Do you ever get freaked out when you hear a recording of your own voice? I used to. That is, until I manned up and just dealt with it. After an unexpected huge amount of feedback on the inking video I made earlier this year, I decided to make a tutorial video showing exactly how it's done. This, of course, required the use of my voice as narration to provide tips and instruction. Once I got past the initial reaction of 'oh my gosh, that's how I sound?' factor, it seemed to work out okay.
I had some issues with my screen-recording software in that, it was difficult to get it to capture the right amount of frames per second, and the adjustment of the playback in frames per second. As a result, sometimes you'll see the narration not exactly line up with the what's going on the video. But, you get the overall idea.
Last week, my good friend Matt Martin put out a new Snowman book and an art book. The art book was more of a showcase of Matt's work over the last few years. Some of you may remember earlier this year, Matt gave me a comic page that he had done in pencil. He wanted to see how my inks, using Illustrator CS3 would look over his pencil work. I'm pleased to say that, that inked page ended up published in his art book, which was released last week. So, that makes two works published inside two decades for me. Whew, I'm moving now! That page is also in my illustration gallery.
So...special thanks goes to Matt for including that in his book and giving me the opportunity to ink his work. We hope to do more work together in the future as well. For more on Matt, click my 'friends' link at the top and visit his website.
Near the end of September, I started this drawing with the intent of giving it to my wife on her birthday. Her birthday was last Friday, the 7th, and I did finish the work on that day and gave it to her. She loved it, which was a relief. It's so hard sometimes to break yourself out of what you've been working on for so long, and give it an objective second look. Perhaps with time, that objectivity will come to me, I don't know.
I've always wanted to draw her something special, as I really haven't done so in the past. I know, right? My wife married an artist...ew, I hate that word...and I haven't really drawn her anything in 8 years. Hard to believe, but it's true. However, that is no longer the case.
This drawing is all pencil and took a boat-load of hours and lead to complete. If I'm remembering correctly, I think refilled my lead pencil twice throughout the course of its progress. But, it's done and I can finally share it with the rest of you. Below is also a progress collage of what it looked like coming together.