The online home of Adventure Cartoonist Lucy Bellwood
More weekly challenge stuff. Focused on high-contrast faces this week to get more decisive about laying down blacks:
And thanks again to everyone who came out to the workshops this week! It was great to see so many of you there.
I’ve posted my lecture notes from the Freelance Badassery talk on Tumblr if you wanna go get a creative kick in the pants. I’ll hopefully be putting them up directly on this blog sometime in the near future. For now: work beckons!
As promised, here are the details for the two free workshops I’ll be teaching next week at Reed College. These puppies are open to the public and will involve SNACKS. Do I have your attention yet? Good!
First up is Freelance Badassery 101: Maintaining Enthusiasm in the Face of the Unknown (Monday, January 21st, 5pm-7pm). This is a long and fancy-sounding name for a very simple class. The goal is to help you figure out what you love doing, then empower you to do it more and do it better. It’s a class for anyone wishing to light a creative fire under their ass. It’s gonna have some nitty-gritty info about contracts and taxes and invoices and other business things that might be useful to a freelancer, but what comes first is the Work. And that’s what we’re going to tackle head-on. BYO creative self-doubt demons. They’ll be begging for mercy by the time we’re done. Facebook event with directions and other info is here!
The second workshop is Kickstarter Bootcamp: Harnessing the Herd to Make Your Creative Dreams Come True (Wednesday, January 23rd, 5pm-7pm). This will be a hands-on, practical info workshop for those wishing to fund their creative endeavors. The first hour will cover Kickstarter basics, then we’ll critique specific projects. If you have something brewing that you’d like feedback or advice on, bring it in! I’ll be spilling all the dark secrets I learned while riding out the True Believer Kickstarter (730% funded?! How is that even POSSIBLE?!) and incorporating lessons from other successful projects in the Portland area. Facebook event with directions and other info is here!
Both workshops will take place in the Gray Campus Center at Reed College (3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.). The GCC sits in the central Quad and also houses the College’s dining hall. Parking is available in the North Lot (enter on SE Steele and SE 33rd) or the East Lot (enter on SE Woodstock and SE 36th). The workshop will be held in the Campus Center conference rooms, GCC B, GCC C, and GCC D. Most anyone should be able to steer you towards them, if campus maps prove unhelpful.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to email me at lucypcbellwood(at)gmail(dot)com!
Hope to see some of you there.
New challenge. Did this one early because horses make me SUPER NERVOUS. I’ve seriously never drawn one before IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Referenced a couple great artists for this like Joe Weatherly and Claire Wendling, then did a few from photographs. Just like the 50 Shoes exercise, this felt really awkward and clumsy to begin with, but the more I figured my way around the shapes the more it all started to make sense. Practice is MAGIC.
As always, you can follow along and submit your own sketches to the weekly challenge pool on the Artistic Veggies tumblr.
A couple challenges from the last few weeks. Remember you can always join in on these suckers by heading over to the Artistic Veggies tumblr! A new challenge goes live every Monday.
I’ve also been blasting through the last of my Kickstarter custom comics! Thank goodness for that. The most recent strip was a requested Firefly / Doctor Who mash-up for Jason. I never really find the inspiration to draw fan art unless someone specifically requests it, so this was a fun one.
Okay, back to work!
Wrapped up this little painting today. Aren’t boats just the best?
Hello everyone! It’s 2013! Isn’t that crazy? I think so.
This year was my first as a Real Live Cartoonist, and it’s been a hell of a ride. I was about to start writing a list of all the stuff that happened, but I got exhausted just thinking about it. Let’s just say A Lot of Stuff went down. Comics, dance, work, travel, freelance, moving, breakups, unbreakups, practice, growth, change — and 2013 just keeps looking better. I have another two months at Periscope (which, for the record, is the most inspiring and wonderful work environment ever), two of my comics will be published by people who are not me before July, there’s a new issue of Baggywrinkles in the works, and it’s looking like I’ll be traveling to at least FIVE conventions this year. I’m excited, inspired, and ready to make more art. What more could a girl ask for?
I also got a very kind mention in Tony Cliff’s 12 from 2012 list for Paste Magazine. Tony is the mastermind behind the adventures of Delilah Dirk — one the most beautifully-executed and delightful webcomics out there today. I’m immensely chuffed to see Baggywrinkles alongside such an impressive gaggle of names, and I highly recommend that you go check out the rest of the group. There’s just too much awesome stuff happening in comics right now.
Speaking of awesome stuff, here’s some exciting news! The story I’m illustrating for Symbolia Magazine is now officially underway. Here are all my thumbnails laid out and ready to go:
The issue with our story won’t be out until June, but expect several sneak peeks as I work through pencils and inks over the next couple months. Sarah Mirk has put together some really powerful stories, and I can’t wait to start working on them in earnest.
Weekly drawing challenges continue unabated. Here are the 50 Hats I promised last week:
And I’m making noises about doing an alphabet series involving figures from Classical Greece — gods, goddesses, heroes, legends, etc — as a tactic for improving my inking technique. Here’s a photo of the Athena sketch that got me started on the idea.
If you have any favorite Greek figures, perhaps you’d care to leave their names in the comments? I’ll probably be taking suggestions as I go…
Apart from that, work continues unabated. I’m in California until next week, and then it’s back to the grey northwest for more drawing, more food carts, and more…nope, those are basically the only two things I’ll be paying attention to for a while. OH! I’m also going to be teaching some workshops later this month: Freelance Badassery and Kickstarter Bootcamp. Keep an eye out for dates and times as soon as I have them.
OKAY. PHEW.
We’re really done now.
Keepin’ on with those weekly challenges, here’s 50 Ears! This week’s new one is 50 Hats, so keep an eye out for those in the near future.
Happy Christmas, all you nice people. Please enjoy this badger. From me to you.
Love,
Lucy
Here’s a little Avatar-themed commission I wrapped up for someone recently.
I’ve been chugging away at my weekly sketch challenges via the Artistic Veggies blog — a project I started to get people in on the 50-100 body parts a week train. If anyone wants to join in on the latest round, we’re doing 50 Ears. In the meantime, here’s 50 Noses and 50 Shoes.
Got a lot of bigger stuff I’ve been working on, but alas it’s all secret Christmas business so you’ll just have to wait and see.