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

Snow White and Bigby Wolf

Hey guys,

Sorry about the long absence. Things have been insanely busy over here lately. Between drawing ten pages for a client one week(And then dropping dead while crashing the day after turning the pages in) and moving things out of my of apartment, I haven't had many chance to get online. But it's not bad being this busy, I just need to start taking better care of myself: Eating real food, drinking more water, etc. so I won't crash and burn after meeting a deadline like I usualy do.

Drawing a page a day doesn't take much effort anymore. Drawing two pages a day is a normal work day...but having to draw three pages a day is exhausting. Thankfully I'm getting close to the finish line with this one college graphic novella project, and then my project with company "x" will take my full attention once again.

No matter what, I'm going to make sure these things get done on time and , sadly, that means making a few sacrifices. So I may not be able post here as often, but I'll make an effort to at least post a little something every week. And, once I start working on sample pages for Heroes con, I'll be sure to post them here.

So for right now, I'll leave you with this commissioned piece I did of Snow White and Bigby Wolf from Fables. I hope you enjoy!

Please feel free to leave your comments. I get giddy with joy every time I get one.

Have a great Memorial Day!
Rachae

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

Flash Watercolor Sketch

Another Sketch I did on Friday while I helped hold down the Sketch Clubs booth at the Lubbock Arts Festival last week. I did this on the page opposite of a sketch of The Thing I did awhile back in my molskine so all the orange and gray on the painting is from me testing out colors for my Thing sketch.

I thought I would post this Flash sketch since I just finished reading Flash Rebirth #2 and, after that cliffhanger, issue three can't come out fast enough.

I'll have to cut this post a little short today. Brains not working at full capacity today due to allergies/cold--not sure which...could also be sinus infection, though. I love this time of year. It's absolutely beautiful out, the weathers just right, and there's birds and squirrels everywhere...but the seasonal allergies I could do without. :P Still, I'm doing better than most so I really can't complain.

Have a great Mothers Day, guys.

Rachael

Sketch Card #3: Spider Woman

So I'm sitting here in my Mom's car and it's hot as hell outside. I have a stack of sketchbooks that I've been hired to do commissions in and a full work load on my to-do list, but it's way to warm in here to think.

The plan for today was to head to the Studio this morning and get some work done, but it appears the universe decided I would have an "off day" today( or morning, rather). I had a lot of things that went wrong earlier that all seemed to get fixed or resolved by lunch time and it makes me stop and realize how ridiculous it is sit and stress the small stuff. Forgot my work stuff at the house? A chance to catch up on commissions and update my blog. My IPod falls in a sink full of water and starts going schizophrenic on me? Let it dry out and everything is fine. In fact, in the mean time, catch up with whats going on in my family's life instead of tuning it all out. Cell phone stops working and I have to have it to get a ride home from the studio? Quick stop at the Sprint store to find out the charger is kaputz and just get a new one. Issues resolved and I'm left feeling like a 5 year old throwing a hissy fit.

It all comes down to mental attitude. Even though I was upset at the beginning of the day, I tried to stick with the thought that things in my life only go wrong when something really really great is about to happen. And yet, I notice when I think a day is just going to turn out horribly bad, guess what? It turns nearly catastrophic with it's suckage. We choose the outcome of our life and the days we live in it. We choose to either throw temper tantrums or just take a calm breath and go with the flow. The day, in actuality, is neither good or bad--it's just how we perceive it.

So yeah...my day might not have started out exactly how I wished it would of, but from here on out today is going to be beautifully happy and productive. Because I choose for it to be. And it all comes down to choice.

Alright, that's it for now. I'll leave you with the sketch card I did of Spider Woman a week back. New sketches coming along soon.

Rachael

Sketchcard #2: The Tenth Doctor

David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Pencil, Ink, and watercolor.

Just relaxing at the coffe house and working on thumbnails for the next issue of the book I'm doing for Comic Book company x as well as doing some sketching on character sheets for a pitch me and a writer friend are doing for a textbook company. Issue one for comicbook company x is in the can and has been shiped out, so I'm working on the second issue for that and inking pages for my other client this week.

I really wish I could show some pages here, but I dont want to let the cat out of the bag before anything is officialy announced, which may take a while. But once all four issues for the book are done, I'll be more than happy to post as much is allowed here.

Until then, I'll keep posting sketchcards and I'll try to squeeze some time into the next few weeks to do some sample pages to post here. Those Young Justice pages at the bottom are becoming an eyesore for me and I know I can do better. I just got done reading Mike Weiringo and Mark Waids run on Fantastic Four and I think I would love love love to do a Doctor Who/Fantastic Four crossover sample of about 5 or so pages. If anyone wants to try writing it, I'd be much obliged. I might try my hand at writing though. Its not something that comes naturally, but I really want to draw this. I've always been a fan of the FF and I'll grab at any chance to draw the Doctor. So we'll see...

That's it for today.

Right now I'm going to sit here, relax, drink my coffee, and sketch out a few more thumbs.

Until another day....

Rachael

Sketch card #1: Captain America

I haven't had access to a scanner AND a computer for such a long time now due to my old roommate moving out that it's a relief to have these available again. Add to this that I've been working long hours everyday all day, I wouldn't have had time to update anyways.

A LOT has gone on in the past month and a half. To much to mention here. I've been juggling to freelance gigs plus I'm now trying to get things put together for an upcoming convention. Finding a workable schedule and staying "motivated" was proving hard and I was struggling to stay focused there for awhile...

THANKFULLY, I found away through this dilema. A few local artist friends and I have started up "Cowboy Robot Studios" in an office building in downtown Lubbock and it's helped a lot to separate my work environment from my home environment. I'm dropped off at the studio at around 9 in the morning and leave anywhere from around 6pm to 1am, depending on who gives me a ride home. There's still no wireless in the studio and we decided to keep the studio TV free. So I'm pretty much held hostage by my work, only allowed to leave when everything has been marked off of my to do list for that day. This has been FANTASTICALLY helpful and it's taught me something about discipline and creativity.

Most artistic types tend to fend away from words like "discipline", "work", etc. But truth is, it's important in a creative career. Waiting until you "feel like" doing something is a creativity killer. Waiting around for inspiration to hit is a horrible idea and a good way to assure you won't be able to make a career at what you want to do. You have to sit with your art everyday and, when inspiration isn't coming, you have to hammer it out anyways despite how much you don't "feel like it".

I've had to learn this in the last year and a half. The only way to accomplish anything you want in life is to work hard at it and make compromises on other parts of your life, at least for a little while. Whats kept me from getting what I want for so long until lately is the fact that I didn't want to give anything up. I didn't want to admit that I'd have to make sacrifices. But the truth is, anything worth having in life takes persistence and hard work. It won't happen over night. It could take a year of hard work or ten years. But clocking in daily and doing what needs to be done is success at its heart.

So yeah, having a studio has been great. I love what I do and I thank God for this job every day but it's exactly that--a job. And having a place to go everyday has helped me get into that mentality. Comic books is my business, and business is good. :)

I'll go into more detail about the actual studio later( I may even put a few pics of it up), but for now I'll just post this Captain America sketch card I did recently. A lot of local artists have started doing sketch cards on a daily basis to warm up and so I thought I might give this a try as well. More to come. I'm going to try to put a little stock pile of sketch cards together for the upcoming Lubbock Comic Book Expo and will post here with the progress.

Back to work!
You'll be hearing more from me soon, though. ;)

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.

Barbara Gordon: Batgirl

I found a scanner today! :) lol. I was getting some typing paper from my grandmother's printer (to draw a layout page with) when I realized she has the same scanner/printer that I have back at home. I've been visiting my Grandma for four days now and I just now noticed it. >.< Oy.

I decided to post a Batgirl sketch I did last Sunday. I actually really liked Cassandra Cain as Batgirl. I know a lot of people don't care for her, but I thought she was pretty cool; however, Barbara Gordon will always be Batgirl to me--whether she's in a wheelchair or not.

Babs is my favorite comic book character, so I thought it would be apt for this to be the first actual "sketch" for my blog. I'm actually happy with the way this one turned out, especially the head shot. Feel free to lemme know what you think and to critique anything I put up on this blog. Any input, negative or positive, can only help. :D

Alrighty then, thats it for now.
See ya friday!
Rachael

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