As a way to say I'm finally getting back to my comic, I made little Character Sheet for Julie! 

I've been having a lot of fun drawing whatever the hell I felt like lately. I've never been really able to do that before. But I really need to put that aside and be serious about this comic I've been "working on" for longer than most of you have known me.

Yeah, I've said as much many times before, but this feels different. I feel more capable than ever before (something else I've said before). I just need to work on the discipline to get it done.

I really wanna thank all of you who have stuck around and especially those who have made fan art, despite knowing so little about Julie and the comic she stars in. I can't promise it'll be the most interesting thing you've ever read. Hell, have your SEEN the kinda stuff other artists are making? But I intend to reward your patience with my best work I can do. I promise.

Another holiday, another work doodle to commemorate it! Seems I always work holidays... 

Gina just likes any excuse to party, she's not picky. 

Why don't you just pull up a stool and have a drink with her? 

(Extra credit to anyone who knows which movie I'm referencing).

Feeling better, but not 100% un-sick yet.

This thing is taking its sweet ass time leaving my body.

In other news, on this most Holi of Days, I'm reminded of this old gem.

And on my lunch break, I crapped this out for fun.

Don't worry, it's not canon. Julie grew up watching Dora the 'Splorer and everything. Besides, one of her best friends is Latinx!

Hope you had a nice 4th. And don't forget I've got that Birthday Raffle going on. You got till Wednesday night to enter!

My birthday is coming up in a few weeks, so it's time for a gift...for one of you!

I wanted to do a raffle as a thank you for all my supporters. Thanks for sticking with me this whole time.

Full details can be found here. Good luck!

Definitely going to try to be more active here, especially since Twitter keeps shitting the bed.

Not much to say, but I've been actively working on my comic project and have really stuck with it (for the first time ever).

I still don't have much of an idea when it'll launch, but it's looking a lot more realistic than ever before!

Seemed like a good time to get back into it here, and I'm happy to see many of you all coming over from wherever it is you knew me from before.

I'm gonna try to make a real effort to be active here again, and I hope to see and hear from you guys too.

Not much planned for the future, aside from that comic I'm supposedly working on. I planned to have that thing ready to go by the end of this year, but it's looking more like a NEXT year thing. Been a crazy couple of months, but then everyone says that. Anyways, here I am and here you are and lets keep it that way!

Yeah, I'm givin' up on Drawlloween/Inktober. I let myself get behind and now if I'm gonna catch up, it'll be at the expense of enjoying the last lil' bit of October! And I just can't do that, y'know? Already missing out on a few things with the car out of commission. Hell, that's probably the biggest hurdle right now. When you suddenly don't have a car, it takes about three-times as long to do anything or go anywhere. Anyway, quitting at 23 isn't all that bad. I feel like I did a lot better with the actual pictures this year, and I learned a lot of control and coloring techniques. How that's going to translate into digital work, I'll have to wait and see.

Speaking-of, I'm going to make a real effort to not take too long of a break and work hard over the next two months to practice what I need to. I still plan on starting work on my webcomic, Julie Aard: Security Guard at the start of next year. I'm not sure when it'll actually launch, but for now I'm hoping for sometime around May. This has been a project that's been on the back-burner for about four years now, and I've actually had to learn to draw from square-one to make it happen. I've really gone back and forth effort-wise this whole time, and I'm finally getting to a point where I'm not constantly disappointed in everything I make. So the last few months of this year (and probably the first of next) are going to be spent finalizing character designs, working on those basics that I still have trouble with, and figuring out the actual working process. I'm still going to be well below the quality I wanna be at when I start, but it sounds like every webcomic artist hates their first group of pages no matter what it looks like, so I might as well just jump in. That and learning by doing seems to work for me, once I force myself to stick with it. The biggest leaps in quality for me have been these daily drawing exercises.

Making a webcomic has been a dream of mine for over a decade now. Really. I remember reading comics like Mac Hall, Girly, and RPG World instead of studying in college. I even tried to learn to draw back then, but got nowhere. I'm really hoping 2020 will be the culmination of this long process. For now though, I'll be posting some occasional practice art, and concept work. Just hoping I can keep this level of motivation going.

Upcoming Projects:

So it's been a long time since I've done a Meet The Artist thing, and I just can't look at the last one anymore. Was originally going to try and get one of those out every September, but I suck. Maybe every other Sept, to better show artistic progress?

Spooketober approaches, and I'm currently setting up to do Inktober, but with the Drawloween prompts. Inktober's prompts are just so vague and not Halloween-related. And as we all know, Ghostmas is the only significant thing going on in October.

Two things I'm shooting for here:

1) Gonna try and keep it largely monotone, with maybe a stray accent color here and there. Black and white, sepia and white we'll see what works. Mostly for simplicity's sake. Last year I got too deep into the weeds with each one, and it was just too much work.

AND

2) I'm really going to challenge myself to involve at least one of my OC's in each prompt. God know's I've been sitting on these characters forever, and if I want to launch this damned comic next year I should probably be drawing them all a lot more. So Inkaween is going to be part serious drawing challenge and part (a comparatively SMALL part) fun!

That's all I've got on my plate right now. Might go back for some pasta salad, but yeah.

Anyone else goin' in for an October draw-thingy?

Been a LONG time since I've had an NG account. Gonna try it again, now that it's a good place for artists as well as animators. Ask me anything, https://curiouscat.me/SVA?t=1561335569