Dinovember update

I haven’t really been keeping track of the days as I finished all of the compositions for Dinovember on the first day and planned to have all of them rendered by next week.

 

But the whole Inktober activity kind of brought out lots of old tools – stuff I haven’t used since college. I’ve even had at least one sumi brush I have’t used since junior high.

Tric and raptors

I had mentioned someone had asked me if I had abandoned digital art. I keep thinking about that from time to time since he asked. If anything I had abandoned traditional tools but over the last few years I have felt a real backlash against digital art.

I almost always depend on commissions to make money at conventions, the ratio is almost always 60/40 commissions to other sales, but I had been trying to get away from depending on them by making different products. 3D printed figures were some of those products, limited run figures which I designed. I did make digital prints of some of my digital art and some my comics’ covers.

Frankly I hadn’t done a good job of presenting the prints in particular as I had to share my table this year (and most years actually, and yes I already read Greg Pak’s article. I will tell him HI for YOU when next I see him before the con opens). But something which I have NEVER had in substantial amounts has been original art – basically inked images not previously commissioned and rendered traditionally. It’s par for the course for artists to post artwork and the cynic in me groans at the “This was fun to do” child-with-crayons mentality.

I honestly think a lot of that thinking is rubbish – I would call out artists who complain about going broke when speaking to me privately, but constantly post “I had fun making this” instagram and facebook status updates. Is it really fun going broke? Or are you using art to salve your impoverished circumstances? Sorry. That was mean. I will gladly tell you someday how much of a pain in the ass it was making certain pieces.

I took Inktober to focus on creating plenty original art, though. Dinovember is building up that as well. Compared to the amount of time and material involved in either 3d printing or digital prints, I am more capable of offering these at a comfortable price point for people at shows. I did manage to sell original art at both Anaheim and Long Beach which had never happened before.

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