fluffyandbear.com

Behold!  The new PORTFOLIO page is up!

That’s right, finally a page to collect some of my more diverse marketable pieces.  Oh-so conveniently timed so that I can provide a quick link to some of my better drawings and color examples for those foolishly inquiring about my artistic history.

Rejoice!

Alas, the whole “resource action” thing is still scheduled.  However, I have to thank everyone who has lent their support and efforts in helping ease my vocational turbulence.  I’m touched at the outpour of concern and sheer scale of favoritism at play.

I haven’t been drawing much these past couple days; too busy dusting off and revising resumes, cover letters and navigating job sites.  It’s a draining process but it’s only the first week.  Plans and contingencies are being made.

…will be my impending fervent scramble for a new job!

Since I apparently missed the call from my new manager who’s never spoken to me before, I didn’t get to find out that I had been “resourced” until I strolled into the office this afternoon.  To my surprise, I found out I wasn’t fired per se, just that my job would cease to exist in 30 days.  Having over 8 years with the company, I’m free to find another position that 1) will have me and 2) is actually available due to rampant hiring freezes, but was encouraged to 3) look elsewhere because Internation Business Machines was dropping people like they were hot potatoes.

SUPER.

So, in anticipation of my future career change (because I’m not married to the IT field), I’m opening myself up for artwork commissions!  I generally work in black and white with a bit of color.  Pencil, ink, inkwash and I’m getting the hang of watercolors.   You name it, I can probably draw or caricaturize it!

Contact me here.

Been a while, huh?

Though it seems to have happened for the third straight year, I don’t intend to take months-long hiatuses (hiatii?) every spring.  I have, believe it or not, still been drawing, still been working on the webcomic.

The unfortunate thing about being my own editor and not having a lot of lead-time, though, is that 14 pages into the story that a) it’s not going anywhere and b) it stopped being funny, I didn’t quite realize that *I* was supposed to be the one to make the call to kill it.  Thankfully just under half of the plot that frustrated me so much was salvageable and makes for a fun short story, and has given me another couple ideas for where to go.

I might post some of the incomplete pages later, if I have time.  Or get desperate.

Today Little Dude is off on a field trip.  One of the requirements for said trip is a sack lunch.  Now, my son has both a Spider-Man and a Superman lunch box, but the note seemed to stress something “disposable.”  Thus I asked the boy if he’d like a picture on his lunch sack, to which I received an enthusiastic “YES!”

Since the Little Man has been rather engrossed with Scooby-Doo lately, I was expecting to have to crib from one of his coloring books.  No, he actually wanted the Man of Steel himself.   So, this is what he took to school:

Complete with peanut butter sandwich, graham crackers and a juice box.  Done in Sharpie and Crayola, even!  My apologies to Tim Sale for borrowing from his cover for A Superman for All Seasons.

Anywho, I’ve been on a bit of a nostalgia trip lately and have been dusting off some old stuff.  This image is from a comic I did waaaaaaaaay back in 2006 (it doesn’t feel way back).  Taken from a random generator prompt, I attempted to fuse the story of Snow White and Rose Red (her sister for the Grimm-impaired) with the Wild West.

Yeah.  Somehow werebears, Rumplestiltskin and pistol-whipping got thrown in there, too…  I admit nothing!

“Daddy!  I have to draw a house on your head!” is not something I ever expected to hear in my life.  Ever. Thankfully my son is easily distracted.  Still… there’s few things so unnerving as a six year-old’s intent gaze while he’s holding up a marker close to your face.

That’s how they roll.

This afternoon, while working on some simple math homework, my son told me that he simply just couldn’t continue.  When I inquired as to why, I was told “My hands are too little, Daddy.”

Ah.  I understand completely.

All too often the obstacles in life have knocked me down, set upon me with slings and arrows because of my diminuative though murderous mitts.  My son’s pain I knew too well.  Too well indeed.

And then he makes off with the Wife’s glasses.  Because apparently his hands are too little for simple addition work but not for eyewear thievery…

Ugh.  Illness and recent workload issues has forced me to concede that there won’t be another strip ’til this weekend.  This should only be a temporary hitch in the schedule, though.