Crazyness

Well this Christmas is already very odd. My family is going to Arizona for Christmas to be with my Grandparents. That's fine and dandy but my parents decided that we should have a fake Christmas at home before we leave. We had it yesterday and everything went as expected, except for one thing: I got next to no sleep.

No, it's not that I was excited; not at all. I've always been able to sleep on Christmas eve as a kid and I usually sleep like a rock now. But ever since I got to my parents house I've been having trouble sleeping. And the fact that on Thursday I woke up at 1 PM didn't help me go to sleep (I was getting sick and I needed that sleep). So I went to bet at 11 PM on Friday night, woke up at 12:30 because my Dad was being too loud with the TV right out side of my room. He went to bed at 2 AM and I tried to get some sleep. I spent about an hour and a half rolling around trying to get comfortable. I gave up and fell asleep on the couch. My mom woke me up on accident at 5:30 AM. She was filling stockings and didn't know I was there when she came down and made too much noise. I honestly didn't feel tired so I opted to stay awake from her. Besides, it wasn't like I was going to get much energy from an extra two and a half hours of sleep.

Everyone got up at seven and we had fake Christmas. I'm still feeling fine well into 9 AM. Then at 10 my family went out to do some errands. I got a hair cut while everyone went to the bank and at noon you could clearly see I was exhausted. My family did some other errands and I was on and of sleeping in the car for most of it.

We got back home at about 3 PM and I took a 30 minute power nap. It just made me be able to stay awake until 6 PM. My mom told me to take a nap and I took an hour long power nap but it barely gave me enough energy to stand up. I typically have amazing power naps where I can be dead tired with 5-6 hours of sleep, do some heavy sleeping for half an hour and wake up feeling just a little tired and be able to stay awake until I go to bed (that is if I don't exert my slef). But at this point I knew that there was very little I could do to stay awake. We're going to be leaving for our plane at 5 AM and I have no energy to pack my clothes, let alone get my bag out. So I went to bed officially at 7PM.

I woke up an hour ago at 1:20 AM. I feel pretty good and while I could go for some more sleep I don't want to mess myself up that much, so I'm going to stay wide awake until I get on the plane, sleep a little bit. Then push myself to stay awake until 10 PM. I'm still going to bed far earlier than usual but at least it's normal.

So what's the moral of this story: Fake Christmas sucks.

Heck yeah

I just got a feature on Dharma Designs blog.

And I'm going to flat out admit that I haven't been making anything for my shop lately. I've been busy with finals and making Christmas presents. Knitting three people presents right now. I'm not even that good at knitting but everyone wants me to make them something.

Happyness Packs

I'm going to be selling five happyness packs for this holiday season. Think of it as a holiday thank you to everyone who supported me this year. And yes, happyness is intentionally misspelled.

Hello December

December began yesterday. And as a super hello December I got some snow where I live! It's melting away now but oh well. It was fun while it lasted.

For December I am mainly going to try to catch up from slacking off this November and then I'm going to try and sell a lot of my stuff and hopefully sell all of my holiday cards.

FAILURE!

I just finished my first hat and man is it messed up. The pattern I had was for an insanely large head that probably doesn't exist. It's not bad for my first hat but it still sucks.


I have enough yarn to make another hat with a different patten and I'm not going to stripe it like I did this one (I know you can't really tell but it's there). If it works out then I'll make my brother a brown hat but if not then I'll just but him something.

I'm taking it up again

I've decided to take knitting up again.

I was never any good but I liked making my own stuff. Plus I decided to learn how to do a seed stitch last night. I have been having a really bad memory lately and I had to restart the thing about eight times. But now that I have it down I feel like my memory is better. It's the same refreshed feeling I get after I play brain age (which I need to play more).

Wishes

I really really wanted to get AquaPirates vol 2 done before I left for a mini vacation during the thanksgiving season. At this point it appears I may not be able to do that. If I had just one more day I would easily have volume 2 out and ready. I only need for three pages to be drawn and inked, write an opening note, make one page of extra content, set my drawing for the button attachment page and throw some gouache on watercolor paper to get the cover done (I already have the drawing for the cover done).

Honestly it's kind of frustrating for me, especially considering that on etsy I'm going to have my zines featured on black Friday and I wanted to have a 2006 zine set to sell.

So after work I'm going to quickly pack and then I'm going to push my self to get vol 2 finished. Not photocopied mind you, but just have the flats ready on my computer and the cover to be done. Then when I get back I just make a quick run to the UPS store and not only get vol 2 photocopied and ready but also get more stock ready (I'm down to three copies of both AquaPirates! volume 1 and Dinosaurs vs. Robots issue 1).

And while I'm at it I'd like to wish everyone who celebrates it a good Thanksgiving.

Fused plastic?

I just heard about fusing plastic bags together to make a whole bunch of pretty interesting items. I mean you can use it to make wallets and some have gone as far as to make clothing out of it. This seems really awesome for me to do especially since my roommates and I have oodles of plastic garbage bags because we keep on forgetting to use our reusable bags (we're getting better).

I'm going to admit it, I'm interested in trying it. But I was kind of worried about the fact that I'm messing with plastic and if it releases toxic fumes not only would I be endangering my health but polluting. I looked into it on treehugger.com and one person pulled out the same argument as me (but it a way more jerk like way) and then another person talked about how the bags probably wouldn't release fumes.

In the end I've decided that I'm going to at least try it. And while this is just an assumption: I think that if you pretty much recycle the item so that it doesn't get immediately chucked that it's over all worth it. I mean if you recycle something enough then it eventually becomes weaker and weaker and is eventually garbage.

24 hour comic

I did a 24 hour comic yesterday and I got it all scanned into the computer today. Just click the rows to see the pages.

Making the comic was a really interesting experience for me. I've learned more about my pace of working and I also am setting a new goal for myself: learn to do better black and white comics. I did this comic in all brush pens and now I think that if I just went over my lines with a nib pen they could could really stellar.

Hands

I burned my hand last Friday. It's really quite nasty but I love it for that reason.

And I've been so stressed lately that I think that I get to have some quality painting time. I'm doing a 24x16 painting and it's been years since I did anything that big with paint. I've decided to make a portrait of one of my characters and have really expressive hands in it and man was it really therapeutic for me to do. Plus I figured a few things out with how to paint my stuff better.






















Here are a few shots of my painting in progress.

Hello November

Well it's November now and I hope that you all had a good halloween. I think that I may start making my own costume for next year. I'm kind of ties between making the monkey king, bat girl or some other horrible monster. All three have their problems that I would need to overcome so it's really deciding which one would I have the most fun in and making.

And since it is November now I get to change my etsy goals. I'm happy to say that I did most of them. I didn't really list an item everyday literally but I did have days where I listed more then one item, so it counts. And man, do I have to say that I am super happy with how many sales I got? I mean I sold 19 items for October! That's amazing for me!

Not sure how many items I will be adding this month but I am shooting for a new zine.

Printing the Cards

I got my block printing stuff a few days ago and I did my first batch of prints the other day. I probably should have practiced more on scrap paper instead of going straight to cards, I kind of messed some up but stuff like that is expected with block printing.

And I did get some tote bags but when I bought them online I thought that they were canvas: they're not. I have no idea what material they are made out of but I know that it's that low quality but strong fabric that is really strong. I think that they use it in construction. It's hard to explain but point is that I really don't want to be selling them. So right now I have no idea what to do with them. Maybe I'll just give them to goodwill or salvation army. At least my card are nice.

Cards in

Got the cards today. I am never ordering from overnight prints again. My cards came out really purple and they sent me a lot more then I needed but not enough envelopes for all of them. Nothing against free stuff but I'd rather get the order I had in right the first time.

Still, my roommates say they look good enough. So I'm selling a pack of 8 for $17.50 plus shipping. Little more then in the store but not by much and these are limited edition. I'm not printing them ever again.

OH! And I may get my block printing supplies tomorrow. Then my stuff will be really rad.

Zombie Walks and Doodles

There is a zombie walk demonstration going on tomorrow at my school but I have class for the entire time! Hopefully my professor will be kind and let me leave for about 30 mins to go to part of it.

Anyway, I found out that by adding ink to a water flow brush you have a refillable ink brush pen. So I tried it out on a monster doodle. Over all it wasn't bad. I got enough ink flow of it but the brush I sacrificed has too long of bristles. So I'm going to look into getting one that is shorter and I'll have more control.

Also I may be working on a new comic. Not sure about the title but the general premise is a bunch of people who work at the equivalent of a UPS store and each of them are stupid in their own way. Thing is that the characters I want to use are mutants so it will have to take place in my brain land. Plot and such will be thought of. To the right there is Keaton and Milo. Both are mutants and aside from Keaton's roommate who I badly want to include, the rest are humans. And I'm sure many of you can't read it but the person on the phone is saying "Do your envelopes typically get bent?" Keaton replies with "Uuuuhhhh...do you want us to bend them for you?" Milo knows that Keaton is an airhead and is at awe that someone left Keaton on the phones.

HOLY BAGEEZUS!!

I've been looking into getting a brush pen but the only one that I've ever seen for sale was this really expensive Japanese brush pen, and it was made for writing. It's a brush so I could easily use the thing for drawing but the difference between drawing and writing is that a lot of the time writing stuff is a lot more complex so you can have much more control. Anyway, I found out that both Pentel and Faber Castell make brush nib pens. That means that the nibs are actually more like a marker in that sense. But unlike Tombow brush pens the ink inside is not crayola marker ink. I really like the look of the Pentel brushes more, they look like they deliver more ink and they have refills for around $2. Don't know why but I just feel more comfortable knowing my brush pen is refillable. Who know, maybe I can put my india ink in the empty cartridges.

ANYWAY! I'm off to do homework. Not working on anything for today, I'm waiting for my block printing supplies to come by.

Cards Ordered

I just ordered 40 holiday cards to be printed. And I'm really pleased with the illustration that I did. I may sell the original once I get the cards in. I'm probably going to sell singles for $3 each, five packs for $13 and a set of 10 for $22. I'm so stoked!

And due to a generous donations via my mom I'm going to be able to start block printing. Shirts are still too expensive for me so I'm going to start with greeting cards and tote bags. Not sure how much I'm going to ask for the cards and tote bags so I'm just going to cruise around etsy for ideas on how much to charge. No idea when I'm going to order the stuff. I want to say when I get a real job but I'm not sure, I'm already going to be spending $50 on getting a hole in my eyebrow once I get a jorb (present for me)

Up and Coming

Yeah, I'm not going to list anything today. I just don't really feel like doing it. I'm working on a sugar skull pendant but it looks kind of stupid to me.

And as much as I want to block print on some shirts I highly doubt that I can make the $80 by selling my items on etsy. I did make a big sale this weekend tho (finally). So with the money I'm going to get greeting cards printed. I'm already working on the artwork for the front. They are going to be holiday cards. I just need to A: finish this, and B: make and extra $15 to get enough to get them printed and then it's sellin' time. Then with the money I get from that I'll get the stuff for the block print supplies but no shirts: I'll just be printing on chip board. Then I'll do tote bags, next shirts, hoodies (finally) and then modified hoodies. I've got a business plan for the year (and yes, I do need to make a plan for the comics and zines).

Speaking of comics I NEED to go do the tones on a few pages. I'm behind. Next short will NOT have tones unless necessary.

Savin' up

I must say that I feel like I got quite a bit done today. I finished my painting the dragon monster pendant and it is for sale in my etsy shop for only $10. I have to say that I didn't plan on the pendant to come out like it did but in the words of Bob Ross "We don't make mistakes, only happy little accidents." I swear to God that guy is like Jesus. He loves everything and is so mellow.

And I finished a painting for a friend. I've really gotten into the entire multimedia thing lately. I used watercolor, gouache, marker and acrylic and I really love how it looks.

Oh, and I have also decided to save up for block printing. I really want to block print on a few sweatshirts and I figured that all and all it would cost me around $80 to get all of my supplies. And seeing as how I am in college and buying my own food $80 is A LOT of money for me. So to save up I'm offering art commissions really cheap.

Prismacolor markers: $15-$30
Watercolor/Gouache: $20-$30
Acrylic: $22-$30

Prices do include shipping and I do prioritize commissions over my personal work (dur).

If you are interested please e-mail me at octopuszombie@gmail.com

Pendant and Magnets!!

I started working on a pendant yesterday. I've never made one before but I knew that I wanted to make something that was monstery. My original design just looked waay too creepy (it was like a pig rat combo) and as cool as it was I mooshed it into a new monster that now looks like a dragon. But fear not, for it has FOUR eyes. Just a little touch that made it a little different and a little spookier.

And I also got my custom 1.25 inch magnets yesterday. I'm so excited to have them but I'm afraid they won't sell because no one really knows about my comic. Still, they look good enough on their own. And to sweeten the deal I'm offering a free 3x3 doodle with them.


I'm also thinking of eventually painting on some teeshirts and selling them. It honestly depends on how much the shirts cost but I found some good ringer shirts for $6. Granted it's more than the normal kinds but I like ringer shirts, I find them to be very stylish. But since it is getting to be fall I should just buy one hoodie and mess with it. If I knew how to dye stuff I would buy a white one and dye the sleeves then paint on it but I don't. And I don't own a laundry machine so I'd have to pay like $1.75 and have to jack the price up.

Produce Pendants/Beads/Charms

No, I don't know what the difference between a pendant, bead, or charm.

In any case I finished painting some produce charms for my roommates. One of them had asparagus but I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to her. The carrot is just a random one that I made in hopes of doing a really nice one.



Here is a close up of the carrot. It's varnish layer is still a tad wet but it is matte varnish so it shouldn't be so shiny by tomorrow. Yes, I am going to sell it I just need to figure out a price.

New bloggidy blog

Well, this is my first ever blog on blog spot.

Basically you can expect me to post a lot about what I have been making. Right now I'm working on a minicomic and key chains for some friends, nothing special. But as time goes on I will be showing more products that I make. And if you ever have any suggestions or critiques on my art or crafts please feel free to say it. I'm an adult (kind of) and I know that I can get better.