Back in the Good Ole Days ...

... I would have hours upon hours of free time to sit in front of the computer and digitally color my illustrations. Now I have to wait until my day off (Wednesday) for the two hour window when Fiona sleeps before I can get any computer work done! I wouldn't trade any of it for the world, but I do miss being able to crack out fully-colored drawings in one, sometimes two, days. Ah well, I've still been told I produce illustrations quickly, especially given how little time I have to actually draw. That always makes me feel better.
I've still been working on Otherverse Games commissions, as well as a portrait of three young girls for an etsy customer. That one has taken me lots of tweaking to get the sketch just right, but I want it to be perfect.
Pretty soon, I should have some stock art packages up on indie rpg game websites, thanks to Chris Field. I just wish I knew more about some of these programs (that I don't have the money to purchase) to be able to figure this stuff out on my own! What I really want to be able to do is make a badass website. Alas, I shall suffer with my poor attempts at one for now; it's served me well so far and gotten me lots of commissions. If only I could continue to do this as a full-time job! That seems to be my most common complaint/rant, and a similar one for other freelance artists as well, I'm sure.
Here's another art teaser for you guys. This is the finished inks illo called "Shiftsteel Symbiont" for Otherverse Games' "Psi-Watch." I'll be coloring this digitally pretty soon and I am quite excited about it.

Lots of Work

As the title says, I have been busy the last week or so with a bunch of new commissions, most of them from Chris Field for his Otherverse stuff. Here's a little preview of what I am working on:


I don't normally post sketches, as I tend to look upon my own with disdain for the looseness and overall messiness, but I know people sometimes like to see the "works in progress." I've always wanted to do a Mucha-style illustration, and Chris's "neo-Witch Midwife" commission gave me a perfect opportunity to do so. I'll try to post the finished images as I get them done.

On top of commissions, I've got the impending artprize 2010 to work on. I'm feeling nervous already, since I haven't started any of the drawing yet, even though I have, technically, until September. I know how stressed out I was last year scrambling to finish all of my Tarot cards, and I definitely don't want a repeat. Hopefully fully illustrating a fantasy fairy tale won't be as crazy as an entire deck of Tarot cards ... riiiiiight. At least I KNOW that I can finish these huge projects; it makes me feel better knowing I've got that going for me, at least.

In non-art related news, Fiona is growing SO FAST and is a little girl all of a sudden. When did this happen? She's almost 19 months old. We went to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum yesterday with my best friends, Kate and Brad, and their son James, who is two and a half months older than the Fij and who I babysit once a week. (It's so cute that they are growing up together. Kate watches Ona once a week as well.) They had a BLAST and I realized how old I was when I was tired after an hour of chasing after a running around little girl!
She loved those Legos. Dad will be pleased!