San Diego Comic Con. (Quick and dirty)

Tonight I get on a plane to San Diego. Tomorrow night, I get on a plane heading back home. Yep, that's how my first San Diego Comic Con experience is gonna be. It's all good. I only was able to get a ticket for Thursday, and I have to be back to work on Friday. So, yes. Going to do this the quick and dirty way. (Just like the Phoenix comic con was. Eventually, I'll be able to go to the full thing one of these days.)

Here is my wishful thinking line up for Thursday:

10:00-11:00 Comic-Con How-To: Heroes & Villains: Creating a Character-Driven Story with Maxwell Alexander Drake

10:30-11:30 From Fan to Creator: Goal-Setting for Creative Types— Which side of the convention table do you want to be on, professional or fan?

10:30-12:00 Comic Book Law School 101: "C" Is For Creator (and Copyright!)

10:45-11:45 Oh, You Sexy Geek!— Does displaying the sexiness of fangirls benefit or demean them?

12:00-1:00 Spotlight on Jo Chen

12:00-1:00 Comics Arts Conference Session #2: Graphic Representations of Otherness.

12:30-1:30 Dumbrella— Artists from Dumbrella, one of the most popular online comic collectives, discuss webcomics, independent publishing, and subverting popular culture.

1:00-2:30 Comics Arts Conference Session #3: Digital Comics— Nick Langley and Ron Richards (Henderson State University) ask whether the move to digital comics will doom paper or help comics reach a new audience.

1:15-2:15 Books vs. Graphic Novels and Comics

2:30-3:30 Joyce Farmer: Special Exits, A Memoir— Can graphic work become serious literature through excellent artwork, writing ,and subject matter?

2:30-5:00 Comic-Con How-To: Live Painting Demonstration with Lucio Parrillo.

3:00-4:00 Comics: Comic Color 101.

3:30-4:30 Spotlight on Frank Stack.

4:00-5:00 No Damsels in Distress Here— Female voices in sci-fi and fantasy create kick-ass heroines.

5:00-6:00 Figure Drawing for Popular Media— Emilio Soltero, Ph.D, along with Alex Niño (Mulan, Marvel, DC) and Stephen Silver (Kim Possible, Clerks), presents a primer on drawing the figure for popular media.

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Actually, that last one, the figure drawing one.. that is right about the time I'll be hoping in my cab and heading back to the airport, which really sucks. That's one I am *very* interested in going to.

And.. you may have noticed, to actually go to all of these panels would require me to be in two places at once. Going to have to do some hard picking and choosing. Also, going to have to pack a lunch....

Drink and Draw round up.

So the the other nigh we got together on twitter and had a little Drink and Draw. There was a fabulous turn out and the following is a brief collection of links to give you a sampling of who was drinking and drawing what:

@aldoojeda's worked the life drawing and portraiture like none other
@atfmb started with iPad apps, moved to a sketchbook, and never lost touch with his inner nerd.
@KathleenManz (opps, now @MamaKathy_) drew Dr. Who/Star Trek mashups.
@abrymora .. wow... airship!!!
@scourger took time out from ReaderCon to join in with some precious... awesome... amazing... doodles.
@traciewelser showed what she can do with a sharpie and some suggestions from her offspring.
@renesears kept it classy with wizards, fairies, and unicorns pooping rainbows (yep.)
@inkgorilla did, surprise surprise, a simian-harry potter mash up! the Chimp who Lived... Harry Wooly... and Severus Ape (....BWAHAHAH <3)
@jacobRuby made some surreal imagery while reclaiming an old sketchbook that a toddler had gotten a hold of (also, his iPad work is beautiful)
@MarlyseComte's work is just always sublime. Always. (Drunk or no.)

Did I miss anyone? please let me know if I did. (This post is the result of a bit of tricky work looking back through my over-full twitter feed.)

Meanwhile.. I had a bit of fun combing drawings with real objects at hand:



And then I sent them to photoshop where I drew over the top of them. (Also, I pirated @palecurve's mug for a bit of fun :) I think my favorite one of the evening was where I didn't draw anything at all on the pad of paper, just took a photo of it and added all of the drawing digitally:

Anyhow... the first functional nerds drink and draw even was a smashing success. We shall definitely be doing this again.

Art Nerd (Drink and Draw!)

Oh, yes... btw... I am now the Art Nerd blogger over at Functional Nerds podcast!

Last month's post was about the drawing game Exquisite Corpse. Fun Fun stuff.

But I am particularly excited for this month's post that just went up: I got Booze Nerd Andy Romine to help me gear up for a Functional Nerds twitter Drink and Draw. That will be going on this friday night, come join us on twitter! You do not have to draw: Only if you want to. Also, you do not have to drink: Only if you want to (and you can drink *whatever* you want). Feel free to come hang out on with us on twitter, chat a bit, laugh a bit, retweet some of the creativity, etc. (Follow me @galendara and Andy @inkgorilla as well as hashtags #drinkanddraw and #functionalnerds)

Looking forward to seeing you there.

I made the cover.

actually... as of now, I've made three! Here they are:

for Broken Time Blues (coming out this August).

For Sunstone Magazine (Both front and back covers)



And, just revealed today: I did the cover for the forthcoming anthology Fish: (which is still accepting submissions, you really need to write a story for this one!)

transitioning studio space (a process)

It's time to move.

Currently, I have a whole room to myself to use as my studio. That will change in this move as we transition to a tiny little place in town. Exchanging the luxury of space to spread out for the convenience of close proximity.

So, the plan is that I shall fit my 'studio' space in and around our 'living' spaces: The corner of our bedroom, the east wall of the front room, the extra storage space in spawns room, the porch?... (I think my speedbag will go perfectly in the kitchen, but DH is pushing against that just a bit. We'll see how that goes down.)

Anyhow, I am past the mourning phase, but by way of coping mechanism I shall be photo-documenting the transition on twitter. I'll probably add some of those photos/notes to this post, as I progress.

But for now, let's just do this.









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June 11, 9:30 pm update: it's amazing how much just 'stuff' I held onto, just because I had the space to hold onto it. Tackled one shelf today. Here is the "before and after shot". Most of it was hoarded rusty stuff and collected odds and ends that I just needed to let go of. Sheeesh. Took several hours.

June 12, 9:00 AM. spent an hour going through (and mostly discarding) old studies and sketches and scratch paper doodles.


June 12, 10:00 PM. Not much studio prep, just spent the day painting the new place. (Red, yessss.)


June 13 4:00 PM. Started out going through old sketchbooks. I had planned to throw most of them away, but it was difficult: I used to keep sketchbooks in an intensely personal, life-record keeping way. Hard to throw out. Lessie, John, Lucia, and xJane talked me out of discarding them.

June 15, 11:30 AM: Studio transition took backseat to painting the new place. Mostly finished there, except for a deep space mural in spawns room.

June 17, 9:00 am: Yesterday I went through all my old paints and inks. Bottle and bottles and tubes of acrylic, oils, alkyds, inks, watercolors, and gouache (plus brushes, painting mediums, solvents, gels, etc). Kept only what would all fit nicely an old hard-body suitcase I picked up somewhere.

Also, eliminated a lot of just *stuff* I had accumulated/held onto thinking I *do something* with but never had. Slowly fighting my way through these shelves.


June 18, 9:00PM today, I made a galaxy in my offspring's new bedroom:

June 19 , 10:00 PM: Making headway on clearing out, consolidating these shelves.

June 21, 10:00 PM. finally started to take down "my wall" (keeping some things, letting go of others) Here's a few detail pics.

June 22, 10:00 PM. last of all, I dismantled my speedbag for relocating. The studio is packed up, ready to move. Next step is finding how it will work out in the new place.

Phoenix Comic Con 2011 (doodles and notes)

What I dressed up as when I went to the Pheonix Comic Convention last month: Aspiring Artist, Here on Business. Thank you very much :)

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I only was able to go to the Saturday session, but here is a collection of notes and doodles jotted down as I sat in some of the panels that day, listening to writers and artists talk about their trade:

From the Saturday Morning Sketchoff:

"Do one drawing every day. Even if it sucks. You will get better"
"A degree can't teach you how to *keep* drawing"
"A business class is a must"
"perks of being an artist/writer: going to work in your boxers"

From the artists vs writers throwdown: "the audience comes for the art, stays for the writing.... a badly written book can be sold by good art.... no art can possibly match the image in my head... being good friends does not mean you will be good creative partners..."

From Wonderful World of Webcomics, Spike Trotman, Randy, Milholland, and DAnielle Corsetto:

"Nothing that I learned in art school applies to what I do right now. I had to draw, every night, alone to get here."

"Know your rights, pay attention to what you sign, learn the business"

"The lesson from the guy who created Men In Black: 'Exposure' is WORTHLESS (he didn't see a cent of the movie franchise revenue)"

John Layman and Rob Guillory discuss Chew:

John was "laughed at for sticking to his stoopid bird cannible story, so he did it on his own, no support"
Rob: "I didn't draw like anyone else, it was just me screwing around. I sucked at mainstream comic style"
John: "when every person in the business rejects you for 10 years, you get humble"
and also: the importance of having an end. Chew will end at issue 60. (Compare to Mainstream tendency to keep characters and stories alive indefinitely. "Comfort food comic reading")

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hmmm... well that ended up being more random than I anticipated: it all seemed very cohesive and, and *vital* as I frantically scribbled it down while sitting in the sessions. I guess that means you just had to be there. Which, I am very glad I was.


(More pics here.)

World Horror Con (a collection of sharpie tattoos)

This post is way over due. Life was busy. But now I have a moment to breath, so here you go.

I went to the World Horror Convention back in May!! Here is Andy's write up (which I found very inspiring), Andy's set of photos, Steve's set of photos, Bear's set of photos, and John's set of photos, documenting the event. (I used to be good at photo-documenting... but not so much anymore.)

Oh... and I was in the art show! Here are some photos John's took regarding that. :)

There is so much I *should* say about the whole experience. But mostly... I got a chance to take my sharpy out and put some tattoos on a few friends. That_was_awesome.

Here's a glimpse of some of them, thanks to the photography of Andy and John:











And then Andy drew one on me! (I am seriously considering getting it made permanent.)