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Well, it's becoming more and more aparent to me that stretching this Nerdery thing out over seven days is proving to be a little difficult. So, I'm going to pull stuff out of thin air and see if it comes up Nerdery.

That's right. I'm pulling stuff outta the closet.

First off, this is the closet.

It's just to the right of Fridge Corner and just left of that long shelf where I display a bunch of my nerdery trinkets and what-not. And yes, there are the aforementioned autographed photos of Selma Hayek and Gina Gershon.

Stop laughing.

The closet, like the rest of my designed Nerdery, was one of the things I had in my head and wasn't sure if it existed. I thought it would be cool to have a closet with frosted glass panels. Why would that matter, you ask? Because then you can do this:

Yeah. Nerdy. I like being able to set the lights to my mood when I'm writing. When I was writing a suspense/murdery-type of story for NaNoWriMo a couple years back, it was REALLY dark material and I set the mood accordingly. All but one of the lights in the nerdery have dimmer switches on them. So, yeah, I can light it like a movie set.

Anyway...

Remember how some folks were saying that my desk was too clean and neat n' tidy? Well, feast your eyes on this:

And this:

This is not the closet of a neat and organized man. This is the closet of a dude who had no idea how to throw crap out. There's all kind of garbage in there, including:

- a bunch of electronics chargers
- a laptop that weighs as much as a sedan
- a guitar I never learned to play
- a tripod
- boxes of envelopes for agent queries and their subsequent rejections
- a shredder (not the one that fights mutant turtles)
- a binder with Space Fact inserts stuck into it

You get the idea. So, for laughs, I pulled out a bunch of stuff to see if it's nerdy enough to qualify for the week. I'm guessing...yeah. It is.

This is a box appropriately labeled 'FILM STUFF.' Sadly, it's not the only one in the house. I've got two or three more in the garage and it's loaded with short films, storyboards, scripts and all kinds of garbage from my film-making days. This one actually has an old ancient Rondo Cinematic 8mm camera in the box.

This potpourri of stuff is: a set list from the May 6, 2005 Tegan & Sara show at The Quest. A Playmobil Firefighter that I just 'had to have' and a framed original drawing by Fastner/Larson entitled 'Sinta.' I got it at a nerdy Comic Convention (yes, the one where I dressed like Han Solo) and I thought it was cool since I wrote a bunch of twisted Xmas stories. Somehow it's not appropriate to hang up anywhere. Weird.

Next to that, in the huge ill-fitting frame is a drawing by dude name Teddy Torres-Ruiz drew. He had it up for auction during a March of Dimes fundraiser and I battled some dude to the bitter end to win it. I just love the style and he used to do artist renditions of some of my characters that just brought tears to my eyes. I had to have it. I'm ashamed that I haven't figured out what to do with it, so in the closet it remains.

When my grandpa died, he left all of his old books to my dad. Since I seem to be the most literate one in my family, my dad thought it best if I take them from him. These things are WAY old and eventually, when the Nerdery shelves are built, I'll put them up and display them proudly. Crazy thing? There are two storage bins full of them!

It's crazy to look through the bins and see what sort of things people were into reading back then. While I'm not sure that I'll ever sit down and read any of them (mostly in fear of wrecking them) I'm fascinated by the titles and subject matter of some of Grandpa's old books. Check it:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Grandpa was a big Edgar Rice Burroughs fan. This is just a small selection of the ERB books he had in his collection. Wow. The Monster Men...hmmm, maybe I will have to read that one at some point.

A couple more titles from the boxes. I thought The Speedwell Boy and Their Ice Racer sounded like a heckuva title. Shoot, something with that catchy of a title would even sell today, right? Isn't that right, Bomba the Jungle Boy? Hey, don't know Bomba. The dude had a SERIES of books written about him.

One of the coolest things about Grandpa's books were that each and everyone has his name written in his hand on the front page. I actually found one that looked like it was a gift...FROM A GIRL!!!

Hey, Grandpa...that wasn't Grandma's name. Hmm...just think, if Doris and Earle had actually ended up together, I wouldn't have happened. Crazy when one thinks about it, you know. Ahem...this concludes the introspective portion of Nerdery Week.

The End Is Near! Nerdery Week closes the doors tomorrow! Be there...or you know, catch up whenever, yo.

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Smile-By-Fire: Part One

After working on my first book, my head was exploding with newfound knowledge and ultimately I figured out ways to improve myself and the way I work in the future. So, that said, here are are some life and career lessons learned on the fly...

Pump up the color.
I learned pretty quickly that, while my soft watercolors and classical style may have initially helped me get my foot in the door, the field of children's publishing craves color - - rich, deep, bright, saturated color! I had to absorb and assimilate this information, and figure out how to apply it to my work, while keeping my work MY work! So, learning new ways to utilize richer color in my watercolor work was very important not only for this project, but long-term, it was a lesson I had to learn. To do this under the gun, while keeping my own style and 'flavor', was hard - I won't sugar-coat it! I had no 'play' time (deadlines being deadlines) and I HAD to make it work. In the end, the trial-by-fire endeavor was successful. But, I did discover that I never, ever want to be in a position to have to experiment on the fly with my creative methodology and workflow ever again while in the middle of such a big and important project. It's just not practical, for one thing ... and, besides that, there are 2,000 other reasons to do your experimentation BEFORE embarking on any commissioned project, which I don't think I need to go into here.

Find your voice in a larger format.
I immediately learned that I was going to have to work 25 - 30% larger than usual. This was, to be honest (and to admit to my earlier naivete), mental whiplash at the time. I did not know that this was a standard way of working in children's trade until I was in the thick of it. My pen and watercolor work is so detailed and fine, and I thrive on those small details which lends itself to working small in general. I did think, for a split second or three, "How on EARTH am I going to make it work at 13 x 18???" In the end, I am living proof that, sometimes, working from a place of sheer will can get you through. And then, once you start working, you just learn as you go! ;) (It is AMAZING what sheer will can propel out of a person!! :) )

Equipment is everything.
At the time I got this project, my scanner was perfectly fine... if you are someone who scans 9 x 12 or smaller pieces and knows how to use Photoshop well. But it was not fine for this project, and it was not fine for my long-term professional plan. During the project, I needed to scan my work at every stage in order to show proofs. I ended up spending so much time and energy fighting with my small scanner. I won't bore you with the gory details, but suffice it to say that, once my portion of the work wrapped, I immediately began scanner shopping, but this time for a graphics professional-grade, large-bed scanner. Believe me, for the amount of money I ended up spending during the project on ordering large scale color scans from the local copiers, I could have paid for my scanner three times over. And this is not even taking into consideration the amount of wasted time, tight deadliness, the lack of control over the scanning. Now, I am confident I can handle anything, and it feels GREAT - you can't put a price on that.

Equipment is SO important to us illustrators. A workplace that allows you to be extremely flexible is something you simply cannot do without and expect to be employable these days. Inadequate equipment can visually make or break your work, AND it can make or break your ability to be flexible with your clients!! You can be the most committed, agreeable, TALENTED illustrator in the world, but if your lack of quality professional equipment to assist you in getting your work successfully completed is holding you back, then, simply put - you are rudderless. Bottom line is, having equipment that holds you back is like a runner being forced to wear cement blocks on their feet. Ouch!!

So, this past summer, I found myself upgrading some fundamental, important, and EXPENSIVE things in my studio. The decisions I made have paid dividends, creatively AND professionally! Not to mention that every day that I use my Wacom Cintiq or my large Epson scanner is a day in illustrator paradise!

Take control.
It's nice to have creative control over the final product. This is another excellent and important reason to have a fully capable analog-to-digital work station at your disposal. Nowadays, most (if not all) of our clients (as illustrators) accept, and likely prefer, to receive digital files over analog. It can help to cut out a lot of the work on their end (no scanning, no retouching, no mailing hard copies back). But what it gives the artist is something of immeasurable valuable - - artistic control. For example, I do a lot of watercolor work. I know from personal experience with this medium that, post-scan, my work generally needs the Contrast to be bumped up about 10 - 14%, and it also typically needs a small amount of sharpening. (The sheer act of scanning generally does a tiny bit of 'bleaching' to my watercolor work, and the added contrast helps to replace what is lost. Plus, CMYK always needs a little boost). This is yet another reason to have a great scanner at the ready. Also, in my experience, clients really appreciate the extra help with the files! You are helping them extra by making their job easier - no art to adjust, scan, retouch. It's all done for them. And, you are able to maintain your artistic integrity. So it's a win - win!! :)

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I'm figuring out how my new creative workflow will go, working digitally as opposed to analog (as I was previously doing). I have discovered that being able to work mostly digitally is creatively extremely freeing, and the results are even better than I thought. I guess you could say I've taken to it very well. I wasn't really sure how my work would translate - how my style would translate. But so far, I am very thrilled with the way things are going and my style is developing quite nicely. I'm very happy.

The Cintiq makes the artwork part flow so organically. I am so glad that I upgraded to the Cintiq (not to mention all of the other pieces). Not having all of the stuff that I needed to really serve my work had really become a hindrance. I am glad I recognized that, and made the important decisions I needed to make.

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Today, I ordered Painter X and also CS3. I am still using CS. I cracked after holding out as long as I could. I felt that holding out longer was futile and was not going to serve me anymore. I don't want to be behine the curve, for one thing. For another, there are lots of great features in PS (and beyond) that I'm missing out on (which I'm learning all about from NAPP). Also, now that I have Flash under my belt from day job, I need to build some of my own work with Flash. Can't wait! But for now, it is great to just do some digital painting with my groovy Cintiq. This little fairy Funny Bunnies illustration is a photoshop/analog hybrid: analog ink rapidograph pen drawing, scanned, then photoshop painting galore. Enjoy!

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My Cintiq was delivered on Thursday. My friend Gene was so kind and helped me to get it home and set up. It was a bit of rough sailing that night - - I couldn't figure out why the screen would not come on...but I'm working out the technical kinks and am now starting to wrap my head around this incredible new tool and how it will fundamentally change my artwork on the computer.

One of the small techno-kinks, for instance: finally figuring out that the Cintiq needs to be powered on BEFORE my computer is. Otherwise, you get a picture, but the pen doesn't work. This changes things because I don't usually shut down my computer, I used to put it to sleep instead. Now that I have the Cintiq, I'll be shutting it down, because it is best, according to the directions, to power it off when not in use, even though it will go to "sleep" when your computer does.

These little tweaky things I will learn with time, and they will get less and less. Now, I'm doing great with it!! I've calibrated my monitor (which will probably be a work in progress as I find comfort level and how printing goes with it), and I've programmed my ExpressKeys: there are two sets of push-button keys - one on the right and one on the left, and the Touch Strips (on either side as well). I think I will also get a separate additional keyboard to use when using the Cintiq, since that will be more practical to use with it than my laptop's keyboard.

All in all, it's awesome - I'm blown away by it!

Some of the things I can do now that are 100% easier:

- hand-lettering
-drawing and painting anything with precision
-using paths (incredible "natural" precicision now).

I thought I would be more comfortable using it flat on a table or with a slight angle, but this turned out not to be the case. It's most comfortable at an angle as close to 90 degrees as I can get it.

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Now that I have my fabulous new scanner, I am facing the hearty task of scanning all of the original artwork from my upcoming book The Months (just for my own purposes, archiving and promotional). To show you some of the artwork without really "showing" any of the artwork (wink, wink), and in honor of the talented Von Glitschka's new (and, no doubt, great - - I'll tell you all about it once I get my copy) book release Crumble, Crackle, Burn, I decided to make a quick little texture swatch collage from The Months' art.
I'd really love to share the artwork (and believe me, it hurts me that I can't share it with you yet, honest) but it's under wraps for right now, so this is the closest I can get! At some point soon I will be working on the promotional web site. I'm gearing up for that immersion. I am going to do the site in Flash, so that will be a fun "first" for me since I've never built a site in Flash before.

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Somehow, some way, I never got the memo about the Dry Mount Press and how it is a water-media artist's best friend...well, I guess I did finally get the memo (as you can see), but I just got it a little bit later than I might have. Well, better late than never!!

So, I just discovered the wonders of the Dry Mount Press. It flattens a warped sheet of watercolor paper so beautifully. Like magic, I have a nice flat, smooth piece of artwork that will make scanning a (hawaiian) breeze (at sunset)!

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Looks kooky, yes. But it was love at first hold.
Now I need to buy 10 of them, just to sprinkle around my world so I am never, ever without one.
Yoropen

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My new scanner is magic! Everytime I lift the lid, fairy dust comes flying out. Little genius elves live and work in there (separate quarters from those fairies)... Can you tell how much I love my new scanner?

I could never get true black before in my scanned line art, even after photoshop - retouching my head off.

Here is my former scanner' scan (which I thought was serviceable), and my new magic scanner's crazy-fabulous sharp, sparkling scan. This is plain black analog line art (rapidograph pen) on watercolor paper. I've done a bit of retouching in P'shop to both scans (just the normal post-scanning routine stuff, nothing fancy - - whitening the white of the paper, sharpening a tiny bit).

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