Time passes but the moments that matter last forever, even when we forget them.

True or false?

These Days …

Rain. Friends. Doctor visits.

I welcome rain on Sundays and my days off. It’s my hope that the most of it will come down on those days and, when I have to deliver mail, the most I’ll have to deal with is a light drizzle. I’ve been mostly lucky this last week. When it has come down like a heavenly judgement I’ve either been on lunch or I’m working one of the mounted parts of my route so I only have to drive through it not walk. Of course, for my fellow carriers who did have to work during the heavy rains … I’m sorry.

This Sunday we did a bunch of grocery shopping in the morning and in the afternoon had lunch with old friends from out of town who were in town to see a Peter Gabriel concert. We ate at a Cuban restaurant. We’ve never had Cuban food before. No rain. Good conversation. The usual catching up on what we’ve been doing the last few months.

Monday was Columbus Day – Indigenous People’s Day here in the Pacific Northwest. I end up liking this holiday more every year. Not because I have anything good to say about old Mr. “I Got Lost and Started the Genocide of Two Continents”. No, it’s just a holiday that I never remember until shortly before it’s going to occur and therefore I get a day off that I wasn’t expecting. Unexpected days off are always fun. I spent part of it cooking a big pot of something to eat for lunches during the work week.

But then … the day after a holiday tends to be a long one at USPS. There’s a back up of mail and parcels that have to be delivered. In the rain. It was mostly drizzle. When it did come down heavy I was mostly either delivering the mounted (driving) parts of my route or on break. I got finished just as it was getting dark. I’ve started carrying my head lamp in my truck. I didn’t need it Tuesday but I’m sure I will before the end of the month.

Wednesday was my scheduled day off this week. We spent it at doctor’s appointments. We’re not dealing with anything fatal. Just stuff that makes life uncomfortable. Sometimes really uncomfortable. Fortunately we live in the 21st century and have antibiotics and antifungals and a host of other chemicals that can treat our ills.

Thursday was another long day. Voter pamphlets and an ad for membership discounts at a new health club that’s opening up in the location of a former failed health club needed to be delivered to every customer on my route. I deliver to over 850 addresses.

Today I have to get out the Red Plums. Normally the things are supposed to go out on Tuesdays but this week’s high volume of mail on that day had them pushed back to Wednesday and Wednesday’s shortage of carriers meant that the people who delivered my route didn’t carry any of the extras and then on Thursdays I prioritized the voter pamphlets and the health club coverages so … Bleah.

I’ve managed to grab time to work on art most mornings and during my days off. That keeps me sane.

The Lovecraft Kids

The Lovecraft Country Holiday Collection written by Oscar Rios (published by Golden Goblin Press) got retitled as The Eldritch New England Holiday Collection. The original title was less unwieldy but the publisher made the change to avoid confusion with (and possibly being sued by the producers of) Lovecraft Country, a popular novel by Matt Ruff that got adapted into an even more popular tv series. I’d argue that Rios’s RPG features more Cthulhu Mythos elements than Ruff’s novel so no change should have been necessary but I understand why Golden Goblin made it anyway. Getting sued is time consuming and expensive.

Eldritch Holiday features six playable adolescent members of the Morgan family – young cousins who live in four of H.P. Lovecraft’s favorite cursed townships. George Weedon and Edward Derby live in Arkham, Gordon Brewster and Gerdie Pope live in Dunwich, Donald Sutton in Kingsport and Alice Sanders in Innsmouth. Because the characters are kids (and possibly because Oscar wanted them to survive) the adventures stay away from encounters with the Great Old Ones, mostly featuring run-ins with ghosts, witches, zombies and the Dreamlands.

I did basic portraits of them to get Oscar’s approval.

Then I did the cover illustration so we had something to feature in the Kickstarter –
And then, also for the Kickstarter, I did individual portraits of the kids.

Next week – The Best Friends Forever!

Digital Sketching

Practicing Clip Studio Paint with my Wacom tablet has been a lot of fun. It’s the kind of fun where going I have to remind myself to get up and walk around before I completely screw up my posture. I’m able to make corrections and adjustments that I would have just ignored when working on paper. I’ve had years of working in Photoshop to inform what might be possible with CSP. I’ve also watched quite a few process videos of artists using CSP to further inform me of the program’s capabilities. Going to work delivering the mail is even harder these days. I want to keep making art.

Often times, after I’ve made a series of sketches/illustrations, I will post the results here over the course of weeks. This time I’m just splitting the results in two parts.

Here are the pencils sketches I started with –


And here are the “finished” digital sketches.

I put “finished” in quotes because I’m doing these sketches to learn CSP, to do basic character design for The Surrilana Depths and to practice coloring with a limited palette. I’m resisting adding a lot of fiddly details or, honestly, thinking too much about the composition. I’m learning what I can and moving on. Sometimes that learning means I really don’t like the results. Lucky you, I’m posting everything!

Until next Friday –
Be good to yourself.
Be kind for the fun of it.
Take a nap.

Mmmmm. Nap.