Eric Orchard's Blog, page 32

Spider Goblin Stronghold

Deep in the storm regions of the mysterious Cloudscape lays the smoke belching domain of the Spider Goblins!

Very happy with this page, I'm thinking of sending it off to the next Spectrum Fantastic Art competition.  Maybe I'll colour it first.

I just finished three or four weeks with long days of intense hatching, so I think I'll take a day or two to work on some writing. I need the break and I might be going cross-eyed. I also need to replenish my pen supply, so I'll make a trip to the art store in the next few days.

Thanks so much to everyone who bought Inkybook One! Sales are good and the response has been fantastic.

Inkybook Volume One!

I finally finished work on the first volume of Inkybook, a collection of unfinished comics and sketches available as a PDF. I'm hoping to get these collections out regularly, I have so much unseen art and it's really nice to have a home for it.

Plus! You will be helping me enormously with every purchase, I'm almost done Maddy Kettle and am about to start my next book and am in dire need of art supplies and, well, food and stuff. So, thank you in advance for every purchase.

And please let me know what you think. What would you like to see in volume two? What would you like to see more of? Less of?

Grab your copy right here:
    Buy Now 

When you make an order you will receive the file by email after a few moments. 

Thank you so much to Michael Startzman for all the help with this! 

Maddy And Ralph Train ride

I don't often (ever?) post full pages of Maddy but I thought I'd put one up today to make up for my lack of posts lately. This is from very early on in the book, and it'll eventually be coloured. Today I'm working on my Inkybook project, which is all computer stuff.

Inkybook One, Coming Soon

I've just spent the last few days scanning and editing a new digital collection I'm hoping to release in the next week or so called Inkybook One. It's a collection of unused comics, sketches, ideas etc. The book will actually have the first 10 or so pages of a comic I plan to send out as a pitch at some point but don't want to share on my blog. I'd like to do a series of Inkybooks over the year.

Above is a page from my unpublished comic, the working title is Suburban Witch Detective Agency.

Cloud Whales

I'm in the midst of long days drawing interrupted by packing and sending off artwork. Here is a peek into the Cloudscape where much of Maddy Kettle takes place, with various odd creatures inhabiting it. Although the Cloudscape is mostly ruins, I think.

I just wrote down a "what I'm doing this year list" and showed it to my wife, and it has spousal approval. Like I've been saying, a mix of self publishing and pitches to publishers. No matter how nuts publishing gets I can't imagine publishers ever not being central.

OK, I just finished inking the next page, and as it's pizza night I'm making the dough. We're trying a new thing tonight, combining pizza night with movie night. We are all incredible excited. Which I will admit paints us as boring but I love it.

Some Prints Are Left!

After Christmas I find myself with a number of artists proofs of my winter print, so I'll be selling them here until they're gone. I'm asking 35 dollars all included. Any purchases would be a huge help to me!

                                                        

A Post For A New Year

I jotted down some thoughts about the previous year in my sketchbook and I thought I'd jot them here as well. It was a remarkable year, one that could have ended badly if not for all the people who follow and appreciate my work. I think the year's theme was trial and error, I tried a number of things to see which worked. Mainly, I mean in terms of conducting business. The art seems to have it's own life, independent of my worries and practical concerns. Although, it's probably affected by it. I'm never sure until I look back at what I've done.

One big thing I've learnt is that, right now I need to be involved in both traditional forms of publishing as well as self publishing. I only self published two books last year but it was a notable help to my overall income and ability to have work visible. I plan to do more of both in the new year, starting very, very soon.

Some other stuff I learnt this is....

It's better to be good than different. Or, as Arthur Freed put it “Don’t try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough.” Striving to be different has gotten me nowhere. Trying to be good at what I do has been much, much productive and satisfying. I talked before about the importance of originality but I've changed my mind. There is all ready too much cleverness and ego in the world. 

Always have a plan B. This kind of goes hand in hand with my note on self publishing above. 

Have the humility to let hard lessons stick. This is in line with yesterday's post.  

Always dress well, even when you work at home. At the heart of this is that when you dress well you are always more present in any given situation. That's my experience. 

Compliments are not road signs. I am very grateful for all the kind things people say to me, I just have to be cautious not to feel like I'm doing something wrong today if people compliment something I did six months ago.   

Happy New Years!

Happy new years everyone! I have a lot of hopes for 2013. 2012 was a rough year in some ways and in other ways it was great. I'm hoping I can take the lessons I learned over the last year and put them to use. I guess that's my resolution, to actual make better decisions based on what I've learned. It's harder than it sounds.

Slinging Lots Of Ink

I worked right through the holidays and it looks like I'll hit 2013 running. I have a lot of plans for next year, but as usual they keep evolving every day. Which is good. I need to have some new stuff up for sale in January. I'm working on it.

Started reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I am really, really enjoying it. Great mystery for long winter nights.

Happy Holidays!

I've been busy with family and commissions so I'm getting behind in my posting! I hope everyone's having a joyous season, I know I am. I'm just heading out to Henry's first Christmas pageant right now.

I wanted to remind everyone that my Christmas prints are available here: http://www.curiohouse.com/