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Made from 20 cards you send

Ready your wallets, because Dynamite’s adding another statue to its Women of Dynamite collection.  Based on the art of Frank Cho, Jana the Jungle Girl will stand 12″ tall and mighty on a 6″ base, gazing off into the distance at some unseen danger.  It will be crafted by Jason Smith of The Brewing Factory using cold-cast porcelin and is scheduled to hit retailers this October.

Jana is the third entry in the Women of Dynamite collection, joining goth goddess Vampirella and Egyptian vampire goddess Purgatori.

Made from 20 cards you send.
Custom - add 5 items to the desk:
     Briefcase with person's initials
     Telephone
     ipad
     ipod
     IN/OUT Basket
     Magazine with your person's photo on it
     Laptop Computer

See his tiny show laces peeking out from under the desk.

Made from 20 cards you send.
www.PetrinaCase.com

Made from 20 Business cards you send:
www.PetrinaCase.com

Another Business Card Sculpture new design -
Made with cards  you send.

Having trouble finding that very special mermaid statuette?

Well, Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, The Croods) can commiserate. “I’ve always kept an eye out for a mermaid sculpture that I really like. There’s a lot of them out there, but I could never find ‘the one.’ They were either too serious, too stiff, or just not very cute.”

But unlike you, Sanders has decided to do something about it. “I’m pleased to announce the arrival of Nimue, the mermaid sculpture I’ve always wanted.”

The first collaboration between Sanders and sculptor Anders Ehrenborg, Nimue (pronounced “Nim-way”) is “the right combination of fluid, cute and sexy” and presented in Sanders’ distinctive signature style. She is resin casted, stands 7.25 inches high and is being offered in two styles; blonde hair with a blue tail or green and green – a topless version of each color scheme is also available in limited quantities.

“How many sailors would have given their last weevily biscuit to capture such a creature in their sea-chests?” Sanders muses.

Fortunately, you won’t have to make such a sacrifice; online preorders have begun and all four prototypes will be on view at San Diego Comic-Con this week at booth #5532, between the convention hall entrances from Lobby B2 and Lobby C.

Q: What shouts "Goth" more than a scary graveyard statue of an angel?

A: A statue of an angel with a deliciously nerdy reference... ; D
(Most goths I know are uber-nerds as well, so the two go hand in hand, naturally....)

3D design of a tangible bust of the Apple co-founder and tech wiz Steve 'Woz' Wozniak, in a retro 3D pixel style. The busts of Woz and Steve Jobs can be ordered from the Sevensheaven 3D Print Store.

Hi! How ya doin'?

Welcome back! So whats new? Well, two posts back work was very slow and I am very grateful to have had some projects come in these past two weeks. So while working on them, I just got my new postcard out last week, and I am working on some new pdfs for the website. I FINALLY just got all my taxes sorted out and found that my amount due wasn't too bad at all. Nice! What else is going on?

Plenty! I actually wanted to talk a bit in this post about the slow times in freelance. It only took a little slow down to make me panic. I was sure the business was done, and I needed to find another production job. Maybe that will be the case if the economy continues the way it has this past year. But for now, I see the past two months as a great test to my fortitude and desire to really be doing this type of work. No doubt about it, my faith was definitely tested every time I looked at my bank account. Also, when not working, one's self-esteem takes a pretty big hit, too. "Why isn't anyone hiring me? Do I suck?" These questions creep up on you in the quiet times.

I have found the best way to deal with these times is to focus. Focus on one's work. Promote more. Fix anything you don't like about your portfolio; make it stronger. Clean up your website. Go draw. JUST DO SOMETHING so you aren't constantly doubting yourself.

I find this is a great time for personal projects. For me, its hard to make time for them when commissions are on the drafting table. So to utilize the time, and to assuage my doubts, I took on the Joker portrait from the last post, and another personal project. Sometihng I have worked on here and there is a comic concept my brother is tinkering with. I liked it so much I want to draw some stuff for it. We are currently reworking a short script, and here are the non-final character concept sketches:
The main character and his father (we are discussing a re-design of the father as I feel his character is wimpy)

The villain in armor and in robes

Supporting characters

A character study to capture a "crazy look"

I also started a little poster campaign for myself concerning our current economic situation and energy needs. It will eventually be a three poster series but for now it just one :)

Sketch:
This was just a sketch in my book. I had been tinkering with the concept for a bit prior instigating the poster project.

Final 11x17:
I decided to crop the art to more easily draw attention to the bulb; I felt the sketch had too much info in it. I mocked it up as a Waste Management poster to work my typography muscles, and I sent it to 'em. My contact there forwarded it to the proper channels, but I don't expect to hear anything as WM works with a design studio for all of their materials. But still, I wanted to at least try my hand as pitching an idea to a cold client to exercise those muscles as well. Anyway, the other two posters are looking to be themed around recycling and public transportation while using the term "green thinking." Someday, you'll see them. They are actually on a far back burner for projects I am much more excited about right now, both commissioned and personal.

And that's that. I have sketches for more posters underway, and some work due early next week so I better get back to it.

Enjoy the Day,
Chris

OK, one more dash from the Cave of Revision, this time to pick up medicine, dump the tissue-filled trash basket, and proclaim thanks and celebration throughout the Forest because my fundraising goal for the Team in Training Half Marathon has been met. Karen McQuestion, a Wisconsin journalist now working on a novel, put me over the top, and is the happy winner of the audio version of TWISTED. Thank you, Karen! Thank you, everyone who contributed! Because of you, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society can save lives.

But....

.... it's not over. You see, it's called the Team in Training. My teammate is my best friend and Beloved Husband, Scot. Since my name is on the books, it's easy for me to beg for donations. Trust me, my friends, if it were not for this guy, the books would not get written. He keeps me going in more ways than I can count.

Scot is 29% of the way to his goal. Please donate to the hottest bald guy in running shorts! He makes the world a better place.

New Topic: Attention teachers of FEVER 1793! There is a terrible outbreak of yellow fever in Paraguay right now.

One more thing: I stayed up last night to watch the eclipse. We had a foot of snow the night before so the the back meadow was hushed and brilliant with a million moon-filled diamonds sparkling. As the dragon ate the moon, the snow dimmed and fell into shadow. Then the stars came out, exuberantly, like a chorus that's been impatiently waiting its cue. BH stood with me as the dragon swallowed the moon and her belly lit up red. A dog down the road couldn't stop howling. We understood what he felt.

I woke up early this morning and watched the moon set, and am now watching a beautiful sunrise. In the middle of all these revisions, with kids home on vacation, plus the hacking, disgusting cough, having these still moments in the real world of moon and stars and sleeping meadows is quite nice.

Back to the Cave. Miles to go before I sleep.

I am dashing outside the Cave of Revision for a quick breath of fresh air. All is going fairly well. I am working long days, but love being so submerged in my story. One of the characters is now found only on the cutting room floor. Eliminating her cleared up all kinds of structural problems in the text.

Now if I could just get rid of the hamsters who have taken up residence in my lungs, life would be peachy. I am coughing like a seal with a three-pack a day habit, a seal who hangs out under the dock and steals French fries from unsuspecting tourists, a seal who works as a carnie with a traveling fair and writes rambling screeds about walrus conspiracy theories. I sound like a Seal Gone Bad.

Thanks to a generous contribution from Mary Pearson and Aliya, who contributed from England (!), I am 94% on the way to making my Team in Training fund raising goal. All I need is another $150. Will you put me over the top?

OK, the fresh air is killing me. Back into the cave I go.


2008 Resolution Tracker
Week 7 - Miles Run: 22, YTD: 146.75
Week 7 - Days Written: 7, YTD: 49

45 weeks left this year.

Yesterday was amazing: our Number One Son qualified for the New York State boy's swimming meet by taking third place in the 100-meter breast in the preliminary heat at yesterday's Section III championships.

That is a mouthful for an early-morning post. Boiled down to its essence, it translates into: My kid is going to States!!!! Yeah, we are just a wee bit excited about this here.

Good thing we did all of the hooting and hollering yesterday. Today marks the beginning of the period known as Laurie Is Crawling Into Her Cave To Work on Her Book. I won't be posted much, if any, over the next two weeks. I will be writing, writing, throwing out the pages that don't work, then writing some more.

This is the part of revision that I love the most. It's like going crazy studying for finals - very long, intense days (and sometimes nights) spent wrapped in all the story threads. In college, my fuel of choice was late-night doughnuts and very bad coffee. I've exchanged the doughnuts for salads and the bad coffee for wonderful coffee, but the game is the same: work to exhaustion, sleep, eat, work some more, exercise, eat, work to exhaustion, start again the next morning. I hit this phase with all of my books. Remember the scary scene in TWISTED with the gun? That came to me during this phase. These intense days and nights bring the characters to life - they truly incarnate for me. This is a Good Thing.

Before I grab my pens and scuttle deep into the cave, let me give a last shout out to the 28 Days Later project. Today's featured author is one of my favorite guys in the whole world, Walter Dean Myers. I think Walter should get his own month. He was born in August. Let's rename it as "The Month of Walter."

Thanks to my friend Jerry from high school, and my fellow author buddy Ellen, I am 88% of the way to my fundraising goal for the Lymphoma & Leukemia Society's Team in Training Half marathon. I am still offering a free audio version of TWISTED to the nice person who puts me over the top. You can donate here. If you want to cheer on my husband (who has to put up with my craziness for the next two weeks) donate to him - he's logging just as many training miles as I am, and he keeps the coffee hot for me.

ETA I didn't watch any news yesterday, so I am just catching the news about the horrible campus shooting at Northern Illinois University. This is the fourth school shooting in America this week. Dear God in heaven, how do we keep all of our kids whole in body and mind?