Pandabloggin' :: P.M.B.Q. Studios Blog

Having a kid has been life-changing. It has been challenging, but more than that it has been wondrous and incredibly inspiring. Every moment I spend with my son Griffith is fodder for a new story; living life through his eyes makes me appreciate even the simplest things.  Being a parent has really been amazing.

So, onto this illustration…recently there has been an ad campaign by JCPenney department stores full of people screaming “NOOOOOO” because they are missing shopping sales.  Griffith watched it, and suddenly started scrunching up his face and mimicking them.  We spent the rest of the weekend scrunching our faces up at each other and screaming “NOOOOOOOO!”  (Yes we are still doing it right now.)

Ah, simple times

(As a side note, Griffith just got a haircut. I loved his long baby hair, but it was getting into his eyes and ears and occasionally irritated him. His new haircut makes him look like he’s 5 years old, even though he is only 14 months old.  Now I tell everyone he’s 5 years old. Yeap, I am totally loving every second with this kid.)

Drank my morning coffee, and the caffeine told me to draw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  So, here’s Donatello:

Done in about 1.5 hours.  Fanart is a fun exercise.  Also, the comics I drew in middle school prominently featured TMNT…they were part of a superhero group that I created called “The Z-Men.”  I was so creative back then, don’t you think?

I’ve been trying out different brushes in Painter, trying to see what different textures feel like.  This Tea Club drawing is an exercise in that, plus combining my recent interest in trying to figure out the world of kickboxing:

It could use a little more work in finishing the rendering, but I’m calling it “done” because it’s more like an exercise. I think the more I do these kinds of painting exercises, the more my rendering style will develop.

(For those of you not familiar with Tea Club, these are my main characters Hana Neko and Mr. Bear.)

Can anyone else relate to this?

Trying out a new character, and some new Painter brushes.  Usually I work with the Pencil and Digital Watercolor tools in Painter Essentials, but wanted to try out the Oil brushes for a “rougher” look, kind of more child-like.  This is a part of a working idea for a new comic concept.

There was so much I wanted to say in the past 2 years…convention updates, incriminating evidence about the guy who hit my car at WonderCon 2010 and didn’t do the right thing, comics about my pregnancy during 2010, comics about the fun and sometimes ridiculous stuff going on at my day job…but I didn’t get a chance.  Life has been very full since I decided to start a family, and it’s been a struggle to find time for art and myself.  Still, my little boy Griffith has been worth all the pain, and he brings joy and inspiration to me every day:

So! Rather than focus on everything I didn’t do in the past 2 years, I am choosing to move forward. A new year is always a chance for a new start, and I’m resolving to close the gap between thinking and doing.  Basically, that means dedicating more time to get back to the basics of simply creating art (and maybe a little bit of writing about the process or the pieces).

I’ve also resolved to put together the last volume of Tea Club later this year.  I have to get through a move and a wedding first, but my plan is to debut Tea Club volume 2 at Comic-Con 2012. Once this volume is done, I can finally close the chapter on Tea Club graphic novels…at least for now

Unemployed Pandas will also be coming to a close very soon (the loose goal is to finish it sometime this month).  There are a handful of comics left before the series end, and I’m going to spend today drawing one of them.  Once the last few comics have been drawn, I’ll be scheduling the updates to the series finale.

My hope is to have more updates everywhere–this website, this blog, my company Facebook page, and of course my online store.  It is quite a challenge to coordinate all those efforts plus juggle my new family, but in the end it’s all very happy-busy work and will be all worth it.

Thanks for coming along on this ride with me, I will have more to show soon!