Supergirl And Staying Busy

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates. Life has been hectic and insanely busy this last month, and I've only had time to work on job-related art(which I can't post here, unfortunately), so right now I'm throwing this piece up. Between cut-throat deadlines and moving out of my apartment(it's....complicated, to say the least. Long story short: my last roommate moved out and I'm not making enough yet to afford a two bedroom place on my own.) and into my grandmothers--and then into my mothers house a few weeks later, I didn't have a lot of time to get on the computer.

Thankfully, I'm starting to see the finish line on one of two of my projects and now that I'm done with moving craziness, I'll be updating on a regular basis again. My friend Will has been giving me small tutorials on watercolor painting(without going over the painting with ink. A new for me.), and so I'll have some mini paintings to post here soon. If I get a great enough response to some of the sketchbook paintings(hint hint. Comments, please!) , I might turn them into full sized paintings & prints for sale. I'm thinking of either that or doing just one big hardcover sketchbook eventually, so let me know which you guys would prefer. Lots of stuff in the works here.

Alright guys, I'm out for now.
Hope your all having a great week and staying inspired.

Rachael

Ever Lovin' Blue Eyed Thing and Staying Focused

Here's the Thing Watercolor Sketch that's on the opposite page from my Flash drawing.

Staying focused lately has been proving to be a little difficult. Between juggling two projects and dealing with other "life issues", I find myself wondering "what happens once I'm done with THIS project? Then what?" and then I start to worry. I start to think of other projects that are in the planning stage, or I start thinking about how I need to start prepping my portfolio for the upcoming Heroes Con to look for more work and my productivity slows down as I forget to stay in the moment.

In the creative field, yes it's important to plan ahead, but it's also important to keep your head in the game. I can't be thinking about what work I need to do tomorrow or what I'm going to do for the next issue or for the project as a whole because then I get overwhelmed. It's easier to focus on the one page I have to do that day instead of the twenty+ I have to do for the month. It makes getting things done easier. And it keeps me moving ahead and pushing through. I'm quickly learning in this line of work that you have to break a project into workable chunks and just focusing on one piece at a time if you want to get ANY work done at all. Otherwise you'll just sit at your drawing board all day paralyzed by how much there is to be done.

Worry only about today. Tomorrows work will take care of its self.


Rachael

Robot Cowboy Studios: Part One

Ok, holding up to what I said on an earlier post and putting up some pics of the Studio. I have a little more than a dozen photos here, so I'm splitting this post up in two parts, to be continued on Friday. Today we have a look at the break room as well as the work areas of Syd, Will, Amber, And Kiki. Friday will be a look at my work space, the crazy antics of the studio action figures, and the view from the studios windows. So be sure to check back here Friday night!

First in the studio, is our break room. We meet with clients, hold Studio meetings, goof off, and eat in here. To the right is the door out into the hallway of office suites in the NTS building-- the Tallest one in Lubbock.

Our dry-erase/bulletin board. This is meant to keep track of inspiring quotes or messages to our fellow studio-mates but is more often used to just doodle silly ideas down on. Like Fanguins!(Vampire penguins...don't ask) The right side of the board holds newspaper articles about Sketch Club, the Friday Night Art Trail, and the Lubbock Comic Book Expo.

The coffee table holds a mixture of comic books and books on Sequential Story telling. The Neil Gaiman novel and Curious George coloring book are both mine......The other visible book on the table is a promotional mini-comic filling with sneak peak art and pages from Will Terrell's latest book "Super Zeroes". The artwork for this is absolutely gorgeous. Be sure to grab a copy of it when it comes out.

And on the other side of this first room across from the break area is...not much of anything really. A shelf with office supplies, tools, and my make-up bag and batman cap and then we have the garbage that needs to be taken out. We're planning on putting our computers and graphics design stuff over here, but right now we still need to get stuff for the office. I have a good scanner I can bring into the office, but without a computer it doesn't do us much good. And so, there on the right, is the doorway into the room where all the hard work happens...

At the far end of the room here is Sid's desk. Sid's currently working on submissions for companies and putting together a large stack of sketch cards. He has a Sentinel Action Figure there and, when we're bored, we'll pose it with the other action figures an take pictures. Sid usually works nights and comes in around midnight to one am, so I don't see him a lot since I'm on the opposite schedule.And here's Will's desk and all of his supplies- He has all of his air brushing and watercolor materials in the corner there and then he has all of his inking and penciling supplies are in the drawer on the right. Like I said earlier, Will is currently working on his creator-owned book Super Zeroes. I've had the lucky chance to see this project in different stages of development and I can't wait for it to be published! I learn a lot from Will. He's a great teacher and a good friend.And then we have Amber. Amber is a total doll! But, y'know, she doesn't draw a lot of comics so we make her work on the floor. j/k She makes Sock Monsters and other equally adorable little toys as well as make our displays for comic book conventions.


And this here is Kiki's desk. Kiki writes and draws two webcomics: Stupidity in the Right Ear: a comic about working in a call center and Snakes and Apples: The true(fictional) story about what happened in the garden of Eden. She writes and draws several mini comics and pencils "Zombie Cows", an online web comic. When I'm up in the studio until late at night/ early in the morning, me and Kiki hang out,goof off, and draw our asses off. I'm insanely jealous of her speed though. :P She's still awesome, though.

We've been in this office space for two months now. It's been fantastic so far. We don't keep a TV in the office and we don't have wireless, so it pretty much forces me to keep an information lite diet and cuts down on distractions. We started the studio with the goal of making this our fulltime job in 6 months and, for those of us who already do this full time, to keep up on our projects and keep getting more steady gigs.

Ok. That's all for right now. More of the studio on Friday, so be sure to check back. :)

Have a great night, guys.

Rachael

A New Chapter

Time Agent Mack:


Well, I can now say that I'm a full-time comic book artist. I quit the Comcast/Convergys Call Center this last thursday and now I'm buckling down on focusing on my various art jobs that have been getting neglected while I tried to work two jobs.

Not only was I working at the call-center this past month, but I've also taken a part time job as a teacher in an After School Art program(which is run by the same people who run the Tae Kwon Do dojo in town, so I get a nice little discount there) and was pretty much running from one job to the next and then coming home and going straight to bed. I was doing very little drawing, unless it was for a demonstration for my students.

So when you double that up that everyone in the call center was already afraid of losing their job because they've firing people for the stupidest reasons lately, I decided to just cut through the bullshit and quit. I hated it there. I really did. Plus, I still have an agreement with Company x to do a miniseries with them. It's a small published, so its not enough to support myself on alone, but I still have my teaching job

--and you know what? I work twice as hard now to make less pay but I love every damn second of it. I wake up at 5 am, sit down at my art desk at 6am and draw till 3 pm(with a break and a lunch fit in there somewhere) the go to my job at the Art Academy(Monday through Thursday), go to Tae Kwon do, get home by 8:30 and then either finish up whatever work I have for that day, clean the apartment, or hang with my friends till about ten or eleven, then hit the hay. On Fridays or Saturdays, I just draw from 6am till 7pm till its time to go to Tae Kwon Do or sketch club. It's proving to be a real challenge to actually draw a page a day, but I'm getting there. It's just going to take a week or two to get back to that point.

Once I'm done with the current project I'm working on, it will be about time for Heroes or the San Diego Comic Con, so what I'm doing is saving my Tax refund(which is apparently going to be a VERY nice little pay check) to pay for room and air fare so I can get out and look for the next job.

Right now I'm at a bit of a crossroads and I have a lot of decisions that need to be made--what with my lease being up for the apartment and deciding if I want to move back in with mom till another friend of mine can split the cost of an apartment with me, head out to Hawaii and stay with my brother for awhile, Go to College in Savannah Georgia in the fall, stay here and take the preschool teacher job thats been offered to me to start in august, move out to Encinitas and go to Watts Atelier and work as a Caricature Artist, continue to try and make it as a freelance artist, etc.....lots of choices to be made. But right now I'm to focused on finishing pencils on the comic book page thats on my drafting table to dwell on anything else for to long. Eithewr way, this is the start of a new adventure for me.

Alright, well thats more than long enough.
I'll post more later.

Halloween and 24 hour Comics

I love this time of year. Halloween isn't my favorite holiday, but it is one that I absolutely love. This year, I'm continuing the tradition that me and my friends have of "whoring up" are regular halloween costumes at midnight and heading off to the Rocky Horror Picture Show with all of the necessary supplies in tow---and watching old horror movies up until that day.  However, I do miss the old Halloween traditions--innocent costumes, trick or treating, fun pranks, etc.

I look forward to creating another October tradition this year with the 24 hour comic event. Tomorrow morning, I meet up with my pals from sketch club and set out to do 24 pages in 24 hours. I might post some of the pages here once I'm done and I'll be updating Twitter via my phone every hour(or at least I'll try to. :P) from 9:00 am Saturday(It starts at ten) until 10:00am on Sunday. I'm totally stoked. I participated in the last 24 hour comic event that Schetch club did back in May and I had a blast(Even though I only managed to finish 10 pages). So this is going to be great. :)

Anywho, the sketch I drew here is the villian for the Young Justice three page comic book sample that I'm working on for Wizard World Texas. I was really going for an 90's Image era with the look of his costume--what with the excess of armor and the pointy fingers, and so on.  

Well, thats it for today, folks.

Rachael.