Writing – first chapter draft of Orb Garden (working title)

I’ve been writing a story that I like, and while I’m not sure what to do with it, I wanted to share it.

But it turns out that finding websites to post/share original fiction is really tricky, and I’m not sure about permissions/terms of use – do websites have ownership over everything posted there?
And there’s issues like useability of the site, if it’s easy to make/format posts, etc.

It’s all a bit confusing and complicated, so I’m deciding to post it here instead. Wordpress’s terms of service aren’t too terrible, and I like how formatting and stuff works.

So, without further ado – a draft of the first chapter of a story I think will be called ‘The Orb Garden’.

(more…)

Update

Life updates; we’re still working on the My Growing Values picture books and related merchandise, which has been so, so much fun. That’s taken up the vast bulk of my time, and in between that I’ve been just, well. Drawing fan art. Oops. Apparently I’m not done being obsessed with this one band!!

The past year has been pretty quiet; there’s not much I can talk about other than the picture books. I feel like I should be undertaking more projects and pushing myself, but since the picture books are a full time job in themselves, motivation to work on extra stuff has been pretty low.
Still – perhaps once the books are published, I might start looking at new projects, applying for more work. We’ll see what this year brings!

I’m definitely a lot more optimistic about the coming year than I was this time last year – getting the picture book gig was kind of an incredible stroke of luck, and it’s been such a great job, so if I can continue getting similar kind of work then that would be awesome.

I wasn’t seriously looking to be a picture book illustrator when I was looking for work last year, but I’m pretty sold on it now. More picture book work, or similar illustration work, would be amazing.

Because of contractual obligations, I can’t post the work I’ve done on the books yet. So have another indicator of life since my last post – all the fan art I’ve drawn in my free time outside of the books!

Yes, I’m still obsessed with twenty one pilots. We’ll see how that goes this year.
(most of these drawings have big ugly signatures on them – turns out fan art gets shared pretty widely by other fans, which is a good thing in one sense, but not so good when people share work without adding the source or naming the artist!! So I’ve been putting signatures on my work for a few months now to try and remedy that.)

More Fan Art

So I got into a new band three or so months ago, which was a huge mistake – because all I’ve drawn in my free time outside of work has been fan art for this band! I wish I could say I’d drawn even one thing that wasn’t fan art in the past three months, but I can’t. All my free time has been dedicated to this one band. Oops.

The band in question is Twenty One Pilots, and I’ve fallen really hard in love with their music. Better yet, their music has pulled me out of a real artistic slump, so I’ve been super driven to draw again. Now, if only I could be driven to draw something other than the two members in the band…

So, here – have a HUGE dump of everything I’ve done in the past few months. Sorry!!

News

Good news – I got a job! I’ve been so quiet because I’ve been working illustrating a series of picture books + merchandise for My Growing Values – a Queensland based company doing a series of books for young kids to promote good values like being polite, respectful, responsible, honest etc. We’ve been working on the books since about May.

There’s actually two illustrators, myself and the main illustrator, whose work defines the style of the books. So the challenge for me has been to imitate her style and make sure my work looks like hers, so the books can be as consistent as possible. Hopefully I’ve managed it and done justice to her work!
It’s been a great project and I’ve really enjoyed working on it. I think I can say I’ve definitely been sold on picture book illustration!

We’re not finished yet, and the books won’t be out for a while, but you can check out the My Growing Values website here:
http://mygrowingvalues.com/

Yay!!!