Coffee Ramble 7 - Spooky Scary.

A short ramble this time.

I wanted folks on the commission list and the $10 tier list know that I won't be taking new work on for October.  Not for any dire reason, but I want to concentrate solely on doing 'spook month' art for October, and just get all of the ideas I can out of my cranium.  

I'll still take on probably another commission for September.  I'm poised to finish the two I'm working on now this month, as well as get the next patron sketch finished as well.  I'll be taking September's patron sketch in September as well.  But October I want to be mine.  I want to draw Lorrnath and wolves dancing around in leaf storms, and distant houses in tenebrous silhouettes with tiny lights of home and hope in the windows.

I'm also going to be starting the first steps to moving in about a week.  'Interviewing' realtors to see what they have to say.  It could be a very quick process (the neighbor's sold in under 2 weeks) or it could be drawn out.  Fate will just have to decide.

I've been inking the third page of the comic that I've had to pause a bunch of times now.  And I'm hoping to post both page 2 and 3 this month fully inked.  Colour will come after page 5 so I can just do a row of them for post.  I get Mondays and Fridays to work on Patreon things and I want to make the most of it.  I technically take Saturdays to do the same.

Baldur's Gate 3 came out as well.  I'm going to actually force myself to stop fidgeting and play it for a few hours each Sunday.  It's been ages since I did anything RPG related, and from what I've seen the game has had high praise.  That, of course, goes to Larian Studios, who made one of my favourite CRPG series of all time: Divinity Original Sin.

I'm trying to inspire parts of my brain again to get steeped in fantasy.  It's been very hard to do this year.  Sometimes it just takes a book or game or something to suddenly shift everything back to normal though, so here's hoping.

I have plans that I hope to start the process of in November too.  I've been impressed with some books I picked up that have made me want to make a kind of Gazetteer about parts of the weird and fragmented world that rattles around in between the dust-clouds in my brain.  While I don't have the printing facilities, art team, editing team, proofing team, layout team, or tens of thousands of dollars to do an actual book, I'd like to base a series on some world guides I've been reading that will give better context to the mad things I draw.  Even if to let me flip back to see what I was thinking at any particular moment.  

Much of it will likely start with either Lorrnath or Javarran culture.  They're the two I've done the most work on, and the two that I have the most surviving notes on.  I'm re-writing much of it, to make it more match an original vision I had of the people, rather than the worried and censored version I created to be 'radio friendly' over the last decade.  I owe them the ability to be more in tune with themselves and not stunted by my own guilt or paranoia (or both!).

And a last note before I Peanut Hamper out of here.  In the distant future I may be adding in some art and ideas about.. the distant future.  Or at least, a science fantasy world I keep seeing pinged in my head.  It would be very much in line with the 70's and 80's kind of sci-fantasy, mixing that kind of.. Frazetta-ish tone of people still using swords and pikes, cities sprawling with weird science and magic, but with a bit of a more 'focused on a world or two' thought process.  It's hard to really explain, but if I can get my brain around some of the images I see now and then, I'll share them, and perhaps even start building out the worlds and stories therein.

The down-side for me is that I have to learn to draw tech.. and vehicles.  Be prepared to laugh at guns that shouldn't work and objects that have all the flight characteristics of drunk bumblebees.

-T.J.