Hello!
You’re looking awfully handsome today! Have you done something new with your hair? Is that a new shirt/dress/pair of socks? Whatever it is, keep doing it!
(Unless I’m just delusional. In which case I’ll hang on to my delusions and continue passing them on to you.)
These Days …
Hmmm.
So this is the part of the newsletter where I get personal. As personal as I’m going to get in medium that can be read by anybody.
Caveats, caveats.
No covid. My second vaccine should be fully functional today. I expect to continue wearing a mask in public for a while. I haven’t had a cold in year so, personally, I find them effective. I also like the idea that wearing a mask screws up Big Brother’s facial recognition software. Not that Big Brother couldn’t find me if it wanted to. My scanner at USPS has GPS tracking and I carry a cell phone whenever I leave the house so I’m hardly doing a good job of being anonymous.
The new housemate is basically moved in. Her cat and ours are still a little touchy with each other but mostly they are getting along.
Little news otherwise. So let’s get to the artstuff!
Fighting the Powers
Open on:
The Skookworks studio. Early morning. Not that it matters. There are no windows in this room, only bookshelves. The Cartoonist sits at the drawing table. He is sketching. The Salesman sits next to him at the computer desk. He is staring at the screen. He types a few words and then deletes them. He sighs. He looks at what the Cartoonist is drawing.
Salesman: Octobriana and the Face?
Cartoonist: Yup. I’ve done the other Weird Heroes. Time to team up the last two.
Salesman: Are you sure you want to use that composition?
The Cartoonist lifts up the page. He stares at the drawing. He drops it to the floor.
Cartoonist: You’re right. That one didn’t work. No action. No tension.
He puts a new piece of cardstock on the drawing table and starts sketching again. The Salesman types a few words. He deletes them. He looks at what is being sketched.
Salesman: Much better.
Cartoonist: Much livelier.
Salesman: What’s with the dog?
Cartoonist: These guys seem more like dog people than cat people.
Salesman: That is a happy looking dog.
Cartoonist: Happy dogs are great. The Mail Carrier likes the happy dogs on his route.
Salesman: I’m trying to write something insightful about these characters, about why we’re using them. We like the Heap because we like swamp monsters. We’ve adopted Stardust (the Superwizard) and Fantomah because they require us to think in new ways. What is the appeal of these two?
Cartoonist: They hate rich people?
Salesman: Everybody hates rich people.
Cartoonist: Not really. If everybody actually hated rich people there wouldn’t be any rich people. And these guys hate rich people for different reasons. The Face is a guy who puts on a mask to fight crime and corruption. He’s not trying to completely change society. Octobriana is a revolutionary. She’s fighting for a different, better, egalitarian world. The Face is an American. Octobriana is international. And she has a pterodactyl.
Salesman: She has a pterodactyl? Why didn’t you draw the pterodactyl?
Cartoonist: That’s in Octobriana’s solo illustration. This is the team up illustration.
Salesman: What are they teaming up to do?
Cartoonist: Something that will probably involve punching cops.
Salesman: They punch cops? A lot of people like cops. A lot more people like cops than hate rich people.
Cartoonist: The original Face became a crime fighter because he saw corrupt cops murder someone. Our version probably has a similiar origin story. I’m still working it out. He is an American though so he’s not opposed to the police in principle. He just wants them to act in favor of justice rather than as selfish asshats. Octobriana is opposed to the police in general. The police are tools of the state. The state uses them to oppress people. To her, there are no good cops.
Salesman: I’m on deadline here. I’m not sure that’s got mass appeal.
Cartoonist: Smash the state! Eat the rich!
Salesman: You’re not helping.
Cartoonist: You’re a stooge for the capitalist oligarchy.
Salesman: Sigh. Artists. This design is available on all kinds of stuff on Redbubble. Buy now and keep the wheels of the marketplace spinning!
Shop Talk
Last week I had a conversation with someone who has purchased some of my designs on products through Redbubble. She’s been happy with her purchases so far but she found the search process frustrating. She didn’t find it easy to find my shop using either “skookworks” or “david lee ingersoll” in the search field. What’s frustrating to her is frustrating to me. I like to be easy to find. I’ve also had difficulty finding other artists’ shops on Redbubble. I was sure the shops existed but putting in the artists’s names yielded no results.
My customer does her online shopping on her phone so I used my phone to search Redbubble for my products. Less than ten showed up for “David Lee Ingersoll”. Less than ten for “Skookworks”. I had randomly added tags for “David Lee Ingersoll” and “skookworks” to some designs when I was having trouble thinking of a variety of tag words and phrases to use. The designs that showed up in the searches had those tags. Bleah. This means I’ll need to be adding those tags to the rest of my designs now. People can’t buy what they can’t find.
Interestingly Zazzle pulls up my shop when I search for “skookworks”. Searching for “David Lee Ingersoll” only pulls up products that I’ve tagged with my name. I guess I’ll need to make some updates there as well.
While I was doing these searches I started thinking about edits I want to make to some of the earlier posted designs. I’d planned to wait until I had 100 images posted but … what the heck, if I have to add in tags I might as well do some edits at the same time.
I’m not making major changes. At this time I’m just expanding some of the illustrations so the images fit better on the merchandise that Redbubble offers. For instance, this guy punching a robot …
Becomes this guy punching a robot. More space around the figures means it can fit more comfortably on a greater variety of products.
This sad monster at the abandoned drive-in …
Becomes this sad monster at the abandoned drive-in. It now has more space in which to be
sad. (I love this sad monster.)
Finally, this image of the Mighty Nizz being cheerful to a doubtful bear …
Becomes this expanded version.
I won’t be able to do this with all my older designs. These were layered Photoshop documents and the colors are simple. Expanding designs that were originally done in pencil or markers or used specialized digital brushes is a challenge that I’m not planning to take on. I’d rather redo the illustration.
I’ve joined a Redbubble Facebook group. I’ve been watching videos on “how to get rich on Redbubble” on Youtube. Hearing other folks experiences with and reasons for being on Redbubble is/are interesting, in part because so much of the focus is on sales. I get it. I guess. I’m delighted when I get a notice saying I’ve sold something. I’m especially delighted when the sale is for some odd illustration that I really didn’t expect anyone else to like. I long ago learned that my taste is not general taste. But I’m on Zazzle and Redbubble because having those stores as destinations gives me a focus for composing my illustrations.
The three original images above were originally done because:
a) I thought the subject (and the implied story) would be fun to depict
and/or
b) I wanted to practice some new rendering techniques.
With the stores as endpoints I’m still inspired by a) and b) but now I’m also thinking about:
c) composing an image so the important aspects of the design will look good on a variety of different products.
Eventually I may add:
d) follow pop trends for big sales
to my thinking but that will mean I’ll have to pay more attention to pop trends. And draw fast enough to take advantage of them.
We’ll see.
That’s it for this week. Thank you for reading.
May your life be only as exciting as it is satisfying. See you next time!
