Thank Goodness it's Friday

I'm so glad that it's Friday. First up, let me get some business info out of the way:

I'm doing a special give away in my Stickerella shop! Every order over $10 will get a free large orange ETSY decal. I'm doing my part to help spread the word about our great venue in time for the holiday season. It's also a great chance to get a custom shop decal to advertise yourself for the holidays too.

I think I forgot to mention that I've got my coloring books listed now! You can see it HERE

Hubby and I have been brainstorming a new business venture to focus on in time for Christmas craft shows. Supplies have been rolling in the mail, and we can finally start putting things together. That will also mean that we have a new shop to run within the next month, so I'll post more about that soon too. Morrigan is going to stay with her Nana tomorrow so we can spend the whole day working in the studio.

I found a great new band today, and I just have to share. Powerglove. It's a great power metal band that covers old video game music. It's too fun! They're coming in concert this November with Dragonforce (another band I love!) So it may have to be a special birthday present for myself.

I tried to start working on my YouTube video of my newest painting (the dragon I posted before). When I tried setting up my camcorder, I discovered that the cord that I'd need to pull video onto my computer isn't included with the DIGITAL videocamera. Honestly? They included a USB cable so I can pull still photos off (of my VIDEO CAMERA) but not video?? And of course, the DV cable is $30. Grr. So, the painting has to wait till the cable comes in. I've been using this time to refine my sketch though, and I'm really excited about it all.

I am SO tired guys. Thank goodness it's Friday.

Hard at work

I've been hard at work - drinking coffee and inking coloring pages. One day I'll come off this caffiene high...

Coloring book, update 2

I've got the main image for all five coloring pages sketched, and have sketched out the border for Snow White. I really love it, I think it's a great expression of as much of the story as possible.

Tomorrow I'll be working on Red Riding Hood's border, and transfering both pictures to my bristol paper to carry to Houston this weekend. My sister's engagement party is in Galveston Saturday, so the whole day will be visiting with 100+ relatives, friends, and soon to be relatives, drinking beer, eating BBQ and crawfish, and having a good time before coming home and getting back to work.

Next update will be on monday. Please continue to vote, and I'll be checking in on you!

Coloring books

As everyone who's visited my page recently has no doubt noticed, I've got a poll over in the right hand collumn that everyone's wellcome to take part in. I have been playing around with making some coloring books for grown ups for awhile, and I thought A-Kon would be a great place to carry some. I will be doing work on all of those over time, but I'm looking for the ones that have more draw to put out first. I really think that when I introduce my cute little witches people are going to go nuts (I love them so much) but for the time being I started sketching out some fairy tales, since that is what's ahead.

Right now I'm working on the most common fairy tales, though I may do another set down the road that's a bit darker and more of a Grimm's take on things.

Basically, each coloring "book" is going to consist of 5 detailed 8x10 lineart drawings. They will be printed on the same 8.5x11 heavy bristol vellum that I do my line drawings on, since it's a beautiful smooth paper to work on. They'll be packaged together in a resealable plastic bag (like you find comic books in) with an acid free card board backing. I decided not to bind them so they're easy to pull out and work on one at a time, and can be framed without any hassle.

I've got the sketches for four of the five Fairy Tale pages mostly finished. Tomorrow I'll work on the last, and start refining them, and transfer them to nicer paper to be inked. The first package will be Snow White, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Rappunzel. The way I've drawn them is really very neat, since each page tells quite a bit about the story. There is a focal 5x7 image that shows one of the most memorable moments in the story (oddly, I chose scenes that are all at a moment of change, something I didn't notice until now) then around the central image is a wide boarder that will be filled with other symbols that you'll find in each story. Two of the drawings are heavily influenced by two paintings I did over a year ago that I never did much with. I've gone back and redrawn them and really like the way they're going. I think we're all going to have a blast coloring these together!