It looks like I will be delivering mail again starting Saturday. I’ve got back all normal range of motion and am no longer feeling any pain in my shoulder. I’m looking forward to delivering again more than I am dreading it. I like my route and I like my station. My biggest concern is making sure I pay attention to my body’s limitations and not either reinjure myself or injure myself in a new way.
I did enjoy the preview of retirement – hanging around with Sarah, chasing the cats off my drawing board, being frustrated that the artwork is taking longer to complete than I want and, occasionally being amazed at what my hands have succeeded in creating. When I was younger I had idealized images of what my final art should look like – and it never looked like that. It was always in some amalgamated style of my current favorite artists. These days my mind only conjures up a vague final image that’s more in my “style” than anyone else’s.
I do have five more days to make progress on the projects. Wish me luck!
| Project | Count | Complete |
| Outland Saints (comic) | 40 pages | 12 pages |
| John Bell’s Oz Book (illustrations) | 27 illustrations | 20 illustrations |
| Mighty Nizz: Getting Dressed (comic) – 18 pages | 18 pages | 5 pages |
| Mighty Nizz: Tarot Deck (tarot deck) | 78 cards | 4 cards |
| Skookworks Webstore | 248 designs | new store in progress |
| Bastard Destiny (comic) | 48 pages | 6 pages |
| Sunk Cost Elegy (comic) | 120 pages (tentative) | |
| The Surrilana Depths (comic) | 200 pages (tentative) | |
| Daughter of Spiders (illustrated short story series) – number of stories, word count and number of illustrations to be determined. | ||
| Colonial Cthulhu (Keeper’s and Companions Manuals) | 2 covers | DONE! |
| Observations (comic) | 8 pages | DONE! |
One of the first things I did when transitioning Morgo the Mighty to The Surrilana Depths was to change the Bakketes from “bat-men” to intelligent weasel people who ride pterosaurs. Why? Evolution. The Bakketes of Morgo seem to have six limbs. This is a little vague in the text but the cover illustration makes it obvious. No land vertebrates have six limbs. Evolving an extra set of limbs is, to me, less likely than weasels developing civilization.
Your mileage may vary.
Why do they ride pterosaurs? The promo text for Morgo promises a prehistoric lost world but the actual story only gives us evolved bats, rodents, lizards and giant ants. I’m writing the story. I’m a god of this world so – pterosaurs.
A few weeks back I posted the first ten pages of my first (abandoned) start of the graphic novel version of Surrilana. Those pages showed the first versions of the bakketes Baku, Pasho and Kian. While I was drawing those pages I had to keep looking a back and forth between the pages to make sure I was being consistent with the characters. I had no muscle memory for how they should be drawn.
So. Practice!
Baku:
Pasho:
Kian:
These versions felt closer to correct but not quite there. I did another pass. I’ll post those versions next week.
Take care of yourselves. Eat right. Get outside. See you in seven days!
Glad you’re doing better, but yes, that retirement preview must have been nice. Great progress. I have my own creativity tracking which I love and loathe.