Waiting...

Hi pals!

Not a lot of new things to type about for me this month. I have been trying to be heads down on all my projects. Thankfully I have the next two weeks off from the $dayjob, which really just means I'll spend 6-10hrs each day trying to catch up on comics instead 😭 (so forgive me if this installment is a bit disjointed).

In for MCAF, waitlist for TCAF

Pencilling has continued, although I am a week behind. When I initially was drafting this section I wrote it wasn't a huge issue, since it was looking like I wasn't getting off the waitlist for the [Montreal Comic Arts Festival](), but it turns out I'm in!! I'm waitlisted for TCAF, and will hear back at the end of March/early April--I remain hopeful and since I have to reprint things for MCAF, I'll be ready regardless.

I'll admit being initially waitlisted initially was kind of tough, because it really fed into my inner critic (Did I not work hard enough? Was my application not good? Does my site have too little content?). I think if anything it's really highlighted a need to define some internal metrics for "success" and try to care for those more than external sources. I think also, as I try to move my work into a direction that I am happy with, I need this more than ever. Taking risks on a comic that's not so easily "sellable", and wanting to do more prints and illustrations of my own characters, rather than fanart[¹ ].

Enough whining, on to the photos!

It's really just more pencils! This chapter is very foliage heavy, and I wanted to try a different approach to it.

Chapter 1 I really turned to Milton Caniff for foliage inspiration

While I think Caniff's writing is mostly boring american propaganda, the art is phenomenal, and the black spots and shadow work is still a huge goal of mine (I mean just LOOK at those shadows in the last panel).

Chapter 2, I'm really trying to pull from Ivan Bilibin, which is a big aesthetic inspiration for this project.

and how it shows in my pages... [² ]

I also want to pull some of these retro-feeling muted colours for the colouring this time (and simplify my colouring process from the last time.)

Twitch Streaming

Still happening! Both the Monday and Wednesday are art streams just because of time crunch. Although this Wednesday I might have a little treat, as I'll be on my friend knightmary_'s channel, doing a Monster Hunter smash or pass over the monsters.

Monday & Wednesdays 6:30PM EST

If you’ve got an account, I’d appreciate the subscribe. If ever you can tune in (even just to mute me and leave me on in the background), it does help get me to affiliate status and earn some pennies doing what I do. Any help is appreciated, but I love sharing the process either way 🙂

I'm going to keep adding this bit, because somehow it gets new folks each time.

In the meantime, some cool things...

- 🎥 Why don't movies look like movies anymore. A short youtube video essay that talks about how in our pursuit for more detail, more information, we've lost the feel of cinema and drama, and we've lost the ability to properly compose shots. Sometimes less, is more.

- 🎧 If you haven't taken the time to dive into some Japanese jazz/funk, you can do so now with this excellent album from Jiro Inagaki (track 3 is a personal favourite)

- 🎥 The Assassin is technically a wuxia film, but if you're looking for action-packed scenes and cartoonish gore, you won't find it here. Instead you will find a dreamy, patiently paced (observed, like much of an Assasin's true work) story, where the narrative unfolds in bits and pieces. This is not a neat narrative where everything is spoon fed to the viewer, but something a little more reflective and mature. It's currently available on [Mubi]() in Canada.

- 💸 Okay, I'll also take this time to gush about Mubi. I subscribe to...few subscription services, but Mubi is one I'm happy to pay for. They have more art house films, and curate them according to topics--so it makes it enticing to dive into something new.

- 🎥 On the heel of The Last of Us season 2 coming out, I'm reminded of my total disappointment with the second game (though I remain hopeful the tv show will rework these flaws). Some people liked to dismiss any critcism as folks being upset about a major character death, but my issue was more to do with the poor story-telling, and the frequent sloppy emotional manipulation the story used to try to get us to feel a certain way about characters (they really failed to properly set up and utilize a character like Abby). This great video essay goes into a lot of the issues I had with game 2.

1  More on this in the next post--I am just too busy frantically trying to catch up on my comics timeline.

2  Oh y'all thought I was done with horror, huh? WRONG 😈.