Gotta love working digitally when it comes to illustration jobs.

Based on client revisions, I just tore the head and arms off a character illo, resized elements, gave the character a whole new head and then painted and color corrected it so you can’t tell where the changes were made. Traditionally that would have been a complete nightmare. In Photoshop it took about 40 minutes.

Whew. Here’s hoping they approve version 2. 🙂

Frank and I found this last night as we prepared for an evening of drinking hanging out:

Two new wallpaper images from pin-ups in the back of the Makeshift Miracle book. Look at the beautiful artwork! My friends rock!

Eric Kim pin-up – 1600 x 1200

Noi Sackda pin-up – 1600 x 1200

About a year and a half ago, Erik and I discussed the fact that Udon needed to diversify. The comic book market is unsteady, even as it grows in certain areas. It’s still profitable, but being able to cover ourselves with a strong variety of other creative design work would definitely keep us healthier and more viable into the coming years. It took a while, but the Udon Entertainment site finally became a showcase for the many types of things the studio can do, showing off our impressive client list and skills.

Between the summer and now, it’s gotten kind of nuts. Major clients we would’ve had trouble getting a hold of a couple years ago are calling us, offering us some great projects – toy companies, movie productions, video games, all kinds of stuff. It’s really becoming a matter of picking which ones are viable based on time and budget. That doesn’t even include our own projects or the entire line of manga and artbooks we’re translating for release next year.

I talk to people and they ask me if the company is alright because our comic output is slow and we’re not doing a regular series for Marvel or DC anymore. Let me assure you – we’re fine…. more than fine, bursting with ridiculous things on the go.

I received an e-mail last night from a client I would’ve eaten my left leg to get when I started managing projects at Udon. They want us involved with design on their 2007 line of products. It’s kind of surreal and awesome.

I’m not posting this to brag – it honestly seem important for me to mark this point in time. We talked about diversifying and now we’re doing it. When you’re in the midst of things you can lose track of progress like that. This industry (now entertainment, not just comics) is so chaotic that you can forget accomplishments because you’re always overlapping into the next set of tasks that need to be completed – you’re never done.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, take stock of what you’ve done this year and keep building.

A relaxing weekend. I did a little bit of work, but most of it was chilling at the apartment or catching up on sleep. My cel phone’s acting up, so if you can’t reach me there, call my home number.

Probably my only frustration as I get ready to tackle another week is the course application stuff. I finished sorting and ranking the portfolios over a week ago, which was nice to get out of the way, but even after I very explicitly told applicants not to pester the school about their application status, I’ve been getting absolutely pelted with e-mails and phone messages at the college from students doing exactly that. Last night an applicant e-mailed me in a rage (seriously, it was dripping with angst) asking why he was on the waiting list, so “Please look at my portfolio again. I feel in hell these days. Please re-mail me.”

Maybe it’s just a matter of me getting older and doing that cliche “man, kids nowadays are idiots” thing, but I don’t recall feeling so self-entitled. Confidence is good, but some of this is just getting ridiculous.

There’s that Hollywood-delivered nicety of “If you work hard, you will succeed”. I really do believe in that. Seriously.

The tough part comes in understanding how much hard work that will be for some people. If you work hard and you still aren’t making it, then a lot more hard work is required. There is no motto that states “Your hard work will be the same or less than anyone else who has ever succeeded”. Maybe you have to work twice as hard, maybe aspects of it will come easily – no one knows. Maybe someone you know will get an easy break and you won’t. Fate (if you believe in that kind of thing) doesn’t state “work hard for a year” or anything specific like that. Your path is unique, even though there are tendencies we can look to as far as growth and technique.

Do the research, look at your work and be honest about where it’s at. How bad do you want it? Just saying or feeling that you want it really bad is not enough. I’m not saying this to be mean. I don’t think I know everything, but I have a decent idea of where my skill falls on the ladder and what I can and can’t do at this point. I wish my skills were stronger, but wishing alone doesn’t make them better. Blaming someone else doesn’t improve them either.

It’s not like a I sit around cackling like Doctor Doom raising up or destroying people’s lives as they apply to get into this course. Would it be right to put this applicant’s portfolio ahead of someone with higher quality material just because he complained to me? Of course it wouldn’t, and I won’t… but this idea that I should because he e-mailed me makes me bristle a bit.

I woke up at noon today. Wow, that was some crazy book launch party last night.

About 20 minutes before it officially started, I asked my Dad if we could go for a quick walk around the block. I was getting nervous and couldn’t stand around anymore. As we walked I explained to him my anxiety – all day I’d been getting e-mails and phone messages from friends and colleagues letting me know that they weren’t going to be able to make it to the party. Work issues, lack of money, out of town, other engagements… it really had me in the dumps. Cold rain was pouring down on the city and everything looked miserable. I didn’t even want to guess how many people would show up.

But then the whole thing actually went amazingly well. A horde of people came – family, friends, co-workers, students and strangers who had read about the party online. The upper floor of the Victory Cafe was seriously packed with well-wishers. Every time I turned around I was shaking someone’s hand, giving someone a hug or chatting with someone about the book. At around 8 I did a short presentation about my inspirations and the process I went through getting the book ready for print. I don’t really think about my public speaking skills because I’m so used to lecturing at the college, but it really does come in handy. With pretty much no prep I blabbed on a stage and it came off quite cohesive and natural, which felt great.

Then, I signed books and sketched for about an hour and a half, chatting away with people as they came up. The time flew by and it wasn’t a chore at all – the whole thing was really quite surreal. Everyone was so incredibly nice, I honestly can’t thank people enough for coming and showing their support. According to Chris they sold a swack of the books and everyone he spoke to told him they had a great time.

Neat moments:
– Stepping up to the mic and having a crazy amount of cheering and clapping ensue. Instead of paralyzing me with fear, it actually pushed me to speak even better.

– The first person in line to get an autograph and sketch was Dave Sim, creator of Cerebus. He was there getting the Ragmop book also launching that night and he bought mine as well. He was incredibly nice and I was so taken aback I didn’t have a chance to tell him how inspirational his ‘Guide to Self Publishing’ was for me.

– People gushing about how good the printing on the book turned out.

– My parents meeting both my bosses (from Udon and Seneca) on the same night.

– Balancing a pint of beer perfectly on peoples’ heads.

– Dave Pyke bringing me crayons to do his sketch with.

– A bunch of my students yelling “Zubby!” every time I came by.

Afterwards a bout of intense drinking and karaoke, though admittedly by this point I was already pretty drunk. Dan and Chris kept an eye on me as the night wrapped up, with Dan bringing me back to my apartment at the very end and making sure I survived.

It was a very special night that I’ll never forget.
Thank you, everyone. I’m seriously stunned.

Today I signed and sketched more of the pre-order books. Almost all of them are shipped out now. If you ordered a book this week I’ll try to get yours out on Monday to ensure it arrives before Christmas. As books arrive I hope people show their friends and more orders trickle in.

This weekend – a well earned break, methinks.

Tomorrow:

Me:
Nervously excited.

Thursday night my Uncle hosted a Boy’s Night of Poker, nachos, wings, pizza and beer. It was a nice change of pace.

Friday I spent almost the entire day working on signing/sketching pre-order copies of the book to get them sent out this week. After doing 80 book sketches my hand and wrist weren’t sore, just my neck from craning over the books as I drew. I hope people like them. My parents and grandmother were instrumental in getting envelopes labeled and stuffed – it was quite the little factory operation we had with envelopes and address lists strewn all over the living room of my grandma’s house.

Example of a sketch done on the first page
for a pre-order customer.
There’s a chance I won’t have enough copies to cover the launch party and all the pre-orders with this first batch of books that’s arrived, but more are coming in soooooon. If you want to pick your copy up before the launch party, the Beguiling comic store has advanced copies for sale this week. The regular Diamond distributed copies should be in stores soon, barring US customs snafus.

The rest of the weekend was surprisingly relaxing. With American Thanksgiving in full swing, all of Udon’s US clients were completely silent, giving us a chance to catch our breath. I’ve been playing some Wii (Zelda, Rayman and Wii Sports are so good!), cleaning up around the apartment and trying not to get wigged out about the impending book launch.

On a semi-related note I have a couple requests for people here reading my LJ:

1) If you’ve enjoyed the story online or after you get your copy of the book – please post any positive feedback to the new Amazon.com pre-order page for the book. Regular bookstores won’t be getting copies until February, but it’s important to build up positive buzz before then.

2) Does anyone want to start the Wikipedia page for Makeshift Miracle? I don’t know exactly how the site works and I don’t think a person is allowed to create it for their own work, so I’m hoping someone else can get that rolling. If that’s you, then I thank you heartily.

More application portfolios for the January Animation start came in on Friday. For some reason that hand-in session had an abundance of people show up late and show that they couldn’t read basic instructions on the portfolio format, what was expected or that we didn’t want the original pieces of artwork. Anyways, now I’m going through the portfolios themselves and, like every other time, the hits are hits (thankfully, there are more hits than usual in this batch) and the misses are… well, you know:

– Figure drawing means drawing a real person (like we stated in the portfolio hand-in info sheet), not grafitti style doooooodz covered in blood holding spray paint cans.

– I wish I was joking about the number of applications that have Dragonball Z drawings. I feel like a broken record. What makes it sad-funny-sad is that not a single one is good, at all. They’re always floating figures screaming their brains out while they burst with energy. It’s like some kind of Dragonball Z hive mind. In my personal hell they’ll be showing Dragonball on a continuous loop on every TV in sight.

– Every picture in the portfolio being violent somehow. Clenched fists of rage, people punching or stabbing each other, swords cutting off people’s limbs.

– Photocopies of doodle pages from someone’s sketchbook, including random cartoons of some gun-totting jetpack wearing sci-fi mecha thing. Partially cut off on one of the photocopies is someone’s contact information, but not the applicant’s… so they used this sketchbook page to take down a friend’s number and used that same doodle page as a portfolio piece. Awesome.

– Horned anime character looking psychotic, with blood dripping from his hands and scratches on the wall behind him.

– More figure drawing done from porn. One of the pieces shows a woman reclining on a chair in a thong (but no bikini top) with a ‘come hither’ look. Life drawing models don’t look at you like they want to suck your dick, honest.

– The object and room perspective components as photos instead of drawings…. I have no adequate response.

– A drawing test with the words ‘I have no portfolio’ written on it. Well, at least they’re honest.