Tag: thesis

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Dove in sobbing—came out laughing

My friend Chloe threw up a Twitter thread this morning about trying to learn to dive as an 8-year-old (something I also spent many early years terrified of doing).

I’ve never forgotten the professor on my orals board who listened to all the questions and considerations I’d thrown into coming up with my thesis concept before asking

“Do you really have to go through this orgy of anxiety before you’re able to begin any creative project?”

GOD, IT MADE ME MAD.

Of course I worry about this all the time. WE ALL WORRY ABOUT THIS ALL THE TIME. But if I’m worrying at something, claws sunk into a paradox that feels irresolvable and keeps me up at night and makes me hold up the line time and time again, tears streaming down my face because I want to do it and I know I can and I want to and I can if I just stand there a little longer I’ll get there I know it—

That’s how I know I’m on the right track.

“Dove in, sobbing. Came out laughing.”

It’s hard right up until the moment it becomes simple. I don’t think anyone’s ever done a better job articulating how I get things done.

[Just realized I wrote what amounts to another version of the same blog post two years ago, except it’s got more Ghost Rider in it. Go figure.]

Art, Main, News

Portrait Sketches – Spring 2012

The semester is almost over, which means it’s time to throw the fruits of my classtime labor up on the Internet for all to see. I was feeling frustrated with my ability to capture good likenesses of people, so for the last three months I’ve been drawing students from two of my conferences at Reed. Here’s the compiled batch of them.

In other news, for those of you following the progress of the Kickstarter campaign, things have gone through the roof. We hit our fundraising goal in just FIVE HOURS, and then kept on climbing.

2 Hours In

 

24 Hours In

With such extraordinary results, I’ve had to rethink my goals for the campaign. It’s looking like the excess funds will go towards a brand new, long-form project, which is really thrilling. Expect an update on that soon.

For now, to everyone who has spread the word, chipped in, and helped fuel the stratospheric success of this project:

I can’t thank you enough. Let’s make the remaining time even more amazing.

Main, News

Off to the Races!

Ladies and Gents, the True Believer Kickstarter Page is Officially LIVE!

I have been overwhelmed by the support and enthusiasm I’ve received from you all so far, and now it’s time to translate that hype into action. Check out the campaign, make a pledge (even $1 helps, and nets you a shoutout right here on the blog!), or, if you’re down and out, simply share the project with friends. You can talk about it, Tweet it, Tumblr it — whatever floats your boat. The more people we can reach, the less everyone needs to chip in in order for us to make it over the $1,500 mark.

Thank you all so much. I can’t wait to see where this goes.

Main, News

True Believer: The Final Countdown!

Oh man, dudes. Things are heating up.

In the final few weeks before True Believer hits the printers, I’ll be coloring up a storm, making buttons, designing business cards, investigating screen printing, and also trying to format that other weird written thesis thing I was supposed to have written by now. Just kidding. I wrote it. Mostly. But that guy needs to go into LaTeX and boy howdy I do not know how to work that program yet. Still, baby steps.

I thought I’d drop a few images in here from the next stage in the process. You can see the whole beast on the wall here:

Which I will now proceed to color using this completely delightful Indigo I picked up at the art store this week.

Here are a few tests:

And here’s a page of ink lines printed at 10% grey with watercolor shading:

I’ll be scanning these in and merging them with the digitized line art to create the final images, which should look something like this:

I can’t tell you how excited I am to pull all this stuff together. The coloring will go much MUCH faster than the inking (thank God), so hopefully I’ll blow through 31 pages in the next week and get this thing printed! In the meantime, I’ve got a few illustrations to stick up in the coming days, as well as a requested post about my perspective on the art/writing divide in comics.

Stay tuned!

News

Progress Report

So, you guys may’ve noticed that things have been a little quiet here on the comics front. Fear not! Things are happening and this post will hopefully clear up a few questions about where my energy’s going these days and when you can expect to see some new sequential work.

Oooh! Aaah! Pages!

I’m currently neck deep in my 34-page thesis comic (tentatively titled “True Believer”), which should be out in time for Stumptown this year. I wrapped up the pencils last week after a grueling page-a-day push through February, and am now taking the opportunity for a little downtime over Spring Break. I’ll begin inking in the next few days, then do color, layout, and printing in April. This is, of course, on top of full-time school commitments and a few freelance jobs, so there may be delays, but the progress in February was really encouraging. I’ll be posting some more pictures as I start inking so you can get a sense of what it’ll look like.

In the meantime, the blog will be featuring (surprise, surprise) more illustrations! I’m making the shift from my little Pentel Pocket Brush to the real deal Windsor & Newton Series 7 for this project, so I’m trying to do as much freelance work as possible with the W&N to get the feel of it.

Thanks for hanging in there, everyone! I’m getting really excited to share this new work with you. So excited, in fact, that I’ve taken to walking around like this:

Yup.

And with that burst of absurdism, I bid you adieu.

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Mondays

Before I pass out and forget everything, I need to throw this information somewhere for posterity.

I arrived on campus with a bagel and some coffee (rare for me) this morning at 9am. I just got home 10 minutes ago. In the intervening 15.5 hours I…

– Read 120 pages of Rousseau’s political writings

– Attended a lecture on the social contract

– Checked out 5 more books for my thesis

– Wrote a 3-page response essay

– Shipped comics to California, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana

– Read the entirety of Art & Fear and Claire Siepser’s comics-based thesis (~100 pages combined)

– Requested 10 books on inter-library loan

– Cut out and assembled 257 Baggywrinkles buttons

– Read 150 pages of McCloud’s Making Comics

– Wrote critiques of 12 classmates’ comics

– Researched, scripted, and thumbnailed a 4-page comic about the Crimean War

– Revised my thesis proposal

 

I’m really, really hoping this gives me enough of a reason to slack off for the rest of the week. Goddamn. I don’t know why I do this sometimes.