Inking on the primary 35 pages are done. I’ve gone through with that gunky white correction stuff (which is rather like painting with marshmallow fluff) and done some preliminary fixing – further operations will commence tomorrow, along with the scanning and initial digital fixins. Sometimes I wish I had an intern.

It’s happy times around here lately. I have some other good news, but I’m not going to blare about it until everything is done and done and done. That’s one of the few ways in which I’m superstitious.

So! Furlough two, coming soon. The precise when of that has yet to be determined.

I also did this today as my warm-up drawing.

I hate when food tries to absolve me of emotional issues, especially the ones it thinks it would cause itself. So unbecoming in a dessert. Don’t apologize, brownie. Just be. (Also, it is ironic that a supposedly more healthful brownie, when sliced, promptly turns into something resembling sundae topping.)

Ink: verb
1. To make penciled lines permanent for purposes of artwork.
2. To make amazing lapses in perception crystal clear in ways that pencil cannot convey.

Still working on Furlough two here, and it’s still going pretty well. However, on Friday, I discovered a magical bit of perspective-based fuckery that I simply must share with you.

I use reference pictures and occasionally get a mirror to try out postures and do other little checks and balances to make sure that my little drawn peoples never look too mutated. However, sometimes, well, it takes STARK BLACK LINES to make something perceptible. Observe:

For a moment, I was happy – oh, those fingers turned out pretty well. Then… well. It made me think of this:

We’ll, um, fix that in post. Yes.

In happier art news, here’s today’s warm-up sketch:

Based on a couple of couples I saw last night. I hope their dog has wire-rimmed glasses too.

P.S. We are currently at 424 for the spam count. I cheated a little and closed comments on my most frequently spammed post. 76 more and I’m going to get to start illustrating Abraham Lincoln quotes posted in Russian.

One of my very favorite things, since I started making zines and comics in earnest last summer (following, oh, fifteen or so years of just planning things out), has been getting reactions to my creativity zine. I’ve gotten really wonderful responses to it from people, and sometimes I feel like I can’t hawk it strongly enough at conventions, because I know that anyone who expresses interest in it would get something from it. (Mainly because I recognize their curiosity as being a parallel to the state of mind that led me to write the zine in the first place.)

It’s been reviewed on a couple of blogs recently, which is exciting. Alli Rense included it in a roundup of readables, and Drummbellina had very kind things to say about it as well.

As for me? I am still chipping away at Furlough two. I haven’t started today’s bout of inking, but as of the end of yesterday, 18 of 35 pages were inked. They need processing and all, of course, but generally I’m pretty satisfied with how they’re turning out. ‘

In the meantime, here’s a self-portrait I made as part of an inking test several days ago.

I don’t consider portraits or caricature a strong point of mine (yet), but I find it really easy to draw myself, and apparently pretty accurately at that. I think it’s because I don’t fear my own reaction – I won’t get pissed at myself for making my nose look big or my face look too full or my eyes look beady. I don’t care. And so it turns out ok. I suspect there’s a lesson in that.

Which I added to the link list. The Bureau of Drawers (say: Draw-wers) is a Seattle group for cartoonists, illustrators, and the like. I’m delighted to have recently joined.

As of right now, my site has received 409 spam comments. I was dimly aware of this phenomenon when I started this site, but I’ve been amazed at how prolific this shit is. Some of it at least has the benefit of being funny – when they’re not reciting lists of prescription drugs or fancy purse brands. So! When I hit 500 comments (you hear that, spamming assholes? Bring it), I’m going to do an illustrated rendition of some of my favorites. Lemons : lemonade :: poop : illustrated spam comments.

And now: back to inking. I’ve switched nibs for this issue, going from a larger one to a smaller (yes, there are terms for these, I’ll look ‘em up later). I expected that the look of Furlough would evolve as I went on, it being my first rather large project and all. It’s gratifying to see it happening.

Seriously, you guys, look:

I finished penciling page 35 yesterday, but I wanted to do a wee bit of inking before I went to bed. So that’s where we are.

Last issue, I was basically sprinting toward the Emerald City ComiCon*; this time, I’m trying to be more leisurely, to experiment and perhaps lean on the perfect side of “Done is better than perfect” a little more.

I did notice differences in the way I work, while penciling. I’m having that feeling of, “Wow, walking up this hill is easier since I’ve been running on the treadmill so much!” Things that freaked me right out on issue one – backgrounds, some furniture, other non-human things that needed to be drawn – were easier, occasionally to the point that I didn’t give them any special thought at all beyond, “Wow, this used to be hard as hell.” It is extremely satisfying to see things getting better and easier, and to be able to shift my attention to other things I need to work on.

*Almost every time I write this, I start to write “Emerald Coast ComiCon,” and I have to correct myself. I’ve lived in two different places that label themselves the Emerald Something, which creates some weird confusion on my part. I do it when speaking too sometimes, earning me some very weird looks from people.

It is a weird feeling, using my own comic as a reference. But let it be known that, for all I make fun of people who make exhaustive continuity error entries on the IMDB, I do think it matters.

Ok, I did no such thing tonight, but I couldn’t not use that phrase once it popped into my head.

I went to a gathering of Seattle’s cartoonist society. Or… group. Gathering. Once known as the Friends of the Nib, they’re now known as the Bureau of Drawers. (Say draw-wers. Now say, “Rural juror.”) I guess there’s been some splintering and reorganizing; my first meeting saw me witnessing the voting on a new name. (Rejects: Pencil Friends, Sketch Machines, Registered Sketch Offenders, among others) I don’t give a fig for politics, so what mattered to me was how fun it was.

Man, I love hanging out with artists. I was stunned at the casual beauty of some of what people around me were creating. As I said to one of the, um, Bureaucrats, one of the best things about these meetings will be the encouragement to step up my game a little. It’s easy to be the Office Artist if you have a decent measure of drawing ability and willingness to draw anywhere and anything. Keeping up with professionals is a little different, especially if you hope to be one.

I’m a little glad I brought a low-key project tonight. Instead of wielding ink to make some Great Damn Work of Lasting Art, I did the final thumbnails for Furlough two. I’d done preliminaries to get the page count down (did I mention it’s 35 PAGES LONG OH MAN), but I wanted something clearer and more visually ambitious to work from, once I got to penciling. I’m planning on starting tomorrow, because I need it to be done by the end of May (if not earlier) so I can get copies printed for the Olympia Comics Festival.

I also witnessed more evidence for the following hypothesis: a group of artists, given sufficient supplies and time, will eventually get to the subject of penises.* Conversational subject, subject of art, one or the other or both, it WILL come to that. And I love it. It’s always hilarious, and it can result in some surprisingly interesting art.

*Alternative hypothesis, given that I taint the scientific sample: all gatherings of cartoonists that include me will eventually get to the subject of penises. This warrants further investigation.

Those of you seeing this may be new. In that case, here’s what you should know about me.

Here is Perspective, an eight-page comic by me. I don’t tend to do shorter work, so I hope you enjoy it.

Here is my Etsy store, in case you wanted to mull over a purchase before making it.

If you subscribe to my RSS feed, you will occasionally see silly stuff like this.

And here is an excerpt of my current comic, which has one issue out right now with three more to follow – the second of which I intend to debut in June.

I talk about my current projects, about miscellaneous comic-based silliness, about creativity issues and blocks and solutions, and about other comics and art I like. As in life, I don’t talk if I don’t have something worthwhile to say. I hope you tune in.

You know something’s difficult to make when such disparate companies as Crayola, Band-Aid, and various shoe makers can’t agree on what it is – let alone to make it right. Nevermind the fact that for, oh, 70-plus percent of humans, the industry standard of “fleshtone” doesn’t even come close.

But you know what? It’s not easy. Well-intended attempts at skin colors come out luridly bright, or weirdly yellow, or just flat and otherwise wrong. Finally, I turned to my favorite art professor, Dr. Internet, and found this site, which is so simple and so helpful. Seriously, bookmark that shit if you think you’ll ever even consider painting a person.

Even with directions, though, I’m never quite sure that an ok batch won’t be my last one. So this time, I stocked up.

Watercolors are so deceptively colored when wet – or when in any state except “dry, in a final version of your painting.” This jar, if you can’t read it, is pale flesh tone skin color.

(Also pictured: my paint-testing paper, several brushes, my bottle of paint-diluting water, my own water glass, the very edge of an ice tray used for mixing paint, my jar of brushes and pens, my sewing machine’s cover, a cupcake wrapper container recently used as a circle template, and my gilded teacup of rinse water. You may address all correspondence to Ms. I.M. Classy.)

Today’s other diversions: doing extremely sketchy thumbnails for Furlough two so I could get a rough pagecount (35!!!), heading to the copy shop to stock up for this weekend, enjoying the new episode of Answer Me This! while also enjoying a chocolate milkshake, eating two delicious veg burgers, and doing zero housework.

That is the weird and improbable sentence, uttered this afternoon, that made my last 15 minutes go the way they were.

A fact about me: I love a drawing challenge. I forget about this, because it doesn’t come up all that much. But whenever it comes up, I get a very big smile on my face and disappear to make whatever it is happen.

So I posted about the cat master on Facebook – in preparation for Stumptown this weekend, I was taking zine inventory and realized I needed to make more of my cat lady zine, among others, but the cat zine master was the only one I couldn’t find.*

So, thanks to a casual remark by Meredith, I just did this:

You know. As you do.

I’m available for other drawing challenges, by the way. As the kids say, bring it.

*It turned up, happily.