From July 1st to July 29th, I have an art exhibit called at Gallery Seven in Lockport, IL. This is a showcase of the original comic art I made for Shirley’s Day and Incident at the Game Store!

You’ll see the real pencil drawings and ink brushwork in person! The Opening Reception is on July 23rd from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm CST during Comicopolis! Here, you can meet and chat with me about my comics and the process of making them!

I've been preparing for this even since last November. On a recommendation from a friend, I reached out to Gallery Seven to see if they accept art from local artists.

The people at Gallery Seven were so enamored with my art that they wanted to give me a full feature for July.

Here’s a look in my blog into the extensive planning for this event, and how I frame my original comic artwork.

I'm playing catch up as I talk about the stuff I've been doing for the past year.

Anime Central was this month, and it's been a huge one for me as an artist. It's the most successful convention I've ever tabled at, selling plenty of my comics, and doing a crap load of commissions! With all this, made back my table costs and then some. I'll be coming back again if I can help it!

I got more commissions at ACEN than I've ever had before! I was expecting to tackle some anime characters but, I never expected I'd draw Spider-Man at an anime con! Among this I also got commissions for many OCs completing them all in a timely manner!

I’m still open for commissions, digital and traditional, so if you want some art for yourself, give my Commissions page a look!

If you want to hear more about what I've been up to with my art and video game progress, stop by my website!

On May 20th to 22nd, I'll be tabling at Anime Central! I'll be at Table E46 selling my indie comics, and stickers and taking commissions!

I’m also doing a 15% off early bird commission special for Anime Central! If you know that you’re going to ACEN from May 20th to 22nd, you can commission artwork early for me to draw! I can draw on a 9x12in Bristol Board or a 3.5x5.5in Art Card!

All you need to do is check out my Commissions Page, Fill out my Commission Form, or Direct Message me on Twitter, Instagram, or my Email!

I’ll have it ready for you to pick up when you find me at Table E46 anytime on the weekend! If you can’t pick it up during the con, you can message me back with a mailing address, and I’ll send it to you free of shipping!

I'm as ready as I can get, and I hope you are too! I’ll see you at ACEN!

Blackmask is still rolling forward. I've been sketching UI stuff before jumping to the pixeling. Making a readable and interesting User Interface is a new challenge for me, that's for sure.

Adam's fixed up most of the swimming movement on the programming side. Cole can now swim in deep water areas. Now he's working on enemy AI for the stealth stuff. From what Adam told me, he has a good grasp on getting enemies in specific behavior states. Once the tough part of getting some enemies running around, reacting to Cole's Actions finishes, he'll shoot for some Boss work.

We need to meet up some more to discuss some details about where to publish the game. We're scrapping up a website that'll be a home base to download a playable demo. I'm also scouting out for spots to get people hands-on with the game such as gaming conventions, retro game shows, or tournaments. Plus I'm reading up on the tangential game publishing things that are needed like the requirements for publishing on Steam and Good Old Games and what other platforms would be good to publish on.

If you wanna hear about my other doings, you can hear from me on my website.

I wrote a blog post on my impressions for the first 30 days using my iPad and the Procreate App.

I blew a grand on it, so I'm obviously keeping it, but for anyone who wants to know what it's like, this is my experience drawing in it.

I'm working on a new blog post about comic coloring for my website. It's one of the more involved articles, so it's gonna be a doozy to write.

You can see a piece of my first draft on my Ko-fi page!

Years after finishing the original Instagram challenge, arranging the pages together, scraping up funds out of my own pocket, I've finally got my comic, The Pizza Man, printed and up for sale on my Etsy Store! It's a 60 page 5 in by 7.5 in Black and White Book. The largest comic I've ever done by far!

You can pick it up here!

The Pizza Man is an improvised story about a simple pizza delivery driver, who must drive through insane obstacles to complete his order on time!

This story was completed in June 2020 for the Journey June Art Streak challenge. Journey June is an art challenge for those who want to improve their storytelling.

I took it one to the suggestion of my friend, but I wanted to see if I could do a comic sequence every day for 30 days. It was stressful, and I thought the story was getting too complicated, but it's a nice notch in my art-making belt!

Things have been picking up for February! I’ve been starting up the con season, doing commissions, and more art! If you want to keep up with my tasks in real-time, you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram! I’m also cultivating my new Ko-Fi page for tips, so stop by there as well!

Most of early February was preparing for Northwest Indiana Comic-Con, the first con I’ve had in years due to the plague. My Cat Stickers are a smash hit there, they sold even more than my comics! I’ve been working on new commissions, both traditional and digital as well! If you want more detail of the process of making my commissions, you can read in depth on my website.

Blackmask is still in progress. My programmer, Adam's been tackling stuff like swimming, lock picking, and music currently. As I've mentioned before, there's enough art stuff and mechanics to make a demo, so I don't need pixel stuff for a while.

Most of the game function stuff is in my programmer's hands, so I'm in the writing phase of the demo's story. Since the game loop stuff is still in flux, the most I can do is make broad strokes plot scenarios. I've also been pondering myself about if it's worth it to scrap the monochrome Game Boy look and put it in color. I can rock the monochrome, but I'm sure I'll have to put the game in color sooner or later. Maybe I'm biased to the art style since I got used to it. I'll figure things out.

Finally, I bought an iPad and Apple Pencil for my birthday! I spend the first few hours, downloading apps that my Android phone has, such as Google Docs and Toggl Track. But I purchased the app that I bought the damn machine for: Procreate.

This Owlbear piece is my first painting created completely in Procreate. The sketch stuff is okay, but I feel like I got lost in the weeds fighting with my default brushes. I'll write more about my experience with Procreate in a future blog posts.

The status of Blackmask is the same as it's been so far. There are tiny updates working on specific mechanics, like projectiles and stealth.

I animated Cole's Bow and Arrow sprites, so the programmers have plenty to work with art-wise. Plus, I drew some Trick Arrow ideas for Cole's new bow!

I want to do more than simple elemental arrowheads, and try my best to think of other things Cole could fire with a bow. Of course, there's still programming in progress to get Cole to actually fire the damn thing. So, I'll keep these in the blue sky until they can land!

In my "Next to Pixel Art" list are some swimming animations. There are some good starts with surface swimming work from last year.

Now I'm getting to work on some underwater swimming animations. Adam wants to take a break from figuring out some fuzzy issues with stealth. So he's shifting to swimming, and I'm dropping in the pretty stuff.

The next task I want to work on is building a separate website for Blackmask related news. I'm worried that it's confusing for people to hear me talk about my other art without actual game news. I do want to drop in some articles like my process in making pixel art from my drawings. But I'll tackle this as I go.

Anyway, I'm pressing forward with my art duties and my programmers are tackling theirs!