Skook WiP #61

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Greetings! Salutations! Hello!

Another Friday. Another collection of words and images delivered to your inbox. Or experienced at my regular website. Either way, thank you taking the time to read.

These Days

I had a lucky confluence of scheduling so I ended up with three days “off” in a row. Sundays are days off for regular carriers, Monday was a federal holiday, and Tuesday was my scheduled day off this week. I put off in quotation marks because it was a busy three days. We’re in the process of planning for retirement and preparing to move to a smaller apartment. I’m not elligible for retirement for a few years and we don’t intend to move this year but we’re getting ourselves as ready as we can for both. And both situations probably mean relocating. Seattle is an expensive city. We love our current apartment and we get along great with our landlord so I’m hoping we can manage to stay here until I do actually retire. A move, however, will come. When it does I want it to be simple. That means having a minimum of stuff to move.

Our stuff is mostly my stuff. Books. Magazines. Comics. Artwork. Right now we’re expecting the art to move with us. The books, magazines, and comics? Some of it will come. Most of it is being sorted for other destinations. I’m starting with the books because they’re already out on shelves and therefore easier to sort. The process of sorting the books involves a lot of detachment on my part. I love books. I’ve loved having a big library. I’ve also been expecting to need to rehome most of the library at some point. I’d rather do it myself than leave it for someone else.I took nine boxes to Half Price Books on Monday and another nine on Tuesday. Nine boxes is their limit for a drop in sale.

I’ve worked at both Half Price Books and Powells Books so I have low expectations about what I will be paid for the books. If I wanted to get the “full value” of a book I’d need to set up an ebay shop and sell it directly to a customer. That’s an investment of time that I’m not willing to put in. With the pandemic and booming online sales there’s a better chance that what I bring to HPB will find another home. When I worked at HPB back in the 20th Century they didn’t have a computerized inventory. The only way to know if a book was in the store was to look on the shelf. The only way to know if a book was in another HPB was call that store. Estimating what to pay for book was as much art as science.

Currently HPB has their entire inventory of all their books in all their stores online and searchable. I have friends who still work for the company so I know a bit about how they do things now. When one of their employees buys books their offer is generated by the computer based on inventory and previous sales. They still have to look up weird one off stuff but there’s a lot less art and guesstimating.

The closest HPB to our place is in Southcenter. When I was accepting the buy offer on Tuesday one of the employees asked if I had worked for the company. I admitted that I had – twenty years ago. He said that they still get mail with my name on. My legacy. Heh.

Besides planning for the future I’m still dealing with health issues. On Tuesday, I had an MRI done on my right knee. I’ve got an appointment this morning with my orthopedist to go over the results, talk about treatment and, hopefully, get paperwork sorted with Workman’s Comp.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF is sort of fan art of the Yellow Submarine. The recent release fo the new Beatles documentary reminded me of how much I enjoyed their music in general and that movie in particular. At first I planned to draw a yellow submarine but I decided it would be more fun (and less likely to trigger copyright infringement takedown notices) to design a new suhmarine of a different color.

This design can be found on mugs in my Zazzle shop and all sorts of other schtuff in my Redbubble store.

The Color of Space

The illustration below was originally done for the sixth issue of Midnight Echo, an Australian horror fiction magazine. It was published in 2011. It was a science fiction special. David Conyers, the editor of that issue, had asked me to do three illustrations to be used as placeholders throughtout the magazine. None of the images were attached to any of the selected stories. They seem to have been used to in lieu of commissioning specific illustrations for individual stories.

In my quest to make all of my art available on schtuff I’m coloring all of the Midnight Echo illustration and putting the colorized versions in my shops.

I will post the before and after versions of the other two illustrations in the next couple of weeks.

May today be a good day for you. May the days following be even better.

See you next week!

Skook WiP #60

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Greetings and salutations! I hope your week has gone well and you’re sliding into today with enthusiasm and good cheer.

These Days

My week has gone … okay.

I’m back working full time – that is, I’m delivering to all the addresses on my route. I’m wearing a knee brace and a back brace and I’m doing exercises at home to strengthen the parts of me that would prefer it if I just stayed home and spent my time drawing. I will be appealing my Workman’s Comp denial but to do that I’ve got to get one or both of my doctors to provide a medical diagnosis and write an essay about how my accident resulted in my injury. Bleah.

Every day starts with me checking the board to see which routes are being broken up for overtime delivery. Those route will have available vehicles. The vehicle assigned to my route has been gone for over two months now. At this point I’m guessing my route won’t have a vehicle until they start rolling out the new models in 2023.

Mail itself has been light, at least compared to that in the Fall and Christmas season. I’ve been delivering to addresses that I barely seen in the last two months. On Tuesday I pulled backed up mail out of a few mailboxes belonging to vacant addresses. The boxes have “Vacant” cards in them but some carriers just deliver mail to them anyway and the cards get buried. So more mail gets put in.

I’m saying hello to customers I haven’t seen since 2021. They’ve all been happy to see me. I’m sure they’re also happy to be getting their mail before sundown. I’ve heard stories of mail being delivered at seven, eight or later.

My knee continues to object to be active but, fortunately, the objection doesn’t get worse as the day goes on. Neither is it worse after a night of sleep. I’m walking my route, not striding.

One of the benefits on being back at the job is that I’m more focussed about my time otherwise. I’m spending less time scrolling the net, more time drawing or wrting.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF is of an illustration of some werewolves and a badger playing poker. I’m sure it happens all the time.

The design is available on a mug in my Zazzle store.

The design is available on all kinds of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Coming Attractions

I am often working on multiple designs/illustrations/ cartoons simultaneously. I like to be ahead of schedule. I use different tools for different effects so I will move from drawing to drawing using one brush or pen. When I ran out of 11×17 bristol board I concentrated on building up a backlog of concept sketches.  These were done on 8,5×11 cardstock. These sketches get converted to bluelines in Photoshop, blown up to fit the larger bristol board and then printed out. Most of the time I will ink directly on the blueline. Sometimes I want a more detailed illustration or I have a lot of corrections. In that case I do a pencil drawing over the blueline, rescan it, make a new blueline and print out that version for inking.

Here are a few of the images I’ve got lined up.








That’s it for this week.

Take care of yourself. Eat right and eat well. Enjoy yourself when you can.

Cheers!

Skook WiP #59

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These Days ...

Naps are wonderful things. Cats know this. They are champion nappers. I don’t take naps often enough. If I haven’t started a nap before noon I won’t take on that day. I won’t feel like I have enough time to properly enjoy it. If I’m tired I’d caffeinate instead.

I’ve been on vacation this week and I probably should be taking more naps. I’ve been getting up and going to bed on the same schedule as I would while working. I’m still caffeinating myself when I could be getting shuteye.

I am mostly enjoying myself. We’ve using this week to catch up on medical appointments. Sarah has a few for sciatica and nerve issues. I had a presurgery visit with the optometrist to measure my eyes and discuss lenses. I’ve got cataracts. In April, assuming the schedule works out, I will have them corrected, one eye at a time. It’s a weird thing for me to contemplate. My natural eye lense will be replaced by a plastic one. I was given a choise of lenses I can have installed. I have a budget so I couldn’t choose a lense that might (nothing is ever completely certain) allow me to be eyeglasses free. Since I am naturally nearsighted, the doctor recommended a lense that would allow me to read without glasses. I will then need to wear glasses for distance seeing. That seems fine. I’ve been wearing glasses for a few years now. I’m used them. My main motivation to have the surgery is to regain some night vision. I’ve been doing my best to avoid driving in unfamiliar places at night because, frankly, it’s not safe for me to do it any more. I can manage familiar roads okay because I know the landmarks and don’t need to read road signs.

I don’t love driving. I don’t dislike it. It’s a necessary activity here in a big American city with inefficient public transportation during a pandemic. It’s a big part of my job at USPS. I’m expecting the new lenses with make that part of my life easier.

Mugshots

This week’s process GIF is of a trio of witches making soup. Maybe. Maybe they are casting a spell. Or making oatmeal. You tell me.

This design is available on a mug in my Zazzle store and all sorts of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Bonedeep Romance

I ran out of the 11×17 bristol board that I use for drawing my mug designs. I kept drawing layout sketches on 8.5×11 cardstock but but I wanted carry a design all the way to the finish. I also wanted to do something simpler (bolder?) than I habitually work up. With Valentine’s Day on my mind, the design below is the result.

This is what the design looks like on one of Redbubble’s t-shirts.

This is what it looks like on one of Zazzle’s shot glasses.

Pink Heart Shaped Skull Shot Glass
Pink Heart Shaped Skull Shot Glass
by Skookworks

That’s it for this week. I’ve got three more days where I can not think about delivering mail.

And maybe take a nap.

Or two.

Cheers!

Skook WiP #58

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Good morning! I hope you’re doing well. It’s Friday and this is the newsletter.

These Days

Today is the first day of one of my vacations. I have a lot of complaints about working for the Post Office but the job has its advantages. We get paid days off, both sick days and vacation days. I didn’t use a lot of the vacation days during my first few years at the job so I’ve got a good stash of them. All unused sick days roll over from one year to the next. Vacation days roll over as well but only up to a point. Eventually you start to lose the days you don’t use. This year I’ve scheduled three weeks – this one that starts today, another one in the summer and a third in the fall. I’ll primarily use the time to do art and visit with friends. Given that there’s still a frikkin’ pandemic going on I’ll be doing more art than hanging out.

The longer I work for the PO the more vacation days become available and the more I will take. This is one of the benefits of having a union job. Yay unions!

Mugshots

This week’s process gif is of a couple of happy dragons. These critters are modeled on the Eastern version of a dragon. I like dragons in general but I have an extra fondness for the Chinese version. They’re more likely to share a cup of tea with you than set you aflame.

Dragons come in a variety of colors so I did a second version in red and green.

These designs are available on mugs in my Zazzle shop and lots of other schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Coming Attractions

I do most of my preliminary sketches on 8 1/2 by 11 cardstock. I scan them into my computer and covert the art to a blueline drawing, blow it up and then print it out on 11×17 bristol board for inking. Last week I ran out of bristol board and the local art supply shop didn’t have any available in my preferred size. I’ve got a new supply headed my way by slow FedEx but until it arrives I’ve been getting new designs sketched up on the cardstock. Here is a sample of them.

I hope your week goes well. Take care of yourself and those whose company you enjoy. Thank you for reading!

Skook WiP #57

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Happy Friday!

You’re reading the latest issue of the Skook Works-in-Progress Newsletter in which I ramble about … stuff … and show off some recent art.

These Days …

This week has been relatively uneventful.

I’ve been working half days at USPS to give my knee time to recover. It’s better than it was back in December but it’s still telling me that something is wrong. I’ll be seeing my orthopedist this morning to get a check up and have paperwork updated. Workman’s comp did not approve an MRI so I don’t expect that he will be able to tell me much new. Hopefully the updated paperwork will push Workman’s Comp into approving the procedure.

I have been without a regular vehicle for about two and a half months now. Every morning I come to work and check to see which routes are being broken up for delivery by the overtime folks. Then I check to see how many of those routes have vehicles available. The truck assigned to my route broke down at the end of October. It sat in the station’s parking lot for a month before Vehicle Maintenance finally took it away. It hasn’t been brought back yet. I heard that the engine needed to be replaced. Last week our new station manager asked where my vehicle was. When I told her she said she would call Maintenance and find out what was happening with it. I’ve had a couple of supervisors say they’d check too. My truck remains MIA.

Driving other routes’ trucks has provided me with lessons in hygene and organization. One look at my studio space will tell you that I am comfortable with a certain level of chaos. But that’s home. It’s my studio. No one uses it when I’m not there. I’m a lot tidier at the post office. I keep the shelves of my case clean, put my rubber bands away after I’ve organized the day’s deliveries, put the trays under the shelves and give all the missorts and undeliverable mail to clerks at the end of my shift. The only thing I would leave in my truck are few forms for vacant addresses and certified mail pick ups. I would always take my personal belongings home. I don’t want the next person who has to use my station or drive my truck to have to deal with mess.

Many of my fellow carriers seem to be comfortable sharing their messes with the other potential users of their truck. They leave food. They leave trash. They leave jackets and hats and satchels. They leave stacks of rubber bands. One guy has a selection of small tools stuck to his dashboard with magnets. I’m tempted to take photos.

Mugshots

Below is this week’s process gif. I am … hmmm … I was going to say, “Not a fan of clowns” but that’s not accurate. I like the idea of clowns. I like the idea of silly beings dedicated to making regular folks laugh. I feel bad that clowns are considered scary and creepy by so many people. I like the idea of putting on wild make up and ridiculus clother and going bonkers.

I just can’t remember ever laughing at (or with) a clown. A lot of clown humor is slapstick and slapstick doesn’t do much for me. I sympathize too much with the person getting the pie in their face or falling down the stairs to laugh at (or with) them.

Regardless, I don’t find clowns scary or creepy. Clowns just want to have fun. The world needs more fun. And lots of people deserve pies – in their faces.

This image is available on a mug in my Zazzle store and a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Full House

I did the design above last year for a client. He generously told me that I could use it for my own projects if I wanted. This week I spent some time coloring and expanding it so it would fit better on t-shirt and other schtuff. Yes, Halloween is always on my mind.

And that’s it for this week. I hope your days are pleasant and your nights are relaxing.

See you in February!

Skook WiP #56

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Another Friday dawns and lo, this newsletter pops up in your inbox.

Thank you for your time and attention. I hope your week has gone well and that cats respect your need to sleep while they are awake and stalking prey.

These Days …

On Sunday I was exiled from Facebook for “violating community standards”. I have a tendency to use violent rhetoric when I snark. That rhetoric is usually focused on folks who advocate beliefs and policies that make the world a worse place. To me, it’s punching Nazis without having to bruise my knuckles. This isn’t the first time. I was exiled for two days earlier this year. This time my exile is for seven days. I’ll be able to post and comment again this coming Sunday. The most annoying thing about this, to me, is that I can’t wish folks happy birthday. I’ve been using FB as my birthday reminder calendar.

As far as I can tell Facebook doesn’t publish the rules to their “community standards”. My snark suggested killing someone and setting some else on fire but it’s hard to tell what actually triggered the ban. “kill” and “fire” are awfully general terms to ban. “Kill” isn’t just a verb, it’s also a noun. And “fire”? Where is civilization without fire? I suspect that my account is more closely bot watched than others because of my previous lack of decorum.

I don’t feel like my right to free speech has been curtailed. I’ve never felt like that right was every as sancrosant as some folks do. Our culture shuts down certain subjects of conversation on a regular basis. We might have the right to say whatever we want but you’ll still want to be careful what you say and where you say it. Nazis punch back. Facebook is not the public square. It’s a business. One that I both appreciate and despise.

The great thing about this exile is that I end up doing something else with my time other than scrolling my Facebook feed. I’m not going to claim that I’m being more productive with the “extra” time but I am finding myself less annoyed. I’m reading fewer ill thought out political memes and that really improves my mood.

I’m continuing to work half days at USPS. I organize my route, divide it in thirds (or fourths on a good day) and deliver one of those thirds. Some days I run over my allotted 4 hours because the mail volume is greater than the time expected for delivery. I have to be careful about that. Management and workman’s comp don’t like it if someone does more than they say they can. To them it means that the person should be working more time all the time. It doesn’t occur to them that the person has made an extra effort in order to make sure the rest of the already overburdened team doesn’t have to do one more damned thing.

I know. I know. I need to take care of myself first. I’m working on it.

Mugshots

This week’s process gif features a few of the folks who survived and thrived after an apocalypse (or three), I’ve had a version of this illustration in my head for years now. My friends Jarred Wallace and Adam Scott Glancy used to do a video blog called Podcast at Ground Zero in which they discussed various End of the World books, films, tv shows and games. Jarred had asked me to do a banner illustration for their page – sometime, whenever I got around to it.

I finally got around to it.

This image is available on a mug in my Zazzle store and all kinds of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

This is my 3rd mug design of 2022. 49 to go!

Have a good week. Take care of yourself (even if it means being less of a team player). See you next Friday!

Skook WiP #55

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Two weeks into 2022.

Welcome to the latest Skook Works-in-Progress newwletter. I hope life is going well for you. If it’s not, have you asked for a redo?

These Days …

On Tuesday I filled out an application for a Managing Editor position at the major bookseller down in Portland. Sarah had been sent notice of the job via LinkedIn. The application period was ending on Wednesday and my initial thought was that that was not enough time for me to put together a resume and fill out an application. The job description emphasized a need to be able to make deadlines. So I thought, what the hell, let’s see if I can make this deadline. I had to work up a resume for the occasion. I thought I had one saved on my computer but, if so I labeled it in such a way that I can’t find it.

The pay is equivalent to the Post Office without requiring as much exercise. That’s a plus. The job is expected to be done remotely most of the time. That’s another plus. The job holder is expected to live in the Portland area. We live in the Seattle area. So we’d need to move. The likelihood that I’ll even get a rejection notice is pretty slim. I applied mostly for the practice of doing it. I’d be happy to keep delivering mail.

My body has other opinions.

I’ve been back at the USPS working what are supposed to be four hour (half day) shifts. I spend a couple of hours sorting and organizing mail and parcels for delivery on my route. Depending on the day and the carriers available I divide the route into three or four parts and I deliver one of those parts. My knee is still complaining about being used so I reserve the parts of the route that require the least amount of walking for myself. Some days I’m able to deliver my part in less than 2 hours. Most days I’ve gone slightly over.

As of this writing, I’m still waiting for Workman’s Comp to approve me getting an MRI. They want a diagnosis. They want to know why I’m not working all that annoying mandatory overtime. I’d like to know why my knee is on strike and what I can do to encourage it to be willing to put up with my abuse again. Workman’s comp wants to stop paying me to not work. I want to deliver my full route. (My customers want me to deliver my full route. They tell me. Some tell me in very colorful language.) You’d think that would be incentive for them to quickly approve the process. You’d think.

Mugshots

This week’s mug design is an example of thinking ahead. Perhaps too far ahead. I was thinking of Halloween when I drew this. Can you tell?

I do know quite a few people for whom Halloween isn’t simply a date on the calendar. It’s a state of mind. They’d be happy to see it celebrated all year. I’m guessing I made this design for them.

The mugs are available in my Zazzle store. The design is available on other schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Meow.

See you next week. Thank you for dropping by!

 

Skook WiP #54

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Hello and welcome to the first issue of the Skook Works-in-Progress newsletter for this year!

This is the seventh day of 2022.  I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions. I haven’t done that in years. If I’m going to take on new habits I prefer to just take them on rather than wait for a specific date. I do plan projects based on dates and time frames. This newsletter, for instance, should run weekly throughout this year. I’ve found that having to post on a weekly basis inspires me to have something to post about – specifically to have some new illustrations or images to show off.

I’ve been running a couple of online stores since the end of 2020. I spent 2021 adding designs to both stores.Many of the designs were reworks of illustrations from my portfolio. Many more were original illustrations done specifically for the stores. As I added designs I started designing specifically for the products that were available. A design tends to work best if it is created with a specific product in mind. What works on a t-shirt may fit poorly on a phone case.

Mugshots

My favorite object to design for is a coffee mug. My big project this year is to create 52 new mug designs. And, because I think it’s fun to make and share process gifs (and because this is the Skook Works in Progress newsletter) I’ll be posting a process gif of new design in each issue here.

This week’s design is an abstract. Because … what the hell.

It’s available on mugs in my Zazzle Store. My chosen version is below. If that particular mug isn’t to your liking you have the option to move the design to other mugs or objects. If you have difficulty doing that just email me and I’ll be happy to help out.

This design is also available on a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

These Days ..

I’m working at the post office again after a month off due to injury. I’m currently scheduled to work half days – that is four hour shifts. Before the injury I was working ten to twelve to thirteen hour days.

I had to look up the history of my knee problem in order to justify my downtime to workman’s comp and I was reminded that I first injured this leg back in June of last year. It’s gotten better and then worse again.

When I sit it feels fine. When I stand and walk it complains. The longer I stand and walk the more it complains. The x-rays have been inconclusive as to a cause. My orthopedist has requested an MRI. That will need to be approved by the insurance company. Hopefully they will decide they don’t need quite as much profit this quarter and they will give the okay.

Ten-Four Good Buddies

That’s it for this week. I’ll be working on other art and illustrations in additon to the mug designs. The mugs will be my regular feature. Other work, designed for other products and purposes, will get sprinkled in as I have time.

Take care of yourself. Be kind when you can. Punch a Nazi if you have the chance.

See you next week!

 

 

Skook WIP #53

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Happy Friday! Happy New Year!

Thank you for reading my newsletters this year. I had only expected to write 52 issues but, we ended up with 53 Fridays in 2021 and I only realized that when I was setting up issue 52. Being stuck at home due to injury I decided to take advange of the “extra” time and riff out something completely new.

Here are five model sheets for five pulp superheroes that I invented while I was sketching them.

The Necronaut

Jarred Navine had a near death experience after almost drowning when he was a child. The experience convinced him that there was not only an afterlife but an entire afteruniverse waiting to be explored. Using alchemy and mad science he fashioned a containment suit for his soul and set out to map the Other Sides.

The Plague Doctor

“Crime is a disease!” Many a reformer, many a law and order junkie has spouted this platitude. Duncan LeCroix took the idea to heart. He looks on criminals not as evil people but as infected ones. He uses science (and sometimes his fists) to cure those who have succumbed to corruption and predatory behavior. Many he cures. Some, like severely rabid dogs, he must put down.

Silurian Sue

Deep beneath the Himalayas are the caverns of Surrilana. In these depths evolution has taken different, strange paths. There are tribes of intelligent bats, powerful yetis, monstrous ant folk and the Silurians – beings neither reptile nor mammal but something in-between. When the corporations of the upper world discovered Surrilana in the early years of the 21st Century they fought to keep its existence a secret so they could strip its resources without interference. LIke most conquerors they failed to understand the people they were trying to conquer. The Surrilanians fought back, first in the caverns and then under the foreign sun of the surface world.

The Swift

Vinian Spencer was orphaned at six year old. While traveling with her parents on a Mission in China, they were killed by bandits. Vivian escaped and was found by an order of martial arts trained nuns. They initiated her in their order and taught her the secrets of kung fu. She learned many skills but concentrated on mastering the light body techniques.

After twelve years of searching her grandmother found her and brought her home to New York CIty. Of course she uses her kung fu skills to fight crime. Duh.

Sokkot the SIlent

When Sokkot was a young man, he paid a compliment to one of the concubines of one of the Princes of the city state in which he lived.. The Prince had Sokkot’s tongue cut out and exiled the boy to the wilderness beyond the city state’s borders. In that wilderness he was adopted by one of the many bandit tribes. They fed him and trained him and when he was ready, they sent him back to the city state to get his revenge.

That’s all I’ve got for 2021. Have fun tonight! I’ll be going to bed at my usual time.

I’ll see you next week with more words and pictures.

Cheers!