So yeah, I was quiet on this blog for nearly a month again. But not for the reasons you'd think. I meant to upload an entry before I went to Spain last month, to explain that week long silence. However, I somehow forgot to do so. My noggin can be a foggy mess sometimes. And then when I got back, I was thrown into managing my main projects and so documenting their progress was kind of put on the back-burner until I had something to show.
BUT. If you follow me on Twitter and Facebook, you'd have something of an idea of what these things were. Without further adieu, lets get to them late documentations.
Bertie Blue
The Christmas book is officially in serious production now. Things have been quite slow on all my projects (which I'll explain later in the entry) but they're starting to take off now. I've started with the less detailed pictures in the story to get those out of the way before I dedicate my attention to the more in-depth artwork. Here is one of the pictures, a personal favourite of mine.
I'm still trying to market the books as best I can, but I must confess, it's a lot more difficult than I planned. Not even cos of whether or not people will be interested but because of my anxiety becoming an extremely heavy brick wall in recent years. On a whim, since I had the Bertie flyers in my car, I decided to pitch the books to a bookshop in Morpeth to see if they would accept a flyer and maybe host some copies of the book in the future. However, my brain chose the WORST POSSIBLE TIME to go blank and I would have crumbled completely if Ruari hadn't been there to pitch in with some of the main points and get me back on track. However, it was still pretty awkward for everyone involved. Argh.
That said, they accepted the flyer and encouraged me to send a follow up email to their boss. I have done this although I'm not sure if it'll go anywhere. The whole thing was certainly a wake up call, that's for sure. Mainly, to stop being in denial over how anxious I get and to not pitch things on a whim EVER. AGAIN.
On that note, you should totally buy these books! It's awesome, it's about a carrier pigeon in the war and his Captain and what experiences they… uh… experience…
… uuhhhhh…
"WE WANT A PITCHER, NOT A BELLY ITCHER!"
Haha, if I didn't laugh I'd cry instead. Check out and buy the books here!
Crumbs
This is a tricky one to discuss cos, while I have done a lot of work on this, I don't have a lot in terms of artwork to show for it. Well, I have concept pieces but those are waiting until the next entry. As of right now, I am going to discuss Crumbs' social networking site and… it's brand new website.
Yeah, I decided I was no longer happy hosting the webcomic on tumblr. Not that there's anything wrong with the site but it's a bit limiting with webcomics, I find. I looked around on wix.com and experimented with putting together a website with much more features than the tumblr themes offered. After deciding I was happy with what I saw, I bought a premium package, transferred the domain and seriously began to work on the site.
You can click here to see the site. As of right now, all you can see is an 'Under Construction' message. But nearer the time, I am planning to open the site for a short time to some people who will test the site, make sure all the pages and links work and give me their feedback. Once that's done and any changes have been made, I will put together a vlog, similar to the one I did over a year ago for my project development in college, showing off all the new features and show that off near the end of August, before relaunching the site and comic on the 15th September.
Yeah, the relaunch date is the same as the original launch date. I'm planning on doing it right this time.
As for the tumblr that originally hosted the comic, I am changing that to be the Crumbs official tumblr page (or 'Crumblr' page if you will, hahahaha oh god Im sorry) where I will answer questions and news on updates and so on. This change also encouraged me to expand Crumbs' digital footprint and now the comic has an official Facebook page AND Jay can be followed on twitter: @JayBadEgg. He's still finding his feet on there.
Dang, there's a lot of links and not enough pictures in this entry so far. Changing that now.
Vlogging
So, something I've wanted to do for a while now is vlog my work. Due to the way I plan on doing it, it gives me the change to get braver at talking to a camera (and at talking in general), practice my pitching (cos seriously, I NEED THAT) and also get better at working on animatics. It's also quite a fun way to share information and opinions and I kind of want in on it.
Right now, I have two vlogs in mind. One is the aforementioned Crumbs website tour, similar to (but hopefully better than) the one I did for college. The second is going to be on my Patreon page, explaining my projects, how people can donate and how the Patreon site works.
So yeah, some picture time! As the vlogs feature a cartoon me, I wanted to practice my more cartoony style and see how quickly I can get them done. A few of these were sketched in Spain as well and tidied up on the computer. The animatics will most likely just be a moving sketch rather than full colour as colouring takes up a lot more time. However, I'd like to colour a few of these in the future. They're pretty boss.
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| Sketches of me in a bunch of outfits I regularly wear. |
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| Me with some of the best animals in the world ever |
I do have an example of my colouring process right here, however. I chose the first picture of me that I drew and decided to play about with it, from sketch to colour with shading.
Then, while working on this yesterday, I had an idea.
You might have noticed the new Doodlebug header at the top of the blog there (yeah, I as totally gonna mention this eventually). I'd wanted to change the design for a while now and got the chance to play about with it a couple of days ago. It's now a lot more dynamic in my opinion.
Then I put the Doodlebug next to the wary looking cartoon me and then had an idea.
See… I haven't been officially diagnosed or anything, so I can't say for sure. But I know for a fact that my anxiety affects me way too much for it to be normal. When it starts affecting your work, your relationships, your self confidence and even your health, surely then something must be up. I'm hoping to get it looked into soon. I hate the thought that I'm self diagnosing but at the same time, I have to start looking after myself more and if this is a problem, then I can get the help I need and be able to give all aspects of my life the focus it deserves without the anxiety giving me mental pins and needles.
What's the point of this burble, you ask? Well, I've kind of tried to represent the 'anxiety' as a kind of 'pins and needles' effect, with it all around in the background and also the slightly greeny/yellow/barfy colour around me. Personally, that's the colour I think personifies it for me.
When I get to working on a project deeply, assuming my mental bawwing hasn't blocked me from doing so, it can really help me forget how bad I feel, even if it's for a little while. Of course, sometimes it can bring anxieties of it's own but my artwork (barfbags at the ready…) is pretty much one of my oldest friends. It's been something I've turned to to create stories, distractions, a source of venting, a source of fun and so much more. And I want to share what I create in these moments.
So it's something of a personal touch to a piece of self advertising, basically.
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| Sleeping Tree Arts logo is courtesy of Ashleigh Edmonds. |
I thought it would be fitting to have my main projects around me: Crumbs, Bertie Blue, The Dog Division and Sleeping Tree Arts respectively. Although Sleeping Tree Arts also involves Rachel Rutherford and Ashleigh Edmonds and I hope I will be able to work with them both more in the future. Them jobs, they'll getcha. But as it's a big goal of mine as well, it seems wrong not to put it on here. I just wanted people to know that (obviously) I'm not going into that one single handed.
I've also done this picture as a header image for my Facebook and Twitter pages, I'm considering doing it for my tumblr and I've made it the intro header for my Patreon page.
So! In closing, sorry for the late blog entry but I'll be back with some more concepts next week! I've decided to upload blog entries on a tuesday/thursday schedule instead. Won't be so confusing for me once Crumbs is uploading.
I never really know how to close off my blog entries very well. Eh. Take it easy guys! Hope you're having a good week.
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