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

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

Batgirl & Flexing the Productivity Muscles

Well, last week was a personal "8" as far as productivity goes. I pushed myself hard and, while there were a few times I slacked off(mainly because I was so tired that the page looked blurry and I needed a nap, for the most part I met last weeks main goal of five pages. That may mean a lot to a seasoned pro in the comic book industry, but for someone who still works part-time 3-4 hours a day 4 days a week and who hasn't drawn a whole lot until she quit her day job three weeks ago, it means a lot. It feels like I'm starting off towards the right direction.

This week, however, is almost the exact opposite. I would rate it as a "3". Things are moving at a sloths pace as far as productivity goes. Of course the fact that I've had to take my roommate/best friend to the emergency room Tuesday, I still have to file my w2 form, I have packing that needs to be finished since my lease is up in a week and a half and I'll have to move out, and that I've also have been taking care of the business side of things this week...all of these things take time. I'm working on updating this website and improving things and I have a few different projects that are moving towards fruition--some of them are completely out of the blue, others that have been planned for almost a year now. There's a lot of exciting things I'm working on right now that I really can't talk about.

Which is why it's so frustrating when life interferes with my drawing time. But it's like working out. You push yourself hard and then that muscle needs a short rest before you build it up again.  As long as I push myself even harder next week, I can move to a heavier "weight" and last weeks "personal best" will seem a lot easier to pull off.  Right now though, I need to take care of all the other things I've been putting off all month so I can draw without that nagging feeling in the back of my head. :p

Alright, well I'm signing off. I need to get to bed so I can get up at four tomorrow and try again. 

Good Night!

Rachael

Exausted, But Happy.

Hey there internet peoples. 

I feel really bad that I don't update this blog more often, but frankly theres not that much to report. Not to mention that I've been so busy lately that I barely have time to catch a full night's sleep let alone blog. 

I've been hard at work these past two weeks on the comic book project I'm doing for "company x", Teaching art classes partime in an afterschool program, and taking Taekwondo. Theres not much room in my schedule for relaxing.  Last night I only got three hours of sleep(and an hour nap) while trying to meet a self-imposed deadline/goal. I'm up to drawing five pages a week, which might not be to hard for a seasoned pro, but for a noob freelancer who also has another job, it's a huge improvement. :) I'm drawing on average 9 hours a day(With about 12 hours a day Friday and Saturday) , which is alot more than I'm used to back when I had my old job.  Now that this weeks goal is met, I get to do it allll again starting tomarrow. Don't get me wrong--I'm busy, stressed, exaughsted and I would kill for a "day off"...but I've never been happier. I have that kind of joyful/peaceful feeling when I finish a page a day like I get when i'm at the beach, sitting on the porch when its pouring down rain, or on a roadtrip. I just have the biggest smile on my face lately and I can't get rid of it, even if I wanted to.

Also, I'm really going to put more effort keep this blog rolling. Even if I just have to upload pictures some weeks, because I haven't had time to sketch. It will still be a step in the right direction.

Ok, I'll have to cut this short. I can barely keep my eyes open and I have to be up in five hours.

laters,

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.