To-do list for portfolio (for my reference, really):

  • Paint troll picture, jane, nellie, hedgehog
  • Scan unicorns, dogs, horses, nellie, robot
  • Scan & redo xander, monster (decided not to do this)
  • Sketch, paint, finish Daksh
  • Find a pair for Jane and Xander
  • Write title/short-desc for all
  • Write short bio for me
  • Figure out how to do a business card pocket (maybe)
  • Narrow down title & desc font from list of 25 Done!

…at least there’s only one that I need to do from scratch. The others are at LEAST sketched or partially inked. 

And hey, I think that’ll fill 15 pages nicely! Then all I’ll have to do is figure out what to do for my cover… if anything… I at least figured out that it’ll be 36 “pages” total and use 9 pieces of paper, which is cool. Deep breath. Slow exhale. I can totally do this. 

Oh, and Fishsticks is at 47,000 words now. Still not at 75k, obviously, but getting there. I’m traipsing through the murky middle and rethinking some of the timeline, which would involve a LOT of work… I may just finish it as-is and worry about that in the next round of revisions, AFTER the conference. Or, you know, ask their advice about it. 

Re: Portfolio.

First of all, I emailed the guy who wrote the ‘Forget Style’ post to tell him how much you guys loved it. He wrote back and said he’s glad to hear it. 🙂 This is also the guy who is going to be critiquing my portfolio. I’m stoked.

Second, I researched a ton of paper last night, and then emailed my boss for his opinion. Dude knows his paper. I got into work today and he gave me his feedback and said that he put some leftover 12×18 100lb coverstock on my desk to look at. My boss is the best. I took home a sheet to play with and he was just like “okay!” 

Then tonight, I ordered two different reams of paper… a ream of 60lb and 80lb cover stock gloss paper (since cover tends to be thicker than text, and while I want this to be NICE, I have to be a little budget-conscious). I’m having them shipped to work, and they should be there in a week or two. Boss has already okayed my printing after hours on our industrial laserjet, since I don’t need that many prints for this project.

The binder that I have is a 24 page 11×14 Itoya Art Profolio, which isn’t as nice as some of the other books, but with my 40% off coupon at Michael’s, it was a quarter of the price of the nicer books. And while I could try to make my own book, I’m a little terrified of completely screwing up and ruining paper. Making a cover? Binding stuff? AAHH. Plus it needs to lay flat! How! At work we do these awesome booklets on 11×17 paper, but folded, they’re only 11×8.5, which seems like a waste… .. …. but a heck of a lot easier… 

ANYWAY… 

This leaves the problem of “I’m only allowed to have 15 pages” of art in a 24 page book that does not permit the addition or removal of pages. I can include a cover page, TOC (so overkill omg), contact page, thanks page, and a bio page, but that still leaves four pages, and it always looks so tacky to have blank pages at the end of a book…

It has been suggested that division pages could work, but part of me is not wanting to lump my art into specific sections… mostly because I would be worried that I was miscategorizing things, and that would make me look like an idiot. 

I could use one of them to hold postcards, which I guess is a thing that illustrators give out as promotional material for their work along with business cards… 

This is hard. 

But at least I know how to use InDesign thanks to my job, so it will be fun to lay this sucker out. 

Writing prompt! slash Halloween giftie because I felt like it since it’s my birthday month and I’m taking a break from commissions ^w^

OMG More fanart for pushpin! Thank you, Camy! It’s so cute!!! Here is what I have written to accompany it:

Pushpin’s Halloween Night

It was cold, I remember that.

Kind of like poking your head into the fridge, with a blast of chilly air, forcing things to be cold. Actually, outside was a lot like a fridge. The grass was crunchy under my paws like the french fries that had been trapped in styrofoam. The bark of the trees was dry and stiff like Chloe’s leftover sandwich. It tasted about the same, too, except without mayo. Bleck!

It had been so long since I’d eaten… a whole three hours since I’d gotten into Chloe’s fridge… 

I licked my belly to console the rumbling. The smell of food was everywhere on the grounds, but I couldn’t find it. I wandered back toward the house, letting my tail swish back and forth because it needed the practice, and watched for any more monsters. That’s why I’d left in the first place… monsters.

Not like we never had monsters here. The Linden Estate was haunted with real, live ghosts. Or, uh, not live. I guess they’re dead. Like Limerick.  He’d gotten attacked and eaten by a big ol’ monster before I was paired with Chloe, so now he walked around as a ghost. I didn’t wanna be a ghost, so I stayed away from monsters.

But there they were, a big bat guy, a dog thing, a scarecrow, some kinda… I don’t even know what it was, but it was a big mess. I sat out of grabbing reach and sniffed at them to get a better idea of what they were. They smelled… familiar… somehow…

“Pushpin, I told you to stay in the house!” 

My heart did somersaults and my tail started vibrating. It was– that scary-looking lady in robes was my Chloe! “Chloeee!” 

I ran to her, ignoring the monsters all around us, and scrambled up her robes to get onto her shoulder. She made little sounds of protest, but that was just because I hadn’t started rubbing on her yet. But I did, purring as loud as I could, rubbing all over her cheek and ear and neck. 

She put her hand between me and her face and pushed me so I had to cling to her shoulder with my claws. It wouldn’t be good to make everyone jealous of our special bond, after all.  The thought made me so happy that I couldn’t stop purring.  

“Pushpin! Geez, what is wrong with you?”

The other monsters laughed, and their voices were familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And even if they were going to destroy me, they were going to know my feelings! “I looove you!” I screeched, and affectionately nibbled on her hand. 

“You can’t blame him, Chloe.” The dog guy said. “He is your familiar.”

“Shut up, Salmon.”

Ohhhhh. Ohhhhhhh! It was the fish guy! I crawled on top of Chloe’s head to get a better look at the rest. Oh! So the Boss was the bat guy! Then I remembered…. it was HALLOWEEN. The thing the Boss was always talking about. “HAPPY HALLOWEEN!” I yelled, making sure to include some yodeling because it always got a good reaction.

Chloe growled, which was a good sign. “Pushpin…”

But the Boss bat man took me from her shoulder and curled me up in his arms. “Yeah, it’s Halloween! Come on, I’ll give you a tour of what we have set up for the party!”

“A party?!” I squeaked. I liked the Boss man. He was always so excited, and good at petting me right between the shoulderblades.

“Theo, we don’t have time for this…” the fish man groaned. He didn’t like having fun, so I didn’t understand him very well. But he was nice, too, so he was still my friend. 

The Boss showed me all of the stuff they had set up in the courtyard. There were apples under water (cruel!), cotton candy behind glass (why!), popcorn trapped in plastic (nooo!), plus lots and lots of candy in their own sealed prisons. What was this horrible thing?! 

There was also something about mirrors and a corn maze but I didn’t really get it. When it was over, the Boss set me down in the pumpkin patch.

 “Here,” he said. “You greet the guests and charm them with your cuteness.” 

That was easy to do! And I wanted to, because he was the Boss! But Chloe always said to never work for free. I frowned. “What do I get out of it?”

Then the Boss took out a bag of popcorn from the insides of is cape somehow and opened it, scattering the pieces all over. “There! You can eat all of the popcorn that you can find!”

I wasn’t listening any more, though; I HAD TO GET THE MOVING THINGS! 

There were a lot more monsters, though they might not have been, and lots more treats for me. Everyone oohed and ahhed about how cute I was, even Chloe! Basically, Halloween was the best night ever.

I drew these a while ago, but decided to make them public since it’s Shinichi’s birthday today and I love him.

The top one is from a storyline that I’m doing with pixel-witchy, the rest are from SPACE AU, which yukitsukihana and I invented and I am developing into a graphic novel (eventually). 

BUNNICHI is one of my favorite things in the world. <3 Happy birthday, Shinibun!