Red Wombat Studio

November 2004

Did a “Digger” this morning. Updated the webpage with new art. (Not ALL the new art, but a fair chunk.)

http://www.metalandmagic.com/

(These will all be trickling out onto Yerf and Deviantart and whatnot over the next week, too, but I’m trying not to just do one huge art dump all at once.) There’s still more to put up, god help me. I’m hoping to get all the available originals up this week, in case anybody decides to give the gift of Weird Art, but it’s a daunting task–I did 20+ new pieces for MFF, and that’s rather a lot to put up all at once…

And now, off to get my teeth cleaned. Yippee.

Veni, Vedi, V…um…cleany.

I even cleaned the studio. Well, parts of it. The floor, for example. (Cleaning the jumble of art supplies on the table Ain’t Gonna Happen. It’d take me months to get such an efficient clutter going again.)

Also, I traded for entirely too much art. I have fifteen pieces I have to frame, and that’s exercising restraint. I could redo the entire house in Furry Chic. Someone oughta write an decorating book for artists–there are so many that advise you to frame favored postcards and black and white photos and hang them as art, but I’ve yet to read one that mentions how you deal with having an art collection into which a Brazilian soccer team could be lost and forced to resort to cannibalism.

I have so much art to upload that I’m just gonna do a few a day, I think, lest it be glutted. But today we have “Dragon, Lollipop, Turnip,” or “Dragon, Turnip, Lollipop,” or something like that, because I can never remember what order the title is supposed to be in. One of the small little portrait miniatures I did for Furfest. One sold, this one didn’t, and James is threatening to abscond with the miniature of the Donkey and his Goldfish, so the status of that one may be up in the air…

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/12746607/

There comes a time in every artist’s life, the post-crisis period, when the show is over, the art has been arted and shipped off and you return from the trip laden with baggage and way more crap than you left with and dirty laundry, and whatnot, to a house that looks vaguely unfamiliar, and you look around, and say “Holy shit, I gotta clean this place.”

That time of artistic crisis, during which painting more art is infinitely more important than vaccuuming, and the housekeeping descends into Death Clutter, has ended. And so, in between working on getting the backlog of Digger up to acceptable levels, I must work on getting the clutter down to acceptable levels. All other projects are on hold today. Today, we fight the forces of chaos! Today, we clean!

This morning, we blog about it and drink coffee!

We….live.

Today, James and Ursula learned a valuable lesson. They learned why you never, ever, ever, ever drive home 600 miles on the Sunday after a major holiday.

The trip normally takes us eight hours and some change. We limped in after thirteen and a half hours, much of which was spent in a parking lot masquerading as the interstate.

Also, somebody whanged our car in the Taco Bell parking lot in Summersville, West Virginia. Someone orange. Driving what was either an SUV or a tank. (I’m guessing this based on the enormous size and vivid color of the dent, not because I saw it happen–we came out of Taco Bell and went “Dude!”) However, while my inclination was to be deeply uncharitable to anyone in Summersville because of this, both the gas station owner who let me use his phone and the very kind police officer who came and took my report were very nice, and redeemed Summersville to a large extent. The car is fine, it’s cosmetic only, but my deductible weeps.

But we live! Athena is fine–fat, dumb, happy, in urgent need of an anal gland expressing, but that’s easily dealt with.

And now I have fifty bizillion e-mails to read through…

Okay, just so that it’s not buried in a wall of rambling text, since I promised an announcement, the book “It Made Sense At The Time” is now available!

http://www.sofawolf.com/products.html#artisticvisions

I signed about thirty copies for ’em, but the numbers are limited. They take Paypal. And check. And money order. There are many options!

And that’s my shameless plug for the day!

Report from Furfest!

Everything’s going well here at Furfest–they’re actually not working me all that hard, the panel load is more than reasonable, and I got through my first panel (if you can call it a panel when I’m the only one up there!) on backgrounds without dying, although I did ramble rather a lot. Sales were slow Friday, but sales are always slow Friday, so I’m not all that worried–Saturday’s the big money day, and Sunday usually hauls in a good chunk of change too.

Laptop’s doin’ great–haven’t had much opportunity to use the tablet PC function yet, but the wi-fi alone is fantastic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reach to the dealer’s room, which meant that I had a bad moment yesterday when I was manning the table, and James was up in the room trying to reconnect the wireless and find me photos of elk for a sketchbook commission (I got elk AND moose for the first two sketchbooks of the con, and there’s an antelope on the waiting list. Either hoofstock is on the rise, or I’m just hitting a peculiarly ungulatish patch.) (No foxes yet!) So I was manning the table, with a panel to get to in like three minutes, and no James, because he was wrestling with wireless. In desperation, I was casting about for how to manage, when lo! Like slightly scruffy angels, Pseudo-Manitou and Leona arrived from the blue, and took over my table at a moment’s notice, so that I could scamper off. Great to see ’em again, had dinner, always a pleasure. (And I must trade for Pseudo prints! Muahaha!)

Lot of good art here this year–Watergazer and Kenket are both here, along with the usual roster, and it’s cool to see MFF getting big. The Con definitely treats the GoHs right–we were wined and dined Friday, they’re abundantly cool, and I have a care package stocked with chocolate, Coke, and Micron pens, which is the sort of detail that really makes you feel loved. The other GoHs are also cool–been having a lot of fun chatting with ’em.

And, as always, it’s enormously flattering to have someone come up out of nowhere and say “Hey! I love your stuff!” Possibily in twenty years I will be jaded to this, but at the moment, it’s still terribly gratifying. Even more gratifying to my evil sense of humor, however, is that James now has fans–I’ve had a few people say variations on “I read your blog! Did you bring James? I’m a big fan of his!” James, valiant slayer of millipoos and heroic rooter through cat vomit, bears this all with his usual aplomb.

Anyway, that’s about it…so far, so good!

We live!

Wireless internet is a groovy thing. Typing this on the laptop in a hotel room in Indiana. Been a good trip so far, got most of the driving done today, laptop is doin’ good. Playing Civ in the car makes the trip go faster. It also feels geekily decadent. James kept crowing with delight whenever we’d drive by a wireless network unsecured on the road and the little menu would pop up.

James is a neverending font of amusement in the car, of course. I won’t inflict the song about the noseweasels on my readers, but some highlights included:

“You know, I’ll never forget…”
*dead silence for at least a minute*
“You’ll never forget what?”
“What?”

(As we drove under an astoundingly large flock of small black birds, sweeping from tree to tree across the freeway) “Wow! That’s so cool. That’s just cool. I’ve never seen anything like that. That’s so cool–AAAAAGHH! The windshield!” (You drive under several thousand birds, you takes your chances…)

(After I’d said something snide) “Don’t make me hack into the FBI from some hillbilly’s wi-fi and download porn!”

And my personal favorite, for disturbing imagery:

“My god! That man we passed was using his nose like a prostitute!”

Never a dull moment, really…

Frazzlefrazzlefrazzlefrazzle!

Finished a Digger. Uploaded it. Was seized by inspiration in the middle of the night for Digger, managed to cling to it long enough to spend half an hour this morning writing. (I did not have this half hour to spend, mind you, but when you’ve finally got a good way to quickly sum up what was otherwise gonna be a really tedious two-month conversation, you make the time.) Mailed bills. Finished Battle Hamster Raid. Running off last few prints. Must scan Battle Hamster painting if possible (or arrange photo shoot if not) frame, run off a few prints. Must do laundry. Epic, epic amounts of laundry. Must pick up prescription. Must pack art supplies. Must do final mailing ‘o art.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you find yourself thinking “Almost done, then I can relax,” when “relax” in this context means “ten hour drive” followed by “six hour drive” followed by “convention.”

But I shall prevail! I am indomitable! Like the noble chicken, which ceases not its labors even after fate’s cruel axe has severed its head, I shall continue to run frantically in circles, clucking mightily, yea verily.

Picked up the Katurran Odyssey yesterday when I was grabbing books for the road. Have not had a chance to read much, mind you, although I hope to get more done while doing laundry. It’s cool. While I’m still not the biggest fan of the combination of photoshop airbrushing with pencil sketches, it makes up for this with the sheer scale–lots of very complex scenes packed with critters. It’s pretty damn impressive, and awakens the usual “can I do that?” itch to do an exceedingly complex figure-laden scene just to prove to myself that I can.* But that’ll all have to wait. Maybe when I get back. At the moment, the only exceedingly complex scene I’m likely to find myself in will involve toppling the topless towers of laundry.

Not much longer now…!

Edit: Should also add that the Katurran Odyssey gets major props for having lots and lots of primates, and not just the ringtail lemurs. We need more of the cool monkeys in furry art, damnit. (And I ought to do some of it myself, I suppose…) Also, there’s at least two hairy nosed wombats in crowd scenes, and that’s just cool.

*Again, one of those artistic motives that, I secretly suspect, is at least as common as deathless inspiration from the muse.

Ladies and gentlemen, wombats and hyenas, thanks to the always-fabulous Ellen Million–we gots Digger stuff!

http://digger.ellenmilliongraphics.com/

Magnets, stickers, and most importantly, T-shirts (both black and white.)

How cool izzat?

Edit: There will be other designs to follow in the future, although no specific ETA. I’m hearing some request for Ed stuff, maybe…*grin*

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  • I write & illustrate books, garden, take photos, and blather about myriad things. I have very strong feelings about potatoes.

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