New Location

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http://www.troopertree.com/

Recent Conversations

     Had a couple of interesting conversations recently.
     First, I met a friend of mine for a beer at the local Box Bar and we talked about pursuing creative projects outside of work.  He has been managing  the site Driven Mavens please check it out if you like drawing, art or cars. Arvind is a man of many talents, just one is drawing and rendering cars. He ran a successful kickstarter campaign and is growing his online profile. We had a great talk, as we are getting older the value of what we are spending our creative energy on becomes more and more important. I enjoy my work but at the end of the day I do want to create something that comes from me without outside demands. I want to know if my perspective and values, shaped largely by art and working in a creative field, are shared by others outside of the office/industry.
     He had a number of good ideas about how I should start to find my audience. But it was just fun to share my thoughts with someone (other than my wife, who has to listen) about why I spend hours sketching stories.  Why I like to sketch with younger kids who have vivid imaginations and no internal critics. It also brought to mind the need to surround yourself with positive, motivated people. People who share your interests and enthusiasm.  People you can learn from and be inspired by....and the beer was good.

Check out Arvind at Driven Mavens

   

Final versions of SUPERCOW with all the edits and final page layout is now complete.  Look under my comic page on this site.  I had my first ever public showing at KRC (Kids Read Comics) at the Ann Arbor Library yesterday.  Going back today at noon to six.  It was very fun and filled with kids and parents interested in the lighter side of comics and the storytelling industry. Comics for children with fun and interesting content.  Some comics can get pretty dark and deal with more mature content but this event focuses on young readers with a very positive interaction between creator and audience. So far so good.

2nd grade visit

I go into 2nd grade tomorrow for a quick and final update on the project I introduced last October.  The book is done but still needs some revisions.  One issue was not having a clear enough voice for each character.  I now realize how much farther I could have taken the writing before the sketching....sounds obvious I suppose until you go throught the process for yourself.  Little things like different line weights and a more relaxed drawing style started to become more obvious on the later pages. Again something to watch for next time...wish me luck tomorrow...

      Ok! its Saturday Morning and this is the start of my little push to finish inking the blacks on my last few pages.  The Magna tools are great for this and I feel I am getting more comfortable now that I am almost done:)  The kids are still asleep so I am trying to go as quickly as possible.  Last night I ended up crashing on the couch while watching Despicable Me 2 with Natalie...I am fighting a little stomach flu but seem to be close to 100% ....I hope.
     In this page the EVB is forced to taste his own medicine and realizes his recipe is not what he was expecting. OK more pages to go....stay focused...

Food Fight

I need to be sleeping now. I need to be sleeping now! now!  Just can't get to sleep.  So I got up to work on page 23.  A few more left.  Had to rewatch Serenity and Firefly while drawing again tonight. The kids and Lorene are sound asleep, I am going to be dragging tomorrow but this was better than just sitting staring at the ceiling.  Using larger blacks and  going back with a little feathering with black and white pen. OK I am going to try to get some shut eye...

Big Big Pig

     Adding blacks to page 19, still 10 pages to finalize before the 2nd graders see this. Tick tock, tick tock... only a few days of school left for Super Cow to solve the caper of the missing lunches!  It will be down to the wire.
     The kids have told me a number of times about balls being kicked up onto the roof. The janitor has to go up on Fridays to retrieve all the tennis balls, baseballs, basket balls...that end up stuck on the roof.   I thought that might be funny to have Major Pig use one of these as a little trampoline to gain some potential energy before coming through the roof...he has a big entrance on page 20...stay tuned ....(both of you....)