Some of you may be familiar with Inktober - where there's a list of art prompts for the month of October and the challenge is to create art every day from those prompts in ink. I've done it a few times and 'won' (succeeded) once.

Now I'm doing Smaugust. It appears to be far less popular, but given that I'm the owner of dragonbones.net, I figured I would give it a go. Of course, I have a bunch of other stuff on my plate, and shouldn't really be spending my limited time on a meme, but what the hell. I have an idea that might make it worthwhile (beyond the pleasure of doing it / the experience of 'stretching' a bit).

Anyway, I may a post thread over on Twitter where I'll be posting them every day. I'll probably do actual posts with info on how I made the different illustrations etc on my Patreon page and/or dragonbones.net. That said, I figured I would put the first few up here for you to get a feel for the challenge and what I'm currently doing with it.

Day 1 - the Aquatic Dragon

Day 2 - the Tribal Dragon

I may re-do this one later. I'm thinking about creating an ebook after the month is completed with a write up for each of the dragons to be used in TTRPGs, but this wouldn't make for a good creature as is. Of course, maybe it will be a magic tattoo or something... I guess time will tell.

Day 3 - the Subterranean Dragon

Day 4 - the Wolf Dragon

I went a little 'on the nose' with this one, but I just kinda wanted to.

I used the guy all the way on the right for reference from this pic. Obviously, I stretched him out and didn't stick with it very much. Perhaps it's better to say I used him as a starting point.

Been a while since I did any Patch images, and I got the proverbial itch tonight, so...

Today, while driving, I was listening to The Creative Penn podcast. She was talking at one point about how it's better as an entreprenuer to have an online business right now because people can still purchase your books, and that will help you stay afloat in the hard(er financially, at least) to come.

My mind wandered as it pretty much always does. That brought me to the simple idea that art, in all its various forms, are luxuries. They're not absolutely necessary for us to exist. Yes, I know. I, too, feel like it's pretty much life's blood, but logically, it's not.

That, in turn, made me think about the fact that many (most?) folks will have to cut back dramatically on their purchasing of any form of art in the near future. I myself was thinking about how I need to go on a 'financial diet', and get rid of a bunch of recurring payment stuff that I simply don't need.

But here's the thing - if we assume that TomTom isn't going to be forced to take us off the road, AND that I'll continue to be employed there for the forseeable future and of course that I don't get sick, I'm going to be okay. I still have a job. Art doesn't pay my bills. This is probably the first time in my life I'm thankful for that, even if only marginally.

All of which brought me around to "But what about those who aren't in my situation?"

I got really upset at that thought.

There are just so many people who are going to be struggling. And the artists out there who have been scraping by with the income from their art? Forgoing the 'niceties' of things like health coverage because they would rather be creating than healthy? Or maybe a step up from that - those who were able to get by, but certainly couldn't put even a penny away for a rainy day?

Ouch.

I know that there's talk of governmental help. I know that creatives aren't the only folks who will be hurting. But I just felt like... I dunno. I guess I just want to do something to help.

I have no idea what that is / should be.

Any thoughts?

So I did another thing. More info in a blog post at my site.

The folks at gmbinder.com are kinda brilliant. They've built a website that makes it easy for any old schmo like me build a PDF with all the formatting of a Wizards of the Coast Official 5e Dungeons & Dragons manual.

You enter simple markdown into one window, the website interperets the markdown, and uses CSS to spit the content back out in a second window with all the formatting done for you. No need to learn about different fonts or spacing or... whatever.

I've seen a couple different incarnations of this kind of thing, but GMBinder seems to be the best of them - at least that I've been able to find. And it's 100% free - at least currently.

So when I first came across one of their competitors, the idea occured to me: "This would be a great way to promote dragonbones.net and my illustration services. I'll make a short "D&D Book" that is filled with my art and talks about how to hire me to create the art for your D&D book!" It's kinda meta, and I think folks would like that. I've never heard of it being done before, and the name of the game when selling anything is 'stand out from the crowd'. So if I do this right, I can stand out from the crowd while demonstrating just how perfectly I fit in with the crowd.

Oh shut it, Westley - it makes sense to me, and that's what matters.

Anyway - if any of you would like to have a look, you can find it here.

The cover is just a rough sketch, but all the art in it is my work, and I'm already working on a revision which will expand the book, provide more samples, etc. But with that said, I would love any and all criticisms / feedback / reviews / etc. Please - beat it up. :)

So a friend sent me a link to The Toolbox Fallacy (the video above).

He sent it saying: "If you're pushing yourself to do Inktoberfest, I figure there's a chance that you aren't where you wanted to be with your art, by this point in your life.

The following 7 minute vid is a potentially impactful one, about how too many of us wait too long and have too many excuses for not taking more action sooner, toward becoming who we want to be."

First, I thought it was very nice of him to try to give me a gentle prod in the right direction.

The tl;dr of the video is "Don't wait until you have the right tools or environment or... whatever. Just do the thing that you love to do." In my case - make art.

I learned something, but it's not what you might think it would be.

I've been aware of what this person calls the Toolbox Fallacy for many years. For me, it's pretty much never about "I have to have X to make Y." In fact, to the contrary, I've spent a non insubstancial amount of time cheerleading others to 'just get started' with whatever they have on hand. Or, at worst, finding something (anything) to 'make it happen'.

It's true that I'm not where I want to be with my art. To grossly oversimplify, where I would like to be is: "Making a significant portion of my income (or possibly all of it) via the sale of art I've enjoyed making."

The reason I'm pushing myself to do Inktober (think NaNoWriMo but art using ink) is because I want to break from my normal digital production. I'm using Inktober to force myself into a 90 degree turn. Okay, so it's maybe more like a 45 degree turn. The point is that it's a different medium, there's a timer running, and it's an intense 'workout' of sorts that I don't normally do. Something like using (as I recently mentioned to Lindsay Harris-Friel ) a reduced color pallet to force yourself to think differently. These sorts of workouts often lead me to some of my best breakthroughs.

"Okay, okay. We get it. You've told us what you didn't learn. Can you get to what you did learn already?"

Fine. Be that way. I'll get to it.

Essentially, I learned two things watching that video:

1. I'm giving folx the wrong impression about the art side of my life. I suspect this is primarilly because right now the majority of the art I'm doing is hidden from most of the world. I'm doing this on purpose (to create a 'big reveal' when our game Conquest! goes live. Still, I need to find a way to share more of what I'm doing. Part of this feels like a social media thing, and I need to do some thinking about it. More to come.
2. It's probably time for a change. I've been doing effectively the same thing with my illustration for... well, probably about 4 decades now. Sure, I've gotten better at the thing I do, but if it hasn't brought me to where I want to be after four frickin decades then maybe I need to change the process / model / product. I'm pretty attached to the (art) process and the product, so maybe it's time to focus on the model. I've spent a lot of time working on character drawings, saying "See what I made? Don't you want me to draw your D&D character for $0.50?!" Just like the guy on the street corner who's asking for a buck, most folks just mumble some excuse and scurry away. The two people a year who actually drop a buck in my offered cap aren't enough to pay the bills. So I need to figure out something to get more work coming in the front door. Here again, I need to do some thinking about this, and I'll post more when I've figured something out.

Stay tuned, True Believers.

A quick (and terrible) collection of the images I've done for Inktober so far.

Top row is the 'standard' Inktober themes. Day 1 was "ring" and Day 9 was 'swing'.

Bottom row is the 'whimsical' list starting with Day 1 "fairy" and Day 8 'sorcery'. I haven't finished Day 9 for the whimsical list. (I'm posting this 10/8 so I'm a day ahead on the 'normal list'.)

I just had a rather fantastic encounter at my local coffee shop (Peet’s). I had settled in to do some catch up work on art stuff. I had just finished a commission for my buddy Krishna. His wife asked his daughter the age old ‘If you could have a super power, what would it be?’ thing. When they heard the result (a modification of Elsa, of course) K commissioned me to draw it up. The result is above.

Anyway - so I’d just finished up the image, and a family came in with a little boy who can’t be older than 8. I noticed the printer paper in front of him with... are those comic panels? And pencil drawings? Why yes. Yes, they are.

”Are you drawing a comic?” I asked.

He was a bit shy with the big hairy stranger, but with a glance at his mom (grandma?) sitting next to him, he said “Yeah.”

”Well that’s awesome! This is what I just finished!” at which point I turned the iPad to face him and clicked the play button on the time lapse video for the image.

His jaw dropped and his mom started Oooh-ing.

We proceeded to have a conversation about art and comics and I introduced them to software he could get for his iPad and of the very concept of ashcan comic books. He’d said that he was doing them and keeping them to himself. I explained that (if he wanted to) ash cans would let him keep the originals and still share copies with his friends.

The whole family seemed delighted.

For a while now, I have been in seventh heaven listening to the sounds of the little boy quietly narrating his comics to himself as he works. Both dialogue and (far better) sound effects keep coming while he’s drawing.

He’s not playing on an iPhone. He doesn’t have his own laptop here. He’s not watching Youtube. He’s drawing. With pencil and pen on paper.

That. Was. Me. When I was a kid, and it’s just so very good to see as an adult.

* * * * *

In case anyone’s curious, this is the text for the commission:

"Here is what M told me she said: "If she could pick any magic power she would pick being the princess of ice and snow mountains and being in control of fire. And she hopes one eye was clear and white and one eye was red and orange"."

And here’s a link to the time lapse video of the process - https://photos.app.goo.gl/YQEXkK1kQEe4DHw47

Art is my illicit drug of choice. The more I create, the more I need to make to get off.

Okay, so I put it that way to be a touch provocative, but it's also kinda true. I've been doing more illustration work pretty much every chance I get and I'm still getting further behind. What's more, I want to do more. That's kinda crazy.

ETA: Okay, I think I was going to go deeper into this and then change the post to public, but I've lost the train of thought and figure I should just let folks see it as is for now. I can always comment more later if I get that thought back.

*The Fourth

Had a great Fourth of July. I'm staying with some life long friends in Olympia, WA. Helped Margaret build a trellace structure out in front of the house. We got the hard part done, and I'll come back for another visit to finish the cross pieces. Felt like a solid victory, and they're delighted. Check that box for "I kicked ass today."

Their kid continues to be about as adorable as they come, and she loves her Uncle Matt. It's pretty fantastic. We've reached that state where her parents can ask her to do something, she'll say no (she's 3) and I'll say "Well, _I'm_ going to do [the thing the parents are asking her to do]..." and she will suddenly change her mind and proclaim that SHE is going to do [the thing that the parents want her to do]. Hey - I'm using my powers for Good. So far.

We grilled out - corn on the cob and veggie burger patties. Maybe my first time doing something like that for the 4th, and it was just fine by me.

Now I'm sitting and writing this while sipping some Jack Daniel's. There's a beautiful pup next to me. She's wearing her thunder shirt, and her doggy Xanax has worn off (she's a bit of an extreme case of high anxiety). She pressed herself up against me once the fireworks started, and any time I get up to drink, pee, or whatever, she's right at my side. Poor thing. She seems to be a micro dot more relaxed beside me, but I wish I could do something more for her.

* Work

I'm supposed to be finding a place to live. For $1500. For 3-6 months. In Seattle. With 30mb UPstream internet access.

I feel like this isn't very realistic. I'm looking into AirBnBs. I'm cautiously optimistic that I'll find someone I can convince to work with me since I will be there for a _long_ stay by hotel standards. Please keep your fingers crossed for me. This won't be easy.

* Break

So I'm going on break next week (starting July 11th). I'm not sure yet if I'm headed to Maine (to visit my Grandfather) or 'home'. I'll keep you guys posted. I'm actually looking forward to the break. I _love_ it out here, but I miss my people too.

If you're reading this, and you have some event planned that you think I might be into that week, please let me know!

* Relics

Remember Relics? Well, my partner and I reinvested ourselves on Monday. I'm _really_ excited about it. We're having bi weekly meetings to review our progress. Which means there will either be progress or there will be awkwardness. I'm looking forward to the progress. I've been kicking ass on the art side of things, and I just saw tonight that he's done a bunch of works on the last faction for the initial trio of factions. We're getting close to something I can pass around to the beta testers. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. We just figured it out - it's been over 4 years since we started.

Please let me know if you're interested in being a beta tester. The game will be  given out as a free downloadable PDF for printing on print at home business cards for this first version. Based on responses and feedback, we're hoping to move on to a Kickstarter to get a full color larger card version printed professionally. But that's down the road. One of the focal points for this first meeting was MVP - Minimal Viable Product. Or, said another way: Keep It Simple Stupid. I've been a part of too many projects where people got really excited, then there was scope creap, and then things fell apart because everyone was daydreaming about "one day..." First step first.

My biggest problem is that I've improved dramatically in an artistic sense over the past 4 years. That doesn't SOUND like it should be a problem, but it is. I look at the original artwork for the first faction (Goblins) and I kinda feel sick. I do NOT want that being presented to the world as an example of my artistic skills. But I'm going to. Reworking all of the art would take way too long. I may touch up some stuff, but the idea here is MVP. As I said to Chad - "Until other people start playing - even just beta testers - this is just you and I talking. It's not a 'real thing in the world'."

So yeah. Most of what's there will have to stay there. For now.

Okay, I should probably get to bed. It's nearly midnight and while I love my friends' daughter, I'm pretty sure I recognize the tickle in the back of my throat because she's come down with something while I'm here. *grumblebitchmoan*

ETA: Can't believe I forgot to mention this, but I got a chance to hang out / catch up with J Riley! He came to town, and we grabbed breakfast at one of my favorite haunts (Hart's Mesa). We talked about his #vanlife adventures and his project. He's traveling the US for a number of reasons, but chief among them is a desire to understand other people who think differently than he does. How can you not love somebody with a head on their shoulders like that?!

He's doing a project as well which I found rather interesting: both in a notebook and on video, he asks people to 1. Ask a question of the next person he encounters / asks to take part in the project and 2. Answer the question from the previous person. I sorta love that he removed himself from the experiment (aside from his role as facilitator).

The young lady who was in the spot before me is a life coach, and her question was what I would have a life coach ask if I was drawing one in a comic book. Something like "What is your Perfect Life? What would you have to do or achieve in order to live that life?"

I responded in a way that I thought was appropriate - something about not wanting to have kids, so I want to leave some form of art or literature behind that future generations can enjoy.

I asked "Aside from child birth, what's your greatest accomplishment in life?" I put in the 'aside from child birth because it's too much of a default for anyone with kids. The project seemed like it warranted more thought from respondents than that.

I write and draw every day.

The new plan is a simple one - which is arguably the biggest reason that I like it so much. Call it positive affirmation, call it a daily chant, or call it whatever you like, but that opening sentance is something I will write down every day.

Then I will do it.

My intent is to try to do 1/2 hour each in the morning and in the evening for a total of one hour writing and one hour drawing every day. If it's a crazy day, and I have no time, I'll allow just 1/2 hour each. Then the next day I will get back to the full hour each.

It might seem like a lot, but it's really not when you realize how much free time I should have each day. That, of course, assuming that I'm not screwing around and wasting my time.

Set my timer and go. I like that.

The best part? Sure, there will be some garbage, but there will also be some good stuff, and it will pile up. I'll have a collection of work in a very short span of time. It's the best way I can think of to make that happen.

All my illustration and writing projects can happen - I just need to eat that elephant one bite at a time.

So, what's on the list now? What are my current projects that I want to focus on?

Art

• The Greek Gods - A new project with an old friend. He's designing a card game and I'm doing most (all?) of the illustration work. I'm really looking forward to this, but it's not a small order. 14 gods by the end of November. Good thing I'm planning on spending an hour on art every day.
• Relics - Yes, I'm still plugging away on this - slowly but surely. I drift off at times, and at other times I've had paying clients that took priority, but it' long past time I finished the third faction so we can send out a beta version for public release. This is the third year that I've been hoping I could complete the work in time for an X-Mas beta release.
• Sketchwork - I doubt I will have much time to focus on anything but the above items before the new year, but if I do, I would like to put together a free digital 'sketchbook' to give away. This might include anything and everything from random doodles to WIPs for client work.

Writing

• Patch Book - writing is the easy one. I really only want to focus on the book. Maybe it's because it's NaNoWriMo, and I have that sense of missing out, but I really want to get this damn thing done. Much like Relics, this one has been gnawing at me for a while, and it's past time.
• Another Blog?! - I was thinking about where I would want to post chapters for ARCs. I could post here, but I get so damn worried about eating up my 'daily post' on random things, and this place seems, well, personal. The very nature of the single post per day seems like it makes it more intimate. So probably not here. LJ? Maybe. Hell, GRRM posts there (still, I believe). But probably no. Same issue as here. I have a LOT of old posts there that are pretty personal to me. So I'm thinking that I might clear out any / all posts over at mrlich.wordpress.com and post there. It's not like there's a lot there,  and it would make a good spot to just post 'book updates'. My 'professional writing' update location. But it means another location online that I'm updating. I already feel too scattershot online. That's the whole reason I set up mrlich.com as a menu for where to find me online. I need to narrow my focus a bit online, but that seems like a project for another day.

Journal Update

I went and visited the King yesterday. I had the option to route my travels through Memphis, so I did. I'd never visited Graceland, so it seemed like an ideal opportunity.

It was interesting. Not the $40-$80 price for tickets interesting to me, but interesting. Not upset that I did it (how would I know what I thought of it otherwise) but I probably wouldn't go back unless it was with a group of friends, and that would likely be more for the company than for the tour.

They give you an iPad to use through the tour which has a complete guided tour narrated by John Stamos. Why John Stamos? I have no idea. Still, it was neat, and I like that it allowed us to choose our own pace. I took a crap ton of photos, so if any of you would like to see some, let me know below.

I had to make my way back to Decatur last night to pick something up though, which made my trip to Memphis a 6 hours of driving detour. Bah. Worth it.

I did, of course, enjoy a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich after the tour.

Now I'm working my way to Kansas City for my next project. It's not a YUGE project, so I'm not sure how long I will be there, but a few days at least. It's a small enough region (for the project portion) that I should be able to stay at one hotel for the duration. That's such a good thing for me. I love my job, but these smaller projects tend to mean bouncing around every night. It's a bit annoying to pack up everything every day. Even two nights / hotel seems so much more worthwhile. Ahhh, the life of a nomad.

The election. I'm over it. Yes, I understand how important it is. I have a low threshold though for repetition, and both sides (and their supporters) are saying so much of the same damn thing over and over again that I'm really just ready to scream and start breaking shit.

Also, it breaks my faith in humanity that anyone could think that Trump would be even an acceptable president - let alone a good one. I mean that sincerely. I don't see any plus to him. The only thing I've heard said about him (that I believe) is that he won't be 'business as usual'. Probably true. 1. Not being equal to is not the same as 'greater than'. 2. I will never have kids, but if I did, I would never want them or my beloved nephews to ever act like he does regularly. Why would I want someone like that representing out country? I honestly don't know as much as I should about Hilary, but what little I do makes her an infinitely better choice than him. Infinitely. Even if she was going to be 'business as usual' (which I have no reason to believe she will be).

Already over my 1/2 hour. More later.

ETA:

First

I was terrified. I felt like I was clinging to the edge with bloody fingernails. It was that moment in the movie where you see the killer moving in and the next victim is oblivious to what's coming.

Then

I wanted to be physical. I wanted to smash, to break, to rend and tear. To smash whatever I could get my hands on.

All the while knowing it wouldn't help, but it's what I understand.

Now

This is a different kind of fight. It's a kind I've never taken part in before. I don't know the first thing about it, if I'm honest.

Looks like it's time to learn.