Finishing a big project can be the hardest thing in the world. We all like to /talk/ about doing great things, but it’s a whole different challenge to actually follow through on it. I started the sequel to Weird Fishes shortly after the book was published in 2009. I was full of energy and propulsion from the signings and exciting press over my book. I had just moved up to San Francisco and covered my walls with new drawings and ideas for the characters. An epic story rolled out before me. I called it “Dee’s Siren Song” because I knew both I, and Dee, were searching for something, and I knew I had to create this story, following a journey through college and deciphering the meanings of dreams and fantastic imagery running through my head.
If you’ve been following me online for awhile, you’ve seen the Siren Song pages. They’ve become the first 20 pages of Fox Head Stew. Upon their completion, they’d been displayed in two gallery shows, printed in a black and white ‘zine and posted on the internet. But I felt suppressed by them, by the pressure to create more, and so I put them aside, and instead created a lot of stand-alone illustrations of unrelated characteres that allowed me to experiment with technique and symbols and feel free. By this time I’d fallen pretty deep into the music scene in SF, and really wanted to bring more of that into my work. Suddenly all the pieces fell together, and I began resculpting my comics to follow some of my new interests, and that’s how the band Block Cocks were born on the comic page and the story became less about college and more about self-exploration and expression.
The rest of the story unfolded for me, and I managed to get everything pencilled on bristol board by mid-2011 and then only had the task of inking and painting all of it. I’ve never had the task of having to work on that many pages all at once (about 80 of them) but anyone who’s been around me in the past year knows, I am a complete workaholic. If I’m not out drinking after work, and that does happen a few times a week, I come home and paint/ink comic pages. The supplies are always out on my desk, my teacup of water ready, my watercolor sets open, and I’ll paint while waiting for dinner, I’ll ink while watching movies, etc etc. But sadly, even a strict work ethic doesn’t help when you get home from your work work at 8pm and only have a few hours in you before your eyes and mind completely go on strike.
Therefore: patience.
I have finally developed my patience muscles, and plotted away at a huge project. It has been a long time coming, and there’s still editing, some final painting, and 2 very sneaky pages that need to be inked. But guess what: the first draft PDF of Fox Head Stew went out to my editor this week.
All at once, great things are coming through the door, and I have a project I can promote.
I sit in shock, that it is finally going to have eyes on it. It has been, what, two and a half years that I’ve been working on this. It has been my second job. It is infinitely important and yet it doesn’t make sense at all. I have wanted to put it aside so many times, and yet I’ve kept going. Something has gotten done, and now there’s no going back.
I am greatly anticipating going on vacation, sitting on a mountain, and not thinking about comics.
I’ve been on a longterm hunt for a way to share the process of creating art with a greater audience. While the finished piece is an experience in itself, for me the process of getting there is what’s really thrilling. I’ve tried out livestreaming but it never really stuck for me. I enjoy events where I get to do quick drawings infront of people, but those events are more of a rarity. I’ve set up cameras to shoot video while I work, and I’ve gotten some neat footage, but I’ve yet to edit it down. This week, I got the answer to my problems in the form of a tiny little app for my phone called iMotion HD! Within minutes I set my phone down on my desk, set the camera to shoot frames every 2 seconds, and quickly forgot about it as I painted.
Fast, easy to use and the movies are easy to export! The magic of technology.
I’ll take more of these videos and post them as I go on. This weekend is a time of furious scanning and last-minute touch-ups on my next project. We are so close it is insane!
My print shop is now open! Over the holidays I had a chance to investigate the prints fresh off the presses, and they are beautiful! I got to see my work look more lush and bright than I’ve ever seen on my own printer or monitor, or the originals, even! The Demon Girl is my personal favorite.
And, as you might notice, I’ve become a blonde. I got it done on a total whim for my company’s holiday party, and it’s quickly become a favorite! I’ve always considered myself a brunette, inside and out, and most of my drawings feature girls with dark or red hair, so it’s a pretty drastic leap. But somehow it fits! Much to my surprise, I love my newly accentuated paleness, the drama it adds to outfits, and how chic bedhead hair looks now! And yes, I am having more fun.
(you can see more shots of my new hair on my obsessive tumblr account)
For the new year, I’m preparing (anxiously!) to release Fox Head Stew online, and finding pockets of time to scribble new ideas in my sketchbook. Once I get this mammoth of a graphic novel out the door, I’m going to dive into new illustrations and paintings (will there be blonde girls??), and start compiling some of my animation and video into a comprehensive project. The worst thing I do is shoot lots of reference photos and video and never get the time to actually use them. This is going to change.
I’ve currently made it past the midpoint for finished pages of Fox Head Stew! It only makes it more aggravating to have so many pages left to paint, but I’m getting there. Being halfway done means I’m painting scenes that are fresher to me, still working out some of the little details that have been rolling around in my brain. I wanted to share a few panels I finished recently. Here is one of my favorite pages as of yet, of Sam (Bunny Boy) playing the guitar that I drew over a year ago, but the color really brings it alive:
I went back to the start of the book and re-drew Dee’s adventure moving from home to live on campus. Here’s the last shot of her bedroom before she leaves her friends and packs up.
I spent a good deal of my late teens and early twenties acting and dressing rather boyish, and it seems like not too long ago I decided to start growing out my hair, filled my wardrobe with dresses, and have started a respectable shoe collection. My fascination with fashion has always been there, but the realization that you can transform yourself into whatever creature you want is a fun new challenge.
One of these days I’ll have to do a comparison of Dee’s fashion versus mine. My love for color in my drawings is obvious, and when it comes to dressing my main character, it’s all about drastic and sometimes obnoxious color patterns and combinations. It’s unique and lighthearted. But with my own wardrobe I wear mostly blacks and greys, I love geometric patterns and textured tights, though I do have a few bold colored dresses. This evening I went out with some of my lady buddies from work and red was a theme!
We all went out to see Russell Brand entertain us at the Palace of Fine Arts. It was a very relaxed show, and Russell was hilarious and brilliant and silly. I felt giddy seeing one of my favorite comedians, at an event that benefitted the David Lynch foundation for transcendental meditation no less! Yup, I love San Francisco.
So there you have it. It’s all on the table. All I can think about are shoes, dresses and Russell Brand.
It’s black Friday, and I’m at home scanning in Fox Head Stew! I can’t describe how gratifying it is to be finally getting these finished pages on my computer. I now have the first 40 pages all ready to go, the rest are sitting in a stack to be reviewed, touched up with some paint and ink, and scanned in! This thing WILL get done.
I spoke at Ed Luce’s Comics University at Isotope comics last weekend, and it was insightful and informative, even for me! A lot of the tips I came up with for creating a compelling online community with your readers are things I wish I was better at: consistency in releasing comics, frequent updates, behind-the-scenes posts and constant contact with other art bloggers. This more-than-full-time job of mine really eats into all of this.
I’ve been re-visiting some old sketches and working on some new ones. It’s funny how sometimes images you don’t like when you first draw them seem to resonate over time, and then it’s your job to finish them up.
I’ve been working on some t-shirt designs for my friend’s band! This is an image I threw at them and I’ll probably make my own prints of it.
Sometimes it’s hard to stay focused on writing just about my drawings and interests. I try not to get political, but shit is crazy right now! I’m in awe as I watch the horror being broadcast online, shot on my friend’s phones, and the constant steam of tweets on current states of invasion… we’re living in a new time of media, and watching a revolution occur in real-time. It’s shocking, revolting, and everyone is watching. The fact that all eyes are on it is what will make things change for the better. I hope.
I’m just noticing the darker tone of my more recent art…
To wrap it up positively, I am filling up every free moment I have drawing art, learning to play guitar, listening to music, spending time with fascinatingly talented people, party party party, and forging into the future with my fiance. Yes! Taking the amazingly wonderful day-to-day life along with the shadow of brutality and change.
It is our job to walk the line between reality and fantasy: persevere, reflect, and create beautiful art.
I caught the bug that’s been circulating through the offices of San Francisco, and got quarantined to the apartment for a week. For a few days it was just time-wasting, movie-indulging, blankets and hot tea, but then I started to get ideas: stories and songs and dialogue running through my mind while I’m physically unable to pick up a pen to write them down. I completely re-composed the ending for my next book, every detail put in it’s place.
During this time I missed the gallery opening at Public Works and a lavish business trip to Vegas. (I’m beginning to thing Vegas is my kryptonite: every plan to go there has been sidetracked)
Yesterday I was able to sit at my desk and draw, and I’m putting together some of my favorite sequential pages yet. Working from rough pencils, painting from memories and places, then inking and lettering right on the page, mixing fiction and lore with the excitement of painting new colors and compositions. It makes me realize how defeated I was starting to feel from constant work, no breaks, and no time to think and let my mind wander.
I think there’s an expected dedication to over-working, that your worth is measured in overtime, and that creative side projects are a novelty. I seek to defy this: work hard in the office but never allow the creativity after-hours to die, because that’s the real reason to live and fight. It’s so bizarre to be caught in a situation like this, of over-working, while my unemployed friends are across the bay being tear-gassed and arrested in the Occupy movement. We’re in a time of extremes.
I still need to learn how to take a break now and then, being bedridden for a week shouldn’t be the only way to get a mind vacation.
-j
This weekend I revisited some pieces from earlier this year and reworked them in new ways for a group show I’m in at Public Works. First, I took my portrait of Patti Smith and printed it out, cut out the shape with a razor and played around with the negative and positive shapes on an old painting of mine. Once it looked right I affixed it with Polymer medium to give it a nice shiny finish.
For the second one I took a print of my psychedelic dreamer girl, affixed it to a piece of wood that I’d painted and repainted on for the past year (giving it a nice, weathered look) and quickly placed some red hilights onto the illustration. The end result is rough and bold, both of these new pieces a tribute to my love of street art and wheatpasting, but being too scared to go about doing it on walls.
They go up this Thursday night in the Beasts and Beats show at Public Works.
It is the most ambitious project I’ve undertaken yet, and it’s been an entirely new experience for me to work on a graphic novel without sharing it as I go, like I did with Weird Fishes. I sneak photos of the pages and share them on Instagram and Twitter, but still, not the same as having your audience follow the story right as you create it. The feeling of keeping it all secure has been powerful, and it’s allowed the story to grow and change. This comic started off as “Dee’s Siren Song” nearly two years ago, and I’ve had to start re-drawing the earlier pages because the story and art style has changed too much. Things have become more ethereal than they were going to be originally, and I look forward to seeing people’s responses as they read it.
For now, I’m sharing something that doesn’t really give away anything: Dee and her roommate Zack watching “Breathless” in film class:
Yeah, that’s right, no text for you.
I still have a pile of pages to finish painting, and an ending I still need to draw, but I’m aiming to get it all in a somewhat-finished state by the end of the year. So in 2012 I’ll get to tell you where you can read it! I have some crazy ideas about how I want to tour the book across the country, but we’ll talk more about that later.
I’m having a great time jumping back and forth between familiar watercolors and challenging guitar strings.
I’ve gotten a few emails recently from people who found this site after reading a copy of the Weird Fishes graphic novel. In case you didn’t explore around the site, I’ve posted the full-color version of Weird Fishes right here. Also, you can get a jump on my new project by reading the pages of Dee’s Siren Song that I posted last year.
I’ve been terrified of the idea of drawing Catwoman for years. She’s my absolute favorite hero/villain and she’s the reason I became obsessed with comic books. She’s been re-invented many times over since I started following her adventures, and when I was a kid I was just captivated by this feline, strong awesome lady running about and beating people up. But looking back at the comics I was reading (Balent era) I really don’t see the Catwoman that leaps about in my imagination. That said, I do like her more recent style, and I’ve been working through some initial sketches to tackle my own image of Catwoman.
Watching:Eight Miles High
This got recommended to me by Netflix because I like “fashion films” and holy crap! Not only is it gorgeously shot,
but it’s about the model Uschi who dated Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. German models in the seventies who sleep with rockstars, are politically active, and go on a journey through Asia and Mexico? Need I say more?
(you can see more shots of my new hair on my obsessive
