Artwork, updates, and social meanderings.

Tools of the trade for a working artist are like any other tools. You can make sacrifices in quality or capability to get work done, or you can luck out as I did and find a great essential upgrade in the form of a gigantic format Mustek scanner for being able to scan in my comic pages in one pass. I'm not going to lie, this thing easily scans 11x17 pages so fast and so well, it's not funny. I had been struggling in the past to try and use my other smaller scanner and wasted more time cleaning up and re-aligning two or three scans to form up one page of a comic.

Pencil for a sense of scale on the top of it. It's big, it's heavy, and it's black. But it streamlines my work load in so many ways.

I lucked out and found this beauty for about $70 because it had a damaged outer box. Eventually, as I start covering more art supplies and computer components on my Rogue Hobbyist blog, I'll do a full review of this scanner. The first scan I made with it was actually strip seven below from my Max Mogulby series (which will be available in the upcoming graphic novel I am doing that will have a LOT, a LOT of stuff to it... more on that later).

Humidity is the silent enemy of all outdoor art fairs.

In other good news, a wonderful company out of Florida, Data Analyzers, have the distinction of performing no small miracle on saving the data that had gone down the tube a while back. I didn't have the cloud back up of Carbonite going yet, and when that Seagate drive I was backing everything up to went... oh god. Maybe some of you can relate, but I lost at that time, artwork, digital creations, whole storylines, scripts, photos, video footage... you name it. A LOT of client work had been stored on it (which I can admit to now as it's all been recovered) so to say I was having a slow meltdown laced with a bout of insane nerves all year long, is putting it mildly. So lessons learned here on a professional level...

1. If you don't have cloud back up... get it. Soon. Now. Yesterday.
2. Even if you do have cloud back up, have a second hard drive for your back up locally, whether it's internal or external.
3. Always remember that digital is not forever, companies go out of business, new formats come out, and being organized with your files is paramount to being prepared.

What else has been going on? Well, if traffic is any indication, my blogs have started becoming far more read as of late. I run this WordPress one for my main site, and as some of you long time readers might remember, I covered a lot of other things aside from my just my art profession on here. After talking to many people at shows, I understood that many would prefer to have another place to read about some of the sideline things I do, but that they did enjoy the stuff I wrote about. During this time, I was lucky enough to get involved with blogging for Tenacious Toys, and after learning quite a bit from the owner of that site Benny Kline, I've worked out how to streamline my efforts and make my updates more organized and hopefully more entertaining to read.

Speaking of my other blogs, I have some new updates on there for those of you interested, check out Rogue Hobbyist, for me reminiscing about GamesDay 2003 and my earliest encounter with Warhammer Online. I've also added a few more visual flourishes like a new banner graphic, and my GamersGate account info.

If you're into Lego, I have a nice little overview of some Indiana Jones minifigures over on Tenacious Toys that I posted a bit earlier in the week, and I've got my first review of a Lego Heroica game coming up this Monday as well.

Trying to kick out freelance as fast as possible to get caught up before the end of the month. This was a commission for Supergirl.

Though I work at Hallmark full time during the week, I have to find time to get my blog updates and artwork accomplished. At the first of this year, I started coming in to work at 6:30am instead of 9am, and took shorter lunch times so that I could get off work as early as possible to avoid rush hour as well as manage to get home at a respectable time. I also started to write blog entries, poetry, and storylines for 20 minutes out of each of half hour lunch breaks.

One of the test shots I did prior to capturing the final for a 365 photo project that I joined with some friends.

Taking new efforts to experiment with ideas and imagery has been an enjoyable recent thing. I consistently research how color, motion, form, and interaction of light work in the real world. Some of it through filming things, some through sketching, but the vast majority is through photography.

I think one of the things I spend about three to four hours a week doing is just organizing and labeling photographs that I download off my phone. I always wondered if that could ever be part of the drama in films that talk about the creative process with artists. You know, when they show artists being these moody or wild types that are maybe a bit unhinged or so soaked up in the creation of a work of art? What about the times when it's 1:30 am and that same artist is just sitting at a computer relabeling jpegs? Or while you're waiting for a video to render, or a work to dry, we don't all go drink wine, or stare wistfully at the night skyline. I in fact just stay seated and play a game on my phone. That or nod off for a quick one minute moment of sleep.

If it weren't for casual gaming, I'd never be able to make it through some days.

But, the good news is all of the work that had been done for the next comic issue I was going to put out, as well as the work I had done for my compendium graphic novel was saved by Data Analyzers, so both of those will be debuting this year.

Well, since I need to get back to drawing and writing now, I hope this year has been going well for all of you, and I'll have more to post up before the end of the month. I will leave you with this...

"Today I found an old printout from GeoCities, and it showed my old neighborhood in Area 51, I started my website when I turned 16, and it's now on version 15.0, i think... (I've revamped the design only that many times...) so that makes my website, which was then purchased by Yahoo, till this new year, at 24 years years old. That is literally one of the most surreal things I can contemplate."

My website is going to be 25 years old next year. I keep thinking I should do something to commemorate that fact... but I'm not sure what.

Till then, support your local artists, respect your environment, and always offer a helping hand.

- Mario, the Artisan Rogue