from Back to the future.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it.  All I had to screw around with was a single black sharpie, I made the most of it.

Only YOU can prevent range fires

As you can see here, I do have a Star Trek reference, a Portal reference, Boba Fett, Smokey the Bear, and if you can't read the one with the itty bitty writing in the corner of the first picture, it says "Let the Wookie Win."

I'll probably get in trouble for it, but it's totally worth it.

As for some even more recent sketches... well..  They haven't been many and they haven't been easy either.

I know I want to put an owl on this next one below.  I wanted to do some crazy fancy owl makeup too, but I wasn't too thrilled with her neck.  I attempted to add a different angle than usual and some movement to my sketch but I sorta failed.

I'll fix it later I suppose.  It should be fun to paint over and I may actually have some nice original work to add to my prints before I head off to Otakon in the next few weeks.

Oh yeah that.

I'm so freaked out about going right now.  I have never been to Baltimore in my entire life and I have only ever passed through Maryland to visit my in-laws in Jersey.  Hooray for being scared shitless!

This next sketch of Daenerys from Game of Thrones I did with every intention of practicing with my greyscale markers. I ended up caving into the pencil in the end.  I wasn't even happy with the way her face turned out, not to mention her wonky boobies.  And what's with that hair?  It's all floaty and all over the place.

This is because I'm a total amateur and I was going to attempt making it look like a fancy portrait because I can't draw arms, hands, or anything else for that matter.

I really did have a vision for this one and I'm slowly completing it with the help of Photoshop.  It's proving to be very difficult but I need to challenge myself.  Most of my best paintings start out as sketches I didn't even like. 

I do have a work in progress shot for you guys.  It's only a very small portion of the overall piece.  I'm saving all of that for the big reveal.  I also want to finish this with enough time to print it out for Otakon.  It would be replacing my old Daenerys piece.

Everything I have been doing lately is an experiment.  As of right now I'm not even sure that I like her skin tones.  Perhaps it's a little too dull.  I jumped ahead of myself and started adding color before I was really done laying out the whole thing.

This means I'll probably be taking a few steps backward on this one.  But no worries!  I have a feeling I can finish it and that this will be one of my best works to date!  There will be dragons, and fire, and so much stuff that I'm pretty sure I can't draw.

I'm gonna do it anyway!  Onward with the artwork!

Also, for those of you who are interested, I would really like to do a Q & A blog entry.  One with illustrations.  I'd like to practice some expressions and this seems like a fun way to do it.  If you're curious about anything at all, feel free to ask!  There's a little box to contact the author on the side of the page.  Use it to ask whatever you'd like and I'll answer all the questions in a blog post within the next few weeks!  You can also comment on this blog post to ask your question!  It doesn't even have to be art related :3

Fire away!

Guns in Coimcs: You're Doing it Wrong!

Alright fellow comic book artists!  Let's talk guns!

*Also, a quick disclaimer.  Since I don't feel like rummaging through my house to find all the necessary items to take pictures of, most of these pictures are from google and are not mine.  (Except for the one below, Bad Company is mine.)

His and Hers.  Mine and my Husband's 1911s

I know how popular guns are in comic books and in movies.  They're everywhere.  You draw your crazy vigilante hanging out with his guns, you draw them being fired, you draw them being pointed at things, yadda, yadda, so on and so forth.  I'm not sure some people know just how wrong they're depicting it.

As some of you may, or may not know, I am not only a comic book colorist, but I work in a factory that manufactures handguns.  I know a thing or two about the real function of guns and how the comic books and movies get them wrong EVERY TIME.  For years Hollywood has been teaching people the weirdest crap about firearms and I'm going to debunk a few of them for you so that your comic book characters can handle a gun in a much more realistic sense and I can stop beating my head on the table when I see it.  

Some of these are just super nit picky and you can ignore them for style reasons (stuff like bullets sparking and all that.) I'm not going to go into tremendous detail, you have Google for that.

1. THE CUP AND SAUCER GRIP

Yer doin' it wrong Jack!

Yes you guys, Jack Bauer here is doing it wrong.  And you guys thought he knew how to handle a gun. Pfff.

This is probably the most common mistake I see, well, everywhere.  In comics, in movies, at the gun range with newbie shooters.  If they don't try to shoot like a thug, with the gun turned sideways, this "cup and saucer" grip is generally their first instinct.

While you should hold your pistol with both hands, this isn't the way to go about it.  If any of you have ever shot this way before, you know from experience that this is a very unstable way to hold a handgun.  I'm actually not even sure what possessed Hollywood to find this okay in the first place.

This guy does a pretty good job of showing you how to hold the gun correctly and why you should hold it that way.

 

2. BULLETS DON'T SPARK OR EXPLODE ON IMPACT

No, just no.  If you're in the process of drawing a comic frame right now, where there's a big bright poof of light where the bullet strikes, stop drawing.  Stop right now and back away.  Bullets just don't do that!  In reality they don't even spark.  

I would say it's okay to use sparks since comics are very visual, but it all depends on how realistic you want to be.  There IS a round that flares out, called Dragons Breath.  It's just a novelty item and I wouldn't even consider it for anything other than shits and giggles.  It does make a really cool picture but it's super impractical.  I think it's also only made for shotguns.

*Disclaimer: I don't own this picture.

There is also a such thing as incendiary rounds but, again, they're not going to make a super opaque explosion looking thing if it just hits a person.  Just something to think about.

3. RELOAD!

So I was watching The Walking Dead and I realized a number of things that they got wrong when it comes to guns.  There was the usual "cup and saucer" grip, there was also exaggerated recoil, and someone being told to take the safety off a Glock, which doesn't come with a manual safety unless you put one on it. I figure.  Alright, that's excusable.

Then this happened.

How many shots does that thing hold!?  If you want to do something at least half way accurate please do a little research on the gun you're planning for your characters to use and how many shots they hold.  Counting the number of bullets can even be used as a very effective way of building suspense.

One thing I don't think I've ever seen used in a comic is the quick and easy way to reload a revolver. 
For revolvers there's this thing called a speed loader.  You just pop the cylinder open, empty the old shells, put the new bullets in, twist and close the cylinder and you're ready to go for another round.  I personally have one of these myself for my little five shot revolver.  Just keep in mind that these things didn't exist back in the cowboy days.

There's also a such thing as a  moon clip which may, in fact, be even faster than a speed loader.  Not all revolvers are made to use these so I'd suggest looking up which revolvers do.  Some even require moon clips to function.

Moon clips with ammo

The Oh-So-Convenient speed-loader

Another thing I would like to touch on briefly, is the difference between a magazine, and a clip. (Speaking of moon clips and all)  People get them confused very often.  Since I was harping on The Walking Dead earlier, I'll get them on this one too.  I do believe it's the second episode of the series, maybe the first, Rick calls his magazine a clip.  

If you have a character that you really want to know guns, and who really should know guns, impress your gun-loving reader base with this little detail.

Notice something?

A lot of people that refer to a magazine as a clip have probably never actually seen a clip.  A clip is used to put bullets into a magazine.  Some guns have magazines that aren't removable and you can use a clip to load them.  Most modern guns have magazines like the ones shown above that can be attached and detached.  Not to mention the visual difference.  That's a super simplified explanation, but with a little visual aid, at least some people won't confuse the two now!

4. OTHER NITPICKS

Now we're just going to go through some of the smaller, lesser known gripes. 

The right way

*Gun safety!  That's actually a big one. When your character is handling a gun without intending on shooting someone, the gun-loving reader base will love to see your character practicing proper safety.  This means keeping their finger off the trigger until ready to fire, making sure that the gun does not point at someone that isn't an intended target, whether or not the gun is empty.  Maybe even scolding another character for the improper handling of a firearm. 

Unless your character truly is crazy, they should never be pointing a gun at their own head and smiling... like the character below.  We all know Revy is totally crazy but this is ... well... a little too much.

Revy from Black Lagoon.  One of my personal favorite Anime shows.

That picture makes me cringe every time I see it.  I'm pretty darn sure it's just fan art since the actual series does a pretty good job of accurately portraying guns.  With the exception of some dual wielding and all that.  In real life dual wielding isn't really practical as I'm sure some of you may have figured out.  It's just one of those things that looks cool, therefore, even most gun lovers will let that slide.

*Revolver Flubs. Another nitpick comes yet again from the series, The Walking Dead.  I forget which season, but it's the season finale episode.  I'm going to avoid spoilers here buy just saying that Rick's Colt Python was fired.  You never see the shot fired, but you hear it, and you also hear a clink of an empty casing hitting the floor.  Guys, revolvers don't have an extractor.  They do not spit out shells.  If you watch the show, some of you may know the scene I'm speaking of. 

*Firing.  Guns being drawn, firing while the hammer is back.  If the gun has gone off that means the hammer has hit the firing pin. This means that the hammer is down in the case of a revolver, or it means that the slide is flying back over the hammer and ejecting a shell in a semi-auto pistol.  In some cases I've even seen people draw the hammer following the slide backward.  If the gun has a slide on it and it is being fired, the slide pushes the hammer back as it flies backward, re-cocking the hammer for the next round.

 

*Silencers.  Contrary to popular belief, silencers aren't completely quiet.  They don't make that noise you hear on TV.  As someone who has fired a suppressed handgun before, I can tell you the movies really exaggerate this one.  While it does make it quiet enough that you may not have to wear hearing protection, it can still be pretty loud.  You would have to be a considerable distance away before having a suppressor would really keep your position hidden.  

Sometimes silencers can be filled with something to dampen the noise even further.  The one that I fired I'm pretty sure was filled with a little water.  It keeps the suppressor from getting hot as quickly,  and it also makes a mess.  It was still loud enough to hurt my ears just a little, granted the range I was in wasn't exactly spacious, just to give you an idea of what it's really like.  I also came out of the range with specks of grime all over from it.  Not something they show you in the movies, that's for sure.

Pillows also don't really help.  I've never shot through a pillow before, but if an actual suppressor can't make a gunshot completely silent, a pillow is certainly never going to do the trick.

 

THAT'S ALL FOLKS!

 Like I said, some of these are small nit picks that can be ignored in favor of style and this was only meant to be informational.  I hope you guys learned something and I really hope this helps in your action comic endeavors!

And now I leave you with multiple types of guns firing in slow motion.