More good news!

I put in my first bid for a job as an artist two weeks ago. It's doing the cover for a document being put out by a small non-profit here in DC. AND I GOT IT! I am so excited. This is really helping me understand--even more--how quitting the full-time job I had was the best thing I have ever done for myself. Period. I have never been so happy as I am right now: getting paid to do what I would be doing for free otherwise, working with Matthew Smith on some great minis, and finally getting my act together regarding this coming out comic. Outside of drawing, I am loving the city (yes, DC can be called "the city." If you think NYC is the only city, check out a map.), I have a great girlfriend, and wonderful friends. I am also getting better at cooking, which goes nicely with the fact that I have very little money to spend going out for dinner since I left the full-time gig.

Etsy Account

Today has been a busy one in terms of getting my act together with my drawing. I have been working on creating an Etsy account for a while, but it took me a minute to get it looking good. Check it out!

COC installment 4

Here is the forth section of the Coming out Comic. I apologize for the long lage between this section and the one before; with the CRAZY snow that DC got, I have been in hibernation mode. Mostly that includes making and eating cookies and sleeping til one. Clearly, no time to draw in there.

How is this even possible.

So remember how I posted on how much I love the snow? Well, I think our love affair may be coming to an end. It is still snowing. There is about 30 in. on the ground. Now, if this were the midwest or something, this would not be this bad. Partly, because people have snow tires -- and cars to put them on -- and have mad snow plows to dig everyone out, and grocery stores that are not shocked by the snow. In a city that on average gets no more than 10 in of snow a winter, this really is something else.  The metro has shut down service at all above-ground stations. The buses have stopped running. I have not seen milk at a grocery store since Friday.

Here are some pictures that my friend Cassie took of the snow.

 

You have the green light....TO SNOW FOR FUCKING EVER.

 

This is a tree in front of my house. With a cross country skier under it. Now you're probably thinking "ohmigod is there a car under that tree? Boy, I hope not. That would suck." Well, there is a car under that. And it is my roommate's car. What a horrible thing to have happen. The tree fell down five days ago. It is still across the road. It is still on top of her car.

So yeah, long story short, I am getting over this snow.

Suggestion Box 3: A Titanic Failure

Hi hi!

So, no installment of the COC this week. I've been really busy working on the next Suggestion Box with Matthew Smith (if you haven't checked out his work yet, here is a link to his blog). So far I've finished inking five of the eight pages. This one is turning out a lot more detailed from the last, and I've seen even a huge progression within my own illustrations, even since working on "Mildly Irritateing." Holy crap, now that I just wrote this, I realize I haven't uploaded any images from MI! I will have to do this at a later date.  I've gotten a lot more comfortable in filling in space with gray tones, something I used to shy away from. I finaly realized that the extra ten minutes per page is worth it, since it creates a much more balanced page and a much more interesting layout when you encoorperate a range of tones that spread across the page. Here is the first page of the new comic. I will let you all know when this is done, and I will add it to my etsy site and Matthew and I will be exhibiting it at the VA ComiCon on Februrary 28. Come check us out!

Snow day!

Oh my God I. LOVE. THE SNOW. Like a crazy person. I went to college in Massachusetts, and one of the main reasons I headed all the way up to the snowy north (besides the ladies) for my schooling was because of just that: it is the SNOWY north.

Whenever it snows in DC, the city really just shuts down. Everyone goes home and stays put. I love the few hours during a snowfall when the sidewalks are clear of persons, but not of snow. I walked from Dupont Circle to Shaw (from work to dinner at a friend's house) on Saturday, through ab out five inches of snow. It was about a mile, and was like being in heaven. I love all snow. City snow is no better than any other type of snow, but it definitely has it's own perks: you get to see how snow looks on a variety of buildings, the sky turns that gray-orange from the street lights reflecting off the clouds, and everyone becomes more friendly in that "well, we're all in it together" sort of mentality.

Here's a picture I drew from an image that stuck in my head on my walk. I felt like a crazy person for stopping and standin for no reason in between spurts of walking as fast as possible so I could keep warm.

 

The text reads: "It snowed last night. I walked from work to a friend's house for dinner. It was still snowing. The sky was that orange it gets when it snows in a city at night. When the city is quiet and when you stop, you can hear the snow hit the ground."