Skook WiP #94

Greetings from Sunday past!

We’re going to Mississippi for a wedding. Of course, by the time you read this we’ll be on our way back from that wedding. No doubt our housemate will have taken advantage of our absence to throw wild parties and not do the dishes for days at a time.

Given that I haven’t lived this week yet I don’t have much to write about so I’ll keep it short.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF is of a few young dudes hanging out and doing young dude stuff.

This design can be found on
A mug in my Zazzle store.
All sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Mighty Nizz

The second page of the first Mighty Nizz story should be available to read at the Mighty Nizz website. If not I’ll fix that tomorrow.

Below is what that page looked like when I scanned it into my computer. For the colored version, follow the link above.
I hope your week was a good one! Thank you for reading.

See you in seven!

Skook WiP #93

Hello World! Hello hello! Thank your gods it’s another day above ground!

Unless you’re a troglophile. In which case, go deeper!

These Days …

More overtime at USPS.

A couple of veteran carriers retired last week and we’re trying to cover. One of those carriers was an overtime king, regularly casing and carrying multiple routes in addition to his own. He’d put in 35 years and had over 3000 hours of accumulated sick days.

Today will be the last day for three of our sorting clerks. They’ve made “career” and are being sent to the plant. So tomorrow we’ll be running behind getting parcels and magazines and mail distributed. Management asked for volunteers from the carriers to come in early to help out and I was tempted to volunteer. I keep thinking that I’m not really that injured. That my knee is more functional than it is. It can do all things the other knee can. For a while. A few hours of standing and walking and it reminds me that it is, in fact, weaker than the other knee.

I do my best to help out. I volunteer to carry off other routes. Before the injury I always volunteered for walking routes. I like walking. Now I have to restrict myself to carrying off mounted routes – the ones where you drive along filling mailboxes from the window of your truck. Even then I’m trying to keep my work hours as close to eight as possible. I’m not going to put in 35 years but I’d like to make it to a designated retirement age.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF features a lovely lady. If you like blizzards and ice.

This design is available –
On a mug in my Zazzle store
On schtuff in my Redbubble store

Tintin in the Land of Disillusion and Aching Bones

I discovered Tintin when I was a kid. I don’t remember how old I was. I’m sure I’d been reading American comics (especially Spider-Man) for awhile. My family was visiting a friend of my mother’s and the woman had copies of The Shooting Star and (I think) both parts of Tintin’s adventure to the Moon.

I  recently found a site that has a treasure trove of Tintin covers – the originals, parodies, homages and take offs. The site is running a cover contest. A few years ago I did a watercolor painting of a middle-aged and weary Tintin. I combined that painting with some stolen Tintin cover dress to produce the image below.

After I submitted, I got this response from Swapmeet Dave –
“I put together the Tintin pages some time ago and got a good response then, but in each of the years since, I get just one or two submissions or comments. But then, just last week, I got 3 new pastiches and now yours! I’ll get them on the site the next time I update it. As a deaf 83-year-old geezer, I just don’t have the energy that I used to.”

That was back in August. Dave hasn’t added my submission yet but I don’t mind. I only hope I’ve got it together enough to think about running a website when I’m 83.

Mighty Nizz

The first page of the first Mighty Nizz story is live!

I installed the Toocheke webcomics plug-in at the Mighty Nizz site. Once I figured out that it didn’t want to play with the WordPress theme that was already there I installed the Toocheke theme. Now it looks very different from this site. I’d like having a standard appearance across my mob of sites but I’ll take functionality over conformity. Some of that functionality (the navigation buttons for instance) won’t be apparent until multiple pages of the story have been posted. I’m still playing around with the layout and organization. If you have any problems or suggestions, don’t hesitate to let me know.

Below is a scan of the physical art of the first page.

The final colored page is here.

May your Friday be a good one and your Saturday be even better!

See you in seven!

Skook WiP #92

These Days …

I’ve finished coloring the Mighty Nizz story. I’m planning on posting the pages, one a week, hopefully starting next week, over at MightyNizz.com. I’m now working out the best way to present it. There are plug-ins that are designed for serializing comics on WordPress and I’m trying to figure out which one to use. I have one here at Skookworks (Comic Easel) that I’ve never gotten around to using. The developer hasn’t updated it in four years. That’s the Jurassic Age in internet time. WordPress just updated to version 6 point something and there’s no guarantee that the two programs/apps/code gardens will play well together. I could just put up the pages as individual posts but a webcomic plug in would make it easier for a reader to scroll between pages and stories.

I’ve also been watching videos about flatting for coloring comics. “Flatting” is the process of separating a comic page into the individual sections that you plan to color i.e. tree trunks/brown, pants/different brown, Mighty Nizz’s wolf cape/red and yellow, etc. I kept hoping I’d find some trick that would make the process faster. Based on what I’ve seen, the trick is to do it enough that you get faster at it. Or hire someone to flat the pages for me. And that’s not in the budget. It was somewhat reassuring to see that I’m already basically doing what the pros do, just more slowly.

Sarah has written the next story and I’m the process of breaking it up to fit a layout. It looks like this one will be a twelve pager. I have annual leave scheduled soon and plan to spend a good chunk of it working on illustration.

And, of course, I’ve been delivering mail. There’s a lot of construction currently happening on my route, five blocks of it interfering with my regular method of delivery. Four blocks of it is road work. The city is putting sidewalks on SW 24th between Barton and Thistle. Prior to the work, these blocks were mounted delivery, that is, I drove along the street and fed the mail into boxes while sitting in my mail truck. Currently, if I am lucky, I can drive down the street, stop near a mailbox, get out, walk across the ditch/rubble/new curb, and place the mail in the box that has been located out of harm’s way and out of arm’s reach from my vehicle. When I am not lucky, and the street is occupied by large trucks and vehicles with plows and shovels and things, I park my truck on another street, walk down the block delivering to each mailbox and then walk back up the block to where I have parked my truck. The fifth block, on SW 26th, is less difficult. It borders a condo development that’s being renovated. The street itself is being left alone but there’s a lot less parking than normal because of all the construction workers. All that activity means that my delivery time is longer than it used to be. It rarely means overtime but it does make it hard for me to estimate how long each day will be.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF features one of my favorite subjects – bloodsucking atomic zombie fishmen! These critters are inspired by the classic b-movie The Horror of Party Beach. No, I’m not recommending that you watch the film. I saw it once when I was a kid, young enough for my imagination to compensate for the ridiculous costumes, script and low budget. I haven’t tried to watch it since. I don’t expect it would fare as well with my adult sensibilities.
This design is available on:
A mug in my Zazzle store.
A variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Eldritch Horror in the Great War

A few years ago I did a series of illustrations for a Call of Cthulhu RPG manual featuring scenarios set during World War One. The book will likely never be published so I’ll be posting sets of the illustrations here for the next few weeks.

This set is from a scenario where biplane pilots run into a swarm of newly awakened (and very cranky) Byakhee over the Alps.

And that’s it for this week.

Be good to yourself and your friends and your pets and … whoever needs it.

See you in seven!

Skook WiP #91

Short newsletter this week. My time in front of the computer has mostly been spent coloring the Mighty Nizz comic. I am slow at it. I had a good process worked out for my individual designs but comic book pages are more complex. I know it’s possible to be more efficient and much faster. The comic book industry couldn’t function if all colorists took this long. I’m letting myself be okay with turtling for this story. There are videos online that teach the digital coloring process. I’m watching them. I don’t learn skills well from videos. I can’t stop and ask questions. The instructors often seem to think that their audience is more familiar with a program than I am. Or they’re using a different version of Photoshop than I have. But, little by little, I’m figuring it out.

Five out of the ten pages are finished and the other five are in progress. I expect that I’ll be able to show off the story in next week.

Until then –

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF:
This design is available –
On a mug in my Zazzle store.
On all sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Take care of yourself. Eat off the good china. Drink from the special cups. Toast the expanding night.

See you in seven!

Skook WiP #90

Good morning! Have you had your coffee? Your breakfast? Or are you one of those folks who skips all that bounds forth into your day without a need to fuel up first?

If you are … Good for you! I’m a “drink two mugs of coffee before I can deal politely with other humans” sort of person. In years past I have tried giving up caffeine and the resulting headaches and sluggishness were so lacking in fun I just decided that I’d rather be an addict.

These Days …

We seem to be recovered from covid. I’ve got a lingering cough. I’ve always had a lingering cough after a cold, so why not?

A lot of my fellow carriers caught the bug at around that same time. We all seem to have bounced back. When customers asked where I’d been and I said “Covid” a large number of them said they’d caught it recently as well. Only one said she’d had to spend time in the hospital.

I finished inking and grey toning the Mighty Nizz comic. It’s been scanned and I’m in the process of making corrections and coloring it. I’m hoping that all the color work I’ve done for my store designs will have given me the practice I need to color this story quickly. I will be posting the final story over at the Mighty Nizz site. With a link in this newsletter, of course.

Until then –

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF is of a very large someone taking a stroll among the cliffs.

Available:
On a mug in my Zazzle store.
On a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Before the Rainbow

Below is the scan of the physical art for my latest Land of Oz/Oz Squad design.
After the Rainbow

And here is the design post digital coloring.
If you’d like to own a version of it, take a look in one of my stores.

Today is a work day for me. Mail to sort. Packages to deliver. Dogs to avoid.

Take care of you and yours! See you next week!

Skook WiP #89

These Days …

I am generally an optimist.

When I was writing this newsletter last Friday, I believed I had caught a cold. I’d been out among masses of unmasked humans and, though I was masked myself, I assumed that I’d picked up and carried cold or flu cooties long enough to get infected. No big deal. I had a sore throat, sore throats were usually, for me, the first sign that I’d gotten a cold and I can handle colds. I’ve had hundreds of them in my life.

However, just to be safe, I got some quick covid tests from the drugstore. Annndddd, yeah, I tested positive for covid. We tested Sarah at the same time. She tested negative. So we masked up and kept our distance from each other and tried to enjoy the four day weekend. As the day went on, Sarah started having symptoms. Maybe she had a cold? We’re both optimists.

Sarah tested negative again on Saturday but it seemed silly to think she didn’t have covid. The tests aren’t perfect.

The four day weekend stretched out. I called the station on Monday afternoon to tell a supervisor that I wouldn’t be in. He told me at least three other carriers had also called in covid. I’m one of the few carriers who still masks up the station so hopefully they didn’t get it from me. The carriers mentioned don’t mask. I’m guessing that if they didn’t mask while at work in a building with over fifty other people, they weren’t masking out in the world either.

I’d planned to work on the Mighty Nizz comic on the weekend. That didn’t happen. At no point did I feel like the sickness was life threatening but being ill wasn’t conducive to either concentration or holding a brush. We just hung out and did our best to enjoy each other’s queasy company. My Big Sister blessed us with a cornucopia of her wonderful cooking so we didn’t have to try to think of how to feed ourselves.

I’m not a great patient. I rather take care of someone else than be taken care of myself so there were some cranky times. Sarah was very patient. She’s currently taking a round of antivirals. Covid didn’t necessarily hit her harder than me but her immune system has more issues so it seemed like a good idea to give it some help. I managed to get a little art done each day. That helped my mood. By Wednesday I felt healthy enough that, if I just had a cold, I’d have gone back to work.

When is it safe (mostly for other people) for me to go back to work? Based on CDC guidelines and advice from friends in the medical professions – five days after onset of symptoms. So, unless something happens after I’ve posted this newsletter that will prevent me, I’ll be delivering mail again today.

Yay.

Mugshots

Who is this lovely lady? Who are the folks in the robes? Every picture tells a story but I don’t always know what that story is. You’re free to make up a story of your own.

Available as:
A mug in my Zazzle store
On a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store

Before the Rainbow

Below is the scanned black and white art for the latest Oz Squad/Land of Oz design. On the left, Bungle the Glass Cat. On the right, Eureka the Pink Kitten. Pot. Kettle.


After the Rainbow

And here is the final colored version. It’s available in both my online shops. Oz is a socialist utopia overseen by an unelected princess but, since we don’t live there yet, I have some shilling to do.
That’s it for this week!

May your next seven days be healthy and happy and relaxing.

And if they can’t be that, punch a Nazi for Jesus.

Skook WiP #88

And so we stumble into Friday, some of us tired from the previous seven days, some of us excited by all possibilities ahead.

Welcome! I hope you’ve arrived at today more in the second mood than the first. I’m a bit of both. If you just want to look my latest images, scroll down. Otherwise …

These Days …

I am currently working on a ten page Mighty Nizz comic. I’ve drawn a lot of illustrations of the little beast in the last couple of decades. This will be her first story. It will also be the second comic I’ve finished in, well, a couple of decades. I spent the beginning of this century failing at finishing a new Oz Squad series. I spent a couple of years, prior to getting my mail carrier job, working with a writer who let his need for perfection get in the way of finishing any of the stories he hired me to draw. We have an agreement that allows me to use my art and designs in any way I want that doesn’t conflict with his potential use of the original stories but I don’t expect I’ll ever take advantage of it. I have projects of my own that are more in the forefront of my attention. A series of Nizz stories for example.

Sarah wrote this story. I expanded it. I’m currently inking it. I’ll add greytones with pencil and marker and then color it digitally. Before I started I was a little concerned about what kind of illustrations I’d produce. I felt rusty and unused to thinking in story and in composing a comic page. I try to design each page so that the images in each panel complement and balance each other. This first story is a learning/relearning process. I know that, once I’m done, I’ll see a lot of ways I could have done it better. At some point I may redo some of the panels, possibly even some of the pages. I’ve read interviews with some comic artists who fiddle with each incarnation of their work. If the story is serialized they make corrections for the collection. If it’s reprinted they make more corrections. First I’ll finish it and publish it. Then I’ll do more Nizz stories. Any fiddling will happen after I’ve got enough of a body of new work to be able judge whether the old work actually would be improved by the fiddling.

I’d rather have a lot of finished imperfect art than just a little finished perfect art. Because perfection is subjective.

Also, on Sunday I dropped off Sarah downtown for an appointment. I was supposed to pick her up again in five hours. I haven’t been downtown for anything but appointments in years. We didn’t go downtown before the pandemic. But, on Sunday, we got an inexpensive parking space and I felt like walking around. I had two destinations in mind – Pike Place Market and the Central Library. Pike Place Market was crowded. My ultimate destination was the comic book (collectibles) shop but it took a while to find that. I didn’t buy anything. I just wanted to see what was available. Before my cataract surgery I’d lost my enjoyment for shopping. I couldn’t see well enough to appreciate what I was looking at. I only shopped for things we needed. From Pike Place I wandered up to the Central Library and spent an hour searching through the graphic novel collections. I ended up selecting a heavy pile of books. With an hour until I needed to get Sarah I lightened my load by reading a few of them.

When I was a kid, comic book illustration seemed to come in two flavors – representational art with a lot of hatching for shadows and cartoony art with little or no shadows. Both types had flat colors. In the decades since, the varieties of illustration have greatly expanded. Better printing techniques have resulted in a wider variety of colors. Imported comics from Europe and manga from Japan have added more styles of art. Webcomics added more. Alternate publishers (not Marvel or DC) added even more. These days comic book (graphic novel) illustration looks like anything. Highly detailed. Crude and rough. Everything in between. All that’s important is whether the art tells the story. Any weird concerns I had that I might have forgotten how to draw a comic have vanished and I’m more relaxed when I work.

Also also – I’ve got a cold. I likely contracted it from wandering around on Sunday. I wore a mask the entire time but I touched a lot of things that other folks touched and I’m sure I touched my face more than once, to rub my eyes or adjust said mask. Right now it’s just a sore throat. It feels like every other damned cold (or flu) I’ve had before. I’m assuming it’s not covid but I’ll get tested to just to be sure.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF features a nice lady and her huge critters.

This image can purchased on a mug in my Zazzle store and a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Before the Rainbow

No GIF here. Simple before and after versions of this design. Below is a scan of the physical art – non-photo bluelines, inks and greytones.
After the Rainbow

Below is the post-Photoshop version – corrections and colors.
I put this design on a t-shirt in the Zazzle store and schtuff in the Redbubble store. The store links above should get you there.

And I’m out. Today is the first day of a four day weekend – my scheduled Friday and Saturdays off coincided with the holiday and I plan to spend a lot of time working on the Mighty Nizz comic. When I’m not coughing from the cold.

Cheers!

Skook WiP #87

Huzzah! Hoorah! Hoorray!

It’s been a week.

Not a joke or a subtle indication that it’s been a hard seven days. Just stating a fact.

I hope your week gave you some good times and good memories.

These Days …

While I deliver mail I think about all the things I could write about the job. The quirks of different customers. My pet peeves. Advice on how securely one should pack something to make sure it arrives undamaged. Then I sit in front of my computer and some of what I thought is available but most has flitted away. Time for me to make use of my phone and send myself notes throughout the day. I already use it to remind myself of illustration ideas.

It was a fairly quiet week. Work at the PO. We continue to be shorthanded so I’ve been getting drafted into carrying extra. Mail has been light enough that I’m able to carry some of that extra in undertime. Because of my bad knee I have to avoid routes that are mainly walking. That’s frustrating. I like to walk. I used to always request walking routes. But my knee needs to be looked after if I want to make to retirement so … more driving, less walking.

I’m getting some art done in the time between work, chores and sleep (and goofing off). I’ve finished lettering the Mighty Nizz comic and now I’m in the process of inking it. It’s a ten page piece. I’ve also got those Oz character designs to work on but haven’t managed to do more than letter their dialogue.

Last Friday evening we attended a memorial for Tim Sale. Tim was Sarah’s illustrator collaborator for Billi 99. It’s a gorgeous book. Well written too. Currently out of print. Tim passed away last month after having a successful career, most prominently, illustrating graphic novels for DC and Marvel comics. I never met the man. I heard his voice a couple of times when Sarah spoke to him on the phone.

I knew Tim’s work but not his personality. I only personally knew a couple of the other folks in attendance. I mostly listened and did my best to respond when people talked to me. I don’t hear well in rooms filled with people talking. I have a hard time focusing. Based on what folks said he was a great guy, someone who was kind and generous and enjoyable to be around. The world is a poorer place without him.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF.
Available –
A mug in my Zazzle store.
Schtuff in my Redbubble store.

May your next seven days give you all the fun (or all the relaxation) you need!

See you next Friday!

Skook WiP #86

August 19th.

My new computer is up and running. It’s missing a number of programs that were installed on my previous machine. I’m told that the programs couldn’t be transferred. I’d be more annoyed but the only one that I used with any frequency was Creative Suite 6. I have that on disk if I think I need to use it but, since I’ve subscribed to the online version of Photoshop, the disk will probably sit in my desk drawer for a few years before I finally toss it. CS6 didn’t get along with Windows 11. The more time passes the less likely it will get along with upgraded versions of Windows. My main reason for wanting it on my new computer was that I had a function set for turning scans of my pencilled art into inkable blueline prints. After doing some googling (technically duckduckgoing) I think I’ve found a way to get inkable bluelines that will require less clean up than my previous method.

We’ll see. I’ll need to actually rescan the new bluelines to see if this method works.

I’ve converted and printed out bluelines for a ten page Mighty Nizz comic and five Oz Squad/Land of Oz designs for my shops. I won’t know how they work until I’ve scanned in the inked illustration tried to drop out the blue tones. I should have an example or two to show next week. Fingers crossed.

Until then, here are the sketches for the Oz designs. They’re my versions of Steve Ahlquist’s versions of L. Frank Baum’s Oz characters.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF is of a couple of kids walking their … pet. Or maybe it’s walking them. Either way, they’re all getting exercise.

Mug.
Zazzle.
Schtuff.
Redbubble.
That’s it for this week.

Be good to yourself. Hang out with friends. Pet a cat. Walk a dog. Feed a squirrel. Hug a tree. Punch a nazi.

See you next week!

Skook WiP #85

It is the day. The day this newsletter arrives in your email mailbox. It is not a physical thing. Not physical in the way a letter written on paper and sent through the postal service would be. It can’t be held by your hands. It is a different type of magic. It is ones and zeroes that follow formulas to present themselves as letters and words and sentences.

I spent a week and a half without my desktop computer. For a few days, I went online using my phone and a tablet. Those devices were adequate for basic web surfing but, to me, thoroughly unsatisfying for spellcasting.

Spellcasting?

Magic is the process of convincing the universe to do what you want. Human culture is a series of spells attempting to work magic on reality. Our technology has advanced to the point that much of it functions like magic. Swipe your finger across an image on a screen and a day later a blender arrives at your door. Push a button on a little box and your car starts up in the garage. Tell your phone an address and a voice will give you directions on how to get there (and make adjustments if you make a wrong turn).

This is all fantastic until the magic doesn’t work the way you want it to. In my case, neither the phone nor the tablet give me the experience or control that my desktop does. I like a large screen, especially when I’m working on an illustration. I like using a physical keyboard. I barely passed typing class in high school. After a few decades of practice, I’m much faster at typing my thoughts than at writing them longhand. (Word processing programs really help this. Being able to go back and add or remove thoughts, correct spelling or perform various other types of editing/writing hoodoo has made my computer my preferred tool for composition.)

Many programs apps only work well on a desktop. I like my phone. I can text and get those directions and check Facebook and even talk to someone once in a while. The tablet is less useful. It’s an Apple product and it doesn’t seem to play well with some of the Google apps I like to use. Magic isn’t magic when it requires effort.

Not having a working desktop hasn’t stopped me from working on art. All my illustrations still start as marks on paper. I’ve laid out the first of our Mighty Nizz comics and begun a series of Land of Oz/Oz Squad designs for my online stores.

The new computer came home on Wednesday. I scanned the pencils, enlarged them, converted them to bluelines and printed them out for inking. Magic!

Once they’re inked (and toned) I’ll color them digitally. More magic!

The Oz designs will get posted to my online stores. I’ll include the images in a future newsletter and post them to the Oz Squad site.

The Mighty Nizz comic will get posted to mightynizz.com and I will include links to it in a future issue.

Magic!

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF stars a group of colorful penguins. Did I have Pride in mind when I did this? Well, no. But I didn’t not have it mind either. Capitalism demands that everything be commodified and that all our dreams and hopes be sold back to us.

Hmmm. That’s not the best way to create interest and close a sale, is it? Let’s try again.

Penguins! Everyone loves penguins! Penguins love penguins! They’re always ready for a formal occasion in their permanent tuxedoes! This bunch is relaxed and ready to party in flying colors!


Available –
On a mug in my Zazzle store!
On all sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store!

The Colors of Cthulhu

By now you know I enjoy doing illustrations that feature Cthulhu. It (He? She? They? What pronouns are appropriate for an ageless Eldritch Horror?) is the most well known of HPL’s creations. It gets namechecked in a number of his stories but only appears in person in one tale. Lovecraft depicts it as a gigantic creature with a head like an octopus and a body combining features of a human and a dragon.  It is trapped/entombed in the sunken city of R’Lyeh, only able to emerge when “the stars are right”.

Part of the fun of depicting the Big C is that there’s not really a canonic version of what it looks like. Lovecraft’s sketch is of a statue of Cthulhu. The statue was carved by humans who had, at best, only seen it in their dreams. The humans who do encounter it in person all die or go mad. I figure their descriptions of it are suspect. Humans interpret their experiences based on what they already know. Anything truly novel is going to be very hard to describe. Our senses only take in some of the information available to them and our brains are only able to process part of the information they receive.

Cthulhu is described as green. It may only appear that way to human eyes. We see a narrow spectrum of colors. I feel comfortable letting it be whatever color it feels like being. Great Old Ones have powers beyond our comprehension. If an octopus can change its colors at will, why not a being from beyond space and time?

Below is a process GIF of Cthulhu forming in our reality.

Here are the four designs I’ve got available in my Redbubble store. Collect them all!

And that’s it for this week.

Take care. Take rest. Take revenge. Take a moment to breathe.

See you in seven!