Whenever I say "(blah blah blah) before" all I hear in my head is Frodo saying "We've been here before! We're going in circles!"

Oh, hello there! Why yes, it has been a while since I've blogged. And no, I'm not going to apologize. Why? Well if you're not offended, keep reading.

Excuse #1: I've been busy.
Excuse #2: I haven't been drawing much so I haven't had much to blog about. See Excuse #1.
Excuse #3: (This one is a doozy.) Last Friday I revisited my old stomping grounds at Campus Christian Fellowship at Western. Jeff brought an excellent sermon, so great and true that I haven't stopped thinking about it for a week. He preached about how we worship ourselves, and how evident this is in our Facebook/Twitter/blog driven society. Ouch. It kinda hit home (<-- understatement). This week I've really been thinking twice whenever I update something - is this saying "Hey look at me because I'm so cool/funny/awesome/great!" or is this saying, "God is GREAT! Look at Him!" Can't say anything I tweeted this past week has said the latter. Since I haven't been drawing much as of recent (or at least not working on things I can publicly discuss or post) these blogs have become more and more "my life" centered. That's not really what I set out to do and I certainly don't want to be blogging for my glory....because I don't deserve any. It all belongs to God because, if you don't know Him yet, he is beyond Awesome. With a capital A.

So yes, I have been rethinking social media and the role it plays in my life. This is definitely something that will have to be thought about more and more, especially as my ideal career right now is making a comic for the internets, and really being an artist in general is a lof of "Look at me!". I love Jesus and I really can't live with those two things colliding. So yes, lots to think about.

In other news, I have an interview in, get this: BELLINGHAM!!! Yup, I have an interview tomorrow morning and I am STOKED. I think it's the weirdest timing and I keep thinking, "God, really? Now to potentially move to Bellingham? Not, say, 3 weeks ago when I was jobless?" But then He kindly reminds me, "Not everything is about you, dear." So I'll take it. It's weird timing because last week I just started a "3 month" temp job (although I can give 2 weeks notice before I leave, so I'm not locked into a 3 month deal). The thing is: I love this company. If I was staying in Seattle I would totally try to stay there for reals. But, as weird or ill timed as this all seems, I know my Heavenly Father has some really rad plans not just for me, but for everyone involved in me taking a new job/leaving an old one. Who knows? Maybe the person who takes over my temp job should I get the Bellingham job ends up desperately needing the job or finding their husband/wife through it? There are endless possibilities and it's really cool to look outside of my selfish bubble and see the possibilities.

So I came up to "The Ham" today to avoid the deep freeze that's gonna happen tonight. I hunkered down in my favorite local coffee chain to draw and *gasp* potentially finish the comic book (!!!) and what do I find? Not my stylus.

I left my stylus for my Wacom at home. D'OH! I have just over a page until I finish this darn comic book that has taken over my artistic life for months and months and months (since September?) and I was so excited to sit down and finish it tonight. I called around to Best Buy, WalMart and Radio Shack here in town to no avail: to one sells the stylus separately, and I'm not in the financial place I wish I was to put down an unnecessary $70 to just buy a new tablet (If I was I'd upgrade to the $100 larger model). I even looked on Amazon to see if I could get it tomorrow, but Saturday is as soon as it can be shipped and that's just silly. *sigh* I'm so incredibly frustrated that I forgot it... but if I hadn't, I wouldn't be writing this blog! (Take that how you may.)

So anyone reading this in Bellingham/Lynden/Ferndale/Whatcom County area who knows a friend's roommate's cousin's girlfriend's brother who has a Wacom tablet who will let me borrow their stylus for the weekend, I will owe you so big. I'll get you a copy of the comic book or coffee, which ever you prefer.

Thanks for reading. To God be the glory.

Titles are for Ninnies!

I was sitting here on the couch at 2:25pm and just realized it's Tuesday and that means it's blog-day! Now that I'm done with Roomies! I'm not sure what to blog about, although I do have a few things rattling through my head.

Networking
I'm bad at it. But it is something that I've been thinking about recently as it is desperately important as an artist (and as many other things, but I write what I know). The five months I worked at Amazon I gave my business card to two people - one because my friend made me and the other because he asked. Today, the lady I'm temping with asked if I had any work online and I said I'd give her my web address (but have yet to). How many people that I talk about my art with walk away from that conversation never seeing anything I have done? And why am I so afraid to mention that I'm an artist? I don't want to be over selling myself to the point of being obnoxious, but it does constantly surprise me to see how much people really do want to know about art. (Maybe because knowing an artist makes them feel cultured? Who knows.)

I'm also temping at a financial office right now, so these people would be the ones to show off my work to! (Only slightly kidding. But if I had a nickel for how many times friends have said, "If I had money I'd totally buy some of your work!" I'd probably have about a dollar and some change.)

Comic Book
I have 4 1/2 pages and the cover left to do. This thrills me to no end because I a) can't wait to have the thing printed and in my hands, b) can't wait to see Thomas have it and c) can't wait to get going on the webcomic. But I am also extremely proud to see how it's turning out and how much I've learned through the whole process. I really have made leaps and bounds in my illustration and computer literacy.


Color
Thanks to the Webcomics Weekly podcast (again) for opening my eyes. Listening through the archives I came across one where they talked about coloring with Steve Hamaker. It really is worth a listen. But he gave a tip that blew my mind! It's so simple, yet so great. He said if you want to create a mood or some sort of lighting, make a new layer (oh, this is for digital coloring, p.s.) and fill it with a transparent layer of any color (blue for night, orange or yellow for warm light, etc), then you can erase it away to bring out the white underneath or other great effects. I have used it a few times and LOVE IT. For example, this dog photo I drew the dogs in black then filled it with a transparent (about 30%?) orangey-burnt-sienna-ish color. That made all my blacks a dark brown. When I took the eraser to it, the whites became the light and the blacks got darker. It's like drawing on a toned paper or starting with a wash. I absolutely adore this tip and it really drove away a lot of coloring fears I was having (seeing as a full color cover is in my near future).

Even though I have 5 years of being a painting major under my belt, those last 3 years I painted mainly abstractly so coloring realistically scares me. But I've been learning a lot while diving into digital art as things aren't as precious as you can undo or hide layers. With paint you have to first learn the medium and then apply color theory. With digital you can kind of just go for it. And I like it!

This is a boring blog. Sorry guys. I am off to work on some paid design work now. Wee!

OOPS!

I totally forgot that yesterday was Friday, hence the late blog. This unemployment is really screwing with my brain. I honestly don’t know what day it is. *sigh*

So today’s blog is totally off-the-cuff because, although I’ve had an extra day-and-a-bit to think of one, I really haven’t.

This week Ben and his wife have been visiting us up here in Seattle. It’s rough to see him so sick and not having the physical ability to get better. I would appreciate (and know he does, also) prayers for healing, as well as coping with what he is dealt now. We don’t know why God hasn’t healed him yet, as we’ve been praying for years that He would do so, but we know He has a plan. I just hope and pray that plan is to make him 100% cancer free and fully recovered.

Along with the lack of time awareness (not just day-wise - I’ve been going to bed around 1 or 1:30 every night! Old habits die hard...), unemployment has given me a lot of drawing time. The above picture is a frame from the latest page - recalling last spring before Thomas and I began dating. It’s been so long and my life has changed so much, the days of getting up, going to the studio with tea in hand and staying there until dark seem like a different lifetime. I miss it, but I enjoy certain aspects of my life post-college as well.

Sorry for the craptastic blog today. I’ll try real hard for Tuesday’s. :)

OH! Also: for those who read on RSS reader, I know the images don’t work most of the time. For now please just click to go to the website. We’ll figure something out here sometime....

Beth is still desperately looking for a job in Bellingham, WA. To offer her one, ask about art or just say hi, knock 3 times on the e-pipe at beth@fledglingcomics.com.

Caution: Steep Learning Curve

EDIT: Thanks to my dear friend, Clinton (pictured below!) for pointing out the typo in the above image. *sigh* I’m too lazy to go into the photoshop file, change it, then turn it back into a jpeg and crop it...so enjoy it while it lasts. It’ll be changed for print. Thanks Clinton!!!

Today I thought I’d give you an update of how the comic book is coming. For new readers, I am writing and drawing a comic book for my boyfriend. It was going to be for Christmas, and then his birthday, but now he just knows it’ll come when it’s finished.

My last art history class in college I wrote a research paper on the portrayal of women in comics in the 1960’s, so looking at those horribly cheesy classics clicked something on in my brain and I can’t get away from them. So this comic was born. I’m drawing it in the cheesy style, but I’ve been finding it really hard to write that badly, so let’s just say I’m being influenced by the early comics, and not really doing this in that specific style (although it’s nice to have that excuse when the writing is bad).

I have finished page 9 and am starting on page 10 of around 22 or 23 pages. I haven’t actually finished writing it yet, as those last few pages are tripping me up a bit. It’s been nice that I’ve been able to have my computer at work recently since the last two weeks were so slow with the Holidays, and then this week I’m stationed at a practically dead building. I really can’t complain since it means I can work on my drawing between upset phone callers and the few emails I field. If you follow me on twitter you know that I love these days, and can’t stop saying how much I wish I could get paid to draw (what I want) all day. *sigh* Someday...

Anyway, my learning curve with this comic is pretty darn steep. I’m kicking myself a little that I committed to a simple black and white format, rather than using grays. I’ve been learning a lot about how to portray depth (like in the image above) using the two tones, and have been going over to Digger to see how she does things. I can’t speak enough about how great it is to have an influence that you can turn to, like a friend by your side, to “ask” questions of. Digger is definitely a visual mentor for me in this endeavor in that way. The OCD part of me wants to go back and work on things on earlier pages to make it more cohesive, but another part of me kind of likes to see the growth process. Not that there are huge issues that I can’t handle, just small layout things I would like to change, but would mean redoing the entire page...so I’ll just leave it be.

However this panel, for example, I will go back and fix the AWFUL HORRIBLE perspective. It’s just terrible. And I’m going to darken up the figure in the foreground. This page I was so incredibly excited to draw, as the last panel is an homage to my most favorite thing in the entire world (practically): Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog. I love it. It didn’t turn out as awesome as I was hoping (the panel, not Dr. Horrible) so I might go back into that one as well.

I have been trying to make myself take more time on some things that I’d just naturally breeze through, however, because I really don’t want to look back on this in 5 years (or 5 days) and go “Oh crap. I should have done ___!!! What was I thinking?!” I’d really like to avoid artistic remorse, so I’m taking a little bit more time on this than I am naturally inclined to. I haven’t had a single art professor NOT tell me, “Beth, SLOW DOWN” so this is an exercise I’m well acquainted with.

Learning how to write for comics is an interesting feat as well. I’m infinitely grateful that I’m writing it for myself and not for another artist, because then I don’t have to fully articulate what I mean (props to writers (Ben) who do have to do that!). But having to not only think about what you want to happen, but how is a really weird set of skills you have to pull from. Keeping in mind all the artistic elements such as composition (of not just the panel but the page and the entire book), you also have to consider the pacing of events so motion or action is portrayed, as well as the angle at which you draw it all to impact the mood (a sharp or odd angle will make it look like something intense or weird is going on, where a straight-on angle is boring). You have to be cinematic and artistic and literary all at the same time. It is really easy to say what you want to happen (example: Betsy finds the book and gets upset.) but when you have to show what you want to happen, that’s where it gets complicated. Do I write 4 panels of Betsy walking in, walking over to the book, touching the book, then the book in her hands - all to imply that she walked in the room and picked up a book? What a waste of space (and time).

I’d like to say I’ve figured out the above issue. I haven’t. I’m still trying to figure out a lot of things. But where is the fun in knowing everything? Enjoyment comes in conquering a problem, learning from it, and tackling the next. That being said, I am having a blast doing this. I am incredibly proud of how it is turning out, and can’t believe I’m actually making this. I can not wait to see it in print.

If you wish to contact me about comics, art or anything else - shoot me an email beth@fledglingcomics.com

Meet Cute

I’m really on the fence about whether I should do this or not. I just tweeted that I had a whole blog written up (it was quite long), but I don’t like it. It was really repetitive, but did bring up a few good thoughts. I’m sure I’ll recycle those into future blogs, but I’m really not in the mindset right now to edit that sucker down into a better blog. I’ll leave that to another time.

So what I’m really not sure if I want to do is this: I’m thinking of posting the first page to the comic book I’m working on. I don’t care if it’s out there for people to critique (I’d actually like some help on what I can do better!). It’s that Thomas will see it. He knows I’m making a comic book, but he doesn’t know what it’s about. Once I reveal this first page, all the surprises will be out of the bag. :\

Well, after a few texts to my wonderful man friend, here goes nothing. Enjoy!

I guess a little background might help: for my very last art history class I wrote a paper on the portrayal of women in early comics, focusing on the 1963 beginning issues of X-Men. It was a blast to research and write and I learned a lot from reading those vintage comic books. The style drives me bonkers (the anatomy is atrocious) and the writing is just painful. But I got the idea to write a comic book about Thomas and I as if we were characters in a 1960’s superhero comic and to do a sort of “origin” story of us. I am having a blast and often laughing out loud at my funny ideas (at least, they’re funny to me).

...and that last panel on the right is one of those things. I drew my face about 10 different times. 3 days later I came back to it and it just fell out of my fingers just right. Funny how things like that happen. And that’s exactly how I felt when that actually happened (just not in 1963...)

So happy Friday, everyone! I’m spending the weekend in Bellingham (yay!). 

If you want to send in some comments, ask a question or two or just say hi, you can shoot me a message at beth@fledglingcomics.com. Or if you prefer a character limit, I’m on Twitter @ejmorrell. I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions.