The online home of Adventure Cartoonist Lucy Bellwood
I finally rustled up another contribution to Party on Paper this week! P.O.P. is a collaborative comics project run by me, Bridget Underwood, and Carolyn Nowak where we draw conversational comics about, well, comics mostly. This round we wanted to answer some of the questions in our Inbox, so here’s my take on an origin story.
Stay tuned for Carolyn’s story by following Party on Paper on Tumblr.
Last month I finally wrapped up the many custom bird commissions I owed folks from the Cartozia Tales Kickstarter. Figured it was time to put them all up in one place. If these strike your fancy you’ll be happy to hear that custom bird watercolors are 15% off from now till December 14th — just enter the code BIRDBOATS at checkout!
A piece I did for my buddy Jonathon Dalton. This is Yui — a frankly terrifying young woman who leads a faction of militant youths in A Mad Tea-Party, Jonathon’s spectacular sci-fi webcomic. The comic will be appearing in print thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, and this illustration will appear in the bonus art book he’s putting together. Hooray!
Welcome, friends, to my brand new site! After realizing that my former blog theme was no longer supported on WordPress and therefore failing to load images properly, I upgraded to a new theme and have spent the afternoon putting together a more robust and well organized homepage for you all to enjoy.
There are some sections that are still under construction and some kinks that are still getting worked out, so do bear with me as I bumble though, but hopefully the overall experience is much improved.
Since this wouldn’t be a proper blog post without some art, here’s a smattering of doodles from the past week. I’ve been out sick for four days with a killer cold, so this has basically been my M.O. of late:
Then there’s the first wave of backer birds for those of you who were kind enough to support the Cartozia Tales Kickstarter. Thank you!
And a couple portraits from the past month to round things out:
In honor of completing my story for Cartozia #3 last week, I decided to do a little warm-up sketch of my two protagonists on Sunday. Meet Grumley and Bumley, cantankerous fishermen at large.
I’ve also been trying to get back into the habit of doing warm-up sketches on a more regular basis, so here are some heads, hands, and hounds.
And then just a few assorted figures I’ve been noodling around with. You might recognize John Elliott (one of my favorite folk musicians at the moment) and Dan Weber (only one B, ignore that note), who played a great gig at Al’s Den a few months ago in Portland. There’s also a dress from the fantastic OMG That Dress tumblr. And me as a pretentious art critic, for reasons unknown.
ALL ART ALL THE TIME. WOO.
Greetings, dear readers! I write to you from somewhere in the mountainous Utah desert, surrounded by the chaos of packing and provisioning for an important voyage. This will be my last online appearance before a 21-day rafting trip down all 287 miles of the Grand Canyon. I’ve been planning this adventure in one form or another for the past 15 years with my best friend and partner in crime (pictured below) and now our hard work is finally coming to fruition.
Of course since this is primarily a work blog, it bears mentioning that this trip will represent my longest hiatus from the Internet since, well, since the Internet became a thing. This is pretty staggering for me to think about, especially considering how much of my livelihood depends on this beast now. However, I have to admit that I’m really excited. It can be so hard to truly switch off and disconnect when you’re constantly tethered to your work via digital communication. So despite my anxieties about missing out on online excitements, I’m ready.
Before I go, though, there are a couple things I wanted to make sure you all got wind of.
First! The Cartozia Tales Kickstarter is still going strong, and we’ve added some really excellent rewards that I think you’ll all appreciate. We now have prints of our incredible cover art and, more importantly, DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS! This is a great, affordable option for those of you who live abroad and can’t commit to the hefty shipping bill (I know, it’s a pain), or folks who just don’t own that many physical comics.
More importantly, Isaac has just released a complete PDF of Issue 1 to ALL BACKERS, regardless of pledge level. Furthermore, he’ll be adding a complete PDF of Issue 2 sometime in the next couple weeks! This means that if you back the project at any level, even for just a dollar, you get access to the content we’ve produced so far. I think this is a great move since it allows you all to see what we’re really about, and if you like what you see, you can up your pledge to a digital or physical half or whole subscription and help us produce a year’s worth of really excellent comics.
Yes, I’m a bundle of nerves about leaving the campaign for three weeks, but I trust you all to keep the momentum and enthusiasm going while I’m away. I’ll be back to cheer on the final 7 days at the end of September. A quick reminder of some easy things you can do to support us in the meantime:
2. Spread the link (especially to parents and teachers!).
3. Find us on Twitter @Cartozia and get in touch.
4. Reblog this post on Tumblr.
5. Learn more about the world, our contributors, and our methods on the homepage.
6. Invite your friends to the campaign event on Facebook!
Okay! That’s all the Cartozia news.
If you’re having major Lucy Withdrawal while I’m away, here are a couple things to keep you occupied:
I was delighted to return to the Happy Go Lucky podcast a few weeks ago to discuss a topic near and dear to my heart: artistic insecurity! In Episode 26, otherwise known as “These Hands Look Weird“, Leia, Ben, Jesse and I all talk about our deepest fears and anxieties, spanning writing, graphic design, illustration, comics, and more. If you struggle with feeling like a fake, or constantly find yourself diffusing other’s compliments about your work, this is probably the podcast for you.
You can follow the Happy Go Lucky Podcast team on Twitter and subscribe to the podcast via iTunes if you’re looking for more.
In addition to Leia’s podcast, Alex Dueben was kind enough to post this lengthy interview with yours truly over on Comic Book Resources last week. We talk all about my work in the past year, including Baggywrinkles, Cartozia, my guest strip for Oh Joy, Sex Toy, working at Periscope, and what the future holds. It was a great opportunity to think about all the stuff that’s happened in the past year. So much drawing! So many new faces! So much excitement! I can’t wait to find out what happens next.
And I think that’s it for media news, which means it’s time to say goodbye. I’ll be back online at the end of September with lots of photos and stories to share (I’m trying to keep a daily diary comic going on the trip. We’ll find out how well that goes).
Keep the Internet warm for me while I’m away.
Love and comics,
Lucy
Got to do some more tiny birds for a client recently! A more fearsome batch this time, including: Golden Eagle, Red-Tailed Hawk, Pacific Screech Owl, Barn Owl, and Osprey.
Also a Hoopoe, but who can ever take those guys seriously.
Have a particular bird you’d like painted? Let me know!
YOU GUYS LIKE PAPER DOLLS? I DO.
These are some fancy postcards that will come bundled with the second issue of Cartozia Tales. They’ll be fully sendable, so you can either cut ‘em out or mail ‘em to friends. The paper will be nice and sturdy, and the figures each have outfits that you can color and cut out yourself from the centerfold of the second issue. If you don’t want to cut up your precious comic, we’ll even offer PDFs of the outfits so you can make as many as you like!
Sarah Becan created Reshii (who’s one of the characters I’ll be working with in Issue 2), and Jen Vaughn is responsible for Sylvia.
In the meantime, as I mentioned yesterday, Issue 1 is available for pre-order at a dollar off the regular price until it starts shipping on August 1st!
SO MUCH EXCITING CARTOZIA NEWS!
So I got to do a really fun photo shoot with my good friend Kai Hayashi last week. In exchange for taking some portraits of me, I drew a little portrait of him! It’s fun having creative friends.
You can find more of Kai and his excellent photos on his homepage, on Facebook, and on Twitter!
Forgot to put up this poster design I did for an upcoming Portland dance event! Hooray for tango!
