A Distant Soil by Colleen Doran

Very happy with the busy. Getting a lot accomplished, and working very late hours, which I’ve been handling well enough. Today, however, I am doing the zombie artist dance. Walk into taboret, walk into door, walk into wall. I think I left some body parts behind, not sure.

It’s been so long since I have done regular work for the Big Two (whoa several years) that I had forgotten how long it takes to do clean ups, uploading, etc. So, I spent the whole weekend just erasing pencil lines, making tiny corrections, and fiddling with art on Gone to Amerikay, and still didn’t finish. Not a complaint, it’s just I’m going to have to be a little more careful and aware of the old time management. I’m going to add two days into the schedule each month for this sort of thing. It’s not hard work, it’s just amazing how much time gets spent trying to see every little error/line/smudge before it goes off to the publisher. Sheesh. How quickly we forget!

I’ve gotten a lot of nice comments on the new digital paintings, and I agree with the critiques that the hair looks a little airbrushed. I don’t really have the time to fiddle with the pics as much as I’d like, but if I ever get around to publishing them, I can make refinements. I am delighted with the oil painting-like effects I can get for skin, though. Once you get the hang of this digital thing, it’s a lot of fun.

Not quite all that with my work on buildings yet, but I expect to have some set conceptual work to show within a few weeks. I decided to do all of my digital painting practice around A Distant Soil themes, which would not only be good for my digital skills, but might be fun for readers here. It’s easy enough to paint nature digitally. Surprisingly easy.

Here’s some comics industry whatnot: a fan behaving very badly. And he filmed it so everyone could see how clever he was. Ha Ha, his IQ is in the stratosphere, for he has challenged the might of Rob Liefeld and managed to make Liefeld comic’s most sympathetic figure of the week. Every pro has been through something similar with some frustrated goofball at a convention, and none of us are going to engage in schadenfreude over this. It’s all too tiresome. I am not going to link directly to it, but Heidi has the news and reaction here.

Honestly, if after 13 years you’ve been carrying on a mass of resentment like that over someone you don’t really know, you don’t need to film yourself doing anything except being strapped into a white jacket and carted away in an ambulance.

Happier news: our buddy, writer Arlene Harris has a new blog.

And Happy Birthday, Marvel!

From J, this link to outtakes from the old Siskel and Ebert TV show.

BTW, at SpaceWeather.Com, coverage of the Perseids Meteor Shower.