abbyhoward

I'm makin some pins!

It's been a while since I had the kind of cheddar to print a set of pins, but I got paid for completing book 2 in the Earth Before Us series, and what better investment is there than Paleo Pins? There'll be a set of three Paleozoic (the time before the dinosaurs) friends-- Dicranurus, a spiny, horned trilobite; Lycaenops, a cute saber-toothed relative of mammals (very distant relative); and Platyhystrix, an adorable amphibian. There'll also be one standalone cute dinosaur pin to keep you company...

Journal comics~

Here, have a little chunk of journos!

Sketchbook Chunks Again

Mm. I like those cat sketches.

Tonight? 9pm? Jackbox??

Heya, folks! So sorry I didn't update you on the date yesterday, that was rude of me-- hope I didn't ruin anybody's evening?

As for this evening, it seems most of you were leaning towards Friday (tonight), so let's do it! I'll sign on around 8:45 eastern in case anybody wants to get situated early and chat a bit, and in case you don't have my skype name, it's abby.howard.art.

Let me know if you have any questions, I hope to see you there!

-Abby

Our next Sesh and also Free OC Day!

HEY my pals, my friends, my chums. It has been much too long since last we Jackboxed, and I look forward to our next game! I know it's a new semester so folks' availabilities have changed and I'm not sure what days would be best for you-- I'm free this Thursday and Friday (9PM eastern if that's not too late), but I know that's short notice, so it's fine if we need to schedule one for next week instead. Let me know in the comments which of those is best for you and what days you're usually free!<...

Extinct creatures-- assorted arthropods

Continuing with the ancient invertebrates, here we have four very neat old bugs. The first is Meganeura, which lived at the same time as Arthropleura and is pretty self-explanatory-- a very big dragonfly, SO big, incredibly big. Dragonflies are predators, and these giant boys probably terrorized a group of very very large Carboniferous arthropods with an equally large name, the herbivorous Palaeodictyopterans.

But long before they conquered the skies, arthropods had conquered the seas, and the...

Sketchbook Chunk #7

The second-to-last chunk before we're all caught up... I better get sketchin!

The Work Is Done

Finally, I've finished another Earth Before Us book, and my soul can be free. Until I have to start the next one in February.

Thank you all for your continued support while I completed that book, the Earth Before Us series takes a looot of work and you folks have helped me tremendously during that process. I'm excited to get back to regular posting, both for Patreon and The Last Halloween, and I'm gonna do what I can to spread out the next Earth Before Us deadlines so I can keep up with posts ...

Cold in my house!

Spoons never sleeps under the covers but now she has discovered that it is a warm zone, so she has been cozying up next to me on cold nights because she LOVES me (and because I am warm). Also most nights are cold because my heat is broken. It was fixed for two beautiful, warm days but now it is broken again and my only warmth comes from a scented candle I got for Christmas. And of course the heat of my own fiery spirit.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, by the way! Especially considering l...

Extinct Creature-- Arthropleura

Phew, been a while since I've posted extinct beasts! But I am back at it with a month or two of amazing extinct invertebrates, starting with Arthropleura.

Arthropleura was an almost 8-foot-long millipede that lived in the late Carboniferous, which is the second-to-last period in the Paleozoic Era--
the time before the Mesozoic Era, aka the Dinosaur Times. So Arthropleura lived long before the dinosaurs, though it did share the forests with some large amphibians!

Arthropleura is one of...

Sketchbook Chunks 6

Here are some sketches for you! I hope you like... Digimon

New York Comics!

Hey, folks! Sorry for my lack of posts these past few months, I have been very hard at work on both that short horror comic and Earth Before Us 2. But I just finished the inks for EBU2, so I had a couple days left in the month and finally got to draw up these little comics about a trip I took to New York back in October! Thank you so much for your patience and continued support, you are all beyond wonderful.

I had a couple book-related events lined up in New York, so my publisher paid for my t...

Jackboxing now!

In case this is your first time, in order to join up you just friend me on Skype at abby.howard.art, and we'll probably go for about an hour and a half. See you there!!

Jackbox-- Saturday??

So it seems like Friday was only good for some folks, but Saturday might be preferable for the majority?? Please let me know if you can't make it Saturday at 9PM Eastern, and sorry if I have disrupted your weekend plans! I'm looking forward to playing with everybody, and I hope this scheduling works out.

New Jackbox Party Pack! Also how's Friday?

Hiya, folks! So there's a brand new Jackbox Party Pack and, having sampled each of the new games, I think they will bring us much joy and fun.

However, scheduling for this one is gonna be a little different, since Tues, Weds, and Thurs are all no good-- I usually try to avoid the Party Days so you folks can hang out with your real life flesh friends, but would Friday work for any of you this week? If not, I'm also free Saturday!

I'll send out an update on times once it's been decided, bu...

Reminder: tonight at 9pm Eastern! Jackbox!

That's all, just makin' sure y'all know. See you then!!

Also, next month I may try doing it on a day besides Tues, Weds or Thurs-- how does a Monday sound? Though I could also do a weekend day if you wanna get wild. And by wild I mean staying in on a weekend to play skype games with me.

Special Halloween horror comic preview

I haven't been posting much for the past couple months, and this is because I've been hard at work. During September I was working nonstop to finish the pencils for the next book in the Earth Before Us series, and after I'd turned those in, it was time to get started on a special short horror comic that will (hopefully, if it gets finished in time) be released on or around Halloween. I'm excited to be able to share the first chunk of it with you!

I wish I had been able to devote this whole mon...

When shall we play Jack's Box again?

This week!! At 9 pm Eastern on Wednesday, if y'all are free. Sorry it wasn't the 2nd Wednesday this time around, I wound up being busy that evening so I shifted it up a week. But next month, we'll get back on schedule!

Pretty sure y'all know the drill, but when the time comes I'll start up a skype call (my account is abby.howard.art in case you need to friend me) and invite everyone who's able to come. This month we must be ~spooky~ and/or pumpkin spiced, so keep that in mind.

I look for...

Sketchbook Chunks 5

Heya, folks! Sorry last month got away from me, I had a big deadline near the end of September, then had some freelance pieces to finish up. But here is a sketch chunk for yoooou.

We're pretty quickly catching up on where I currently am in my sketchbook..... gotta sketch faster!! Or I guess just make smaller chunks. But why deny you chunks if there are chunks to show?

ALSO, I am currently hoping to have a short spooky comic finished by Halloween this year, something I always wish I had t...

Jack's Box Tonight?

Hello again! It is the 2nd Wednesday in September, so it is "game's night" as they say. Are folks able to make it on Skype tonight around 9? Pushed back from 8 to make sure folks can settle in after work and all that. I can also move it to tomorrow night, if Wednesdays aren't great for people.

Look forward to playing with you again, and thank you for your support!

I Want Them To Be My Friends

More from the beach trip! Not to be confused with my more recent beach trip, during which the Gulls were desperate for our snacks. On this beach trip, the beach was packed with people who had much better snacks than our healthy veggies and hummus. They cared not for my offering of cucumber. It barely registered as food. When you know you can go steal some chips if you want them, I can see how a cucum...

Extinct Creatures-- Ctenosauriscus

This is our final Triassic Weirdo, Ctenosauriscus. It was an archosaur from the early Triassic that had a huge sail on its back. This is not to be confused with Dimetrodon, a very famous sail-backed mammal-like reptile-- Dimetrodon lived many millions of years before Ctenosauriscus, and it's an ancestor of ours! Meanwhile, Ctenosauriscus is an archosaur, and therefore more closely related to crocs and dinosaurs.

The way I've drawn the sail here is how I usually prefer to draw large sail-backed...

Process pics from Dinosaur Empire

Here's what a page from Dinosaur Empire looks like from start to finish! This is one part of a 2-page spread which was going to be too compressed to read on Patreon, so I've attached the full image below if you'd like to see it.

I usually do both pencils and inks traditionally (with pen and paper), but for Dinosaur Empire I did all the pencils digitally. I found if I'm laying out big spreads full of animals of varying size that need a lot of tweaking and editing as I go, it saves a lot of stre...

Extinct Creatures-- Atopodentatus unicus

Today's Triassic Weirdo turned out pretty cute! Atopodentatus unicus, which translates to basically "unique and its teeth make me uncomfortable", was an herbivorous marine reptile from the early Triassic. If you look at its current reconstruction, it's not all that odd-- we've already talked about another shovel-mouthed herbivore, Nigersaurus, and it's not an uncommon head-shape to come across.

The reason why its name focuses so much on the mouth is because the first Atopodentatus fossil was p...

Reminder: Jackbox tonight!

Heya folks, sorry again about the last-minute scheduling issue, but we'll be starting up a Jackbox Time over on Skype in about 10 minutes, if you're free. My skype name is abby.howard.art and I'll invite you to a call around 8 on the dot, see you theeennn!

(ALSO, a reminder that the next session will be Wednesday the 13th, and will be on the 2nd Wednesday of the month from here on out~~)

Extinct Creatures-- Tanystropheus

Here we have our next Triassic Weirdo, Tanystropheus, an archosauromorph (closely related to archosaurs but not actually an archosaur) with an exceptionally long neck. It dwelled on the coast, using its neck to nab fish that were farther from shore.

Folks have been arguing for a while about what Tanystropheus' lifestyle would have been-- some people though it was an early marine reptile, living primarily in the ocean like a proto-plesiosaur. But that's been pretty much disproven. Mark Witton h...

BEACH

I went to the beach! I love being this close to the ocean. I can just go touch the sea whenever I want. I can get covered in sand and harassed by seagulls any day.

Extinct Creatures-- Drepanosaurus

Look at this cute guy! Drepanosaurus was a medium-sized (18-20 in long) reptile that had a similar lifestyle to modern-day silky anteaters. It lived in wooded areas and most likely spent a lot of time in trees, using its huge claws and prehensile tail to grip branches as it moved around, digging for insects in the bark. Its claws were about the size of its head, and it even had a claw on the tip of its robust tail, like a scorpion. Though it probably primarily used its tail-claw for gripping bra...

Whoops scheduling! Thurs instead of Weds?

Heya again, $10 pals! Turns out I have a thing this Wednesday evening so I won't be able to host a Jackbox night, but I'll be free Thursday if y'all are cool with that. So it would start 8pm Eastern on Thursday the 31st. Hope to see you there!

By the way, from now on, our Jackbox hangouts will be the 2nd Wednesday of every month, just so you know when to expect it. That means our next hangout will be Wednesday Sept 13th at 8pm eastern, if that's okay with all y'all!

Thank you so much for...

Extinct creatures-- Longisquama

Today's Triassic Weirdo is a weird boy, indeed. Longisquama insignis is a reptile of some kind, we don't really know which kind, that has a distinctive row of seven feather-like scales along its back. The structures aren't feathers, as these little guys are probably not very closely related to birds and actual feathers wouldn't evolve until the Jurassic, many many millions of years later. But they are surprisingly feather-like and very, very mysterious.

As for what these structures evolved for...