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Chipping away5/30/2015
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C2E2 and Beyond: part deux5/2/2015 Good News Everybody!
We finally got this posted! After some technical difficulties we got this to work, yay for being old people and easily confused by technology! But I digress, We have a lot going on that I am happy to get to tell you about! So please bear with me as there is a lot of information, but there will be a new mouse in the works at the end of the post! So, here we go! First off, the comic! We have been talking about our comic for two years now and whether it’s medical issues or procrastination, it just hasn’t gotten done. But, that all changes now! We had such a good time talking to people about our book and seeing how excited they got that we just can’t put it off any longer. So within the next couple of months we will be releasing an issue zero, it will be a prequel that shows where our mouse hero came from. And like Star Wars we thought it would be smart to start in the middle of the story for our book. After we release issue zero we will have an ongoing web comic that will continue to show you our hero’s life before the big book. Oh yeah and the big book. We are hoping to get our full graphic novel done by January at the latest. We are doing this 98% by hand with everything hand painted and even the borders are laid out by hand! Because of that, and a risk we knew we were taking, this will take a bit longer than if we did it through digital ways. We do have a bunch of the pages ready to go, I just need to get on top of it. Then there are the rest of the mice! I am going to try and create three new mice every week, with the goal of next year having our first ever book of mice! We know that these guys in their costumes are what have drawn many people to us and we are hoping that you will all fall in love with the new guys that get released. This will also be something that gets included in our blog posts. We’ll show you progression photos of the mice as they go from layout to pencils, inks to watercolors. WE won’t only be working on mice this upcoming year though! We have a couple of other projects in the works that we are super excited about, but we’ll have to wait a little longer to tell you more about those! Finally, as Danielle said this C2E2 was the most incredible experiences of my life. I have been out of work on medical leave for almost five months now. It’s been a crazy roller coaster and it took us to some very low lows and very medium highs. We needed C2E2, it’s crazy to say but we almost tried to get out of it! But, at the end of the day being surrounded by so much talent, and so many outstanding people really was a boon for our spirits. We can’t say thank you enough to all of you that stopped by and talked with us! We really are looking forward to creating more work for all of you, and we hope that you’ll stick around and see what we come up with! So, stay tuned, and talk soon! Drew C2E2 and beyond4/28/2015 Ok, I think I got the bug worked out. If you asked me how now, I couldn't tell you. I feel like I'm 100 years old when I'm dealing with computers... C2E2 was amazing this year, and we can't thank everybody enough for making it the best we've had so far. It's been a rough road for us the last 6 months with all of Drew's eye surgeries (6 surgeries total, the last of which was 3 weeks ago), and we weren't sure if we would be able to work the convention this year. Everybody who stopped at our table made all the hard work worth it. :) We're ready to move forward like a freight train. Mostly because we've been forced to stay still for far too long. We've got plans for the comic book, ideas for more mice, collaborations in the works, and a renewed fire to get these little guys out in the world. I'm going to get better about progression photos with the painting process because I think those are really fun, and also posting random side projects that we insist on working on. (I'm working on sculpting some of the mice, and we've started making some x-wing pilot gaming helmets for ourselves...) So stay tuned. Much more to come... Technical Issues4/27/2015 A Bit of the Process12/8/2014 Just a little glimpse of the steps taken. Sorry the pictures aren't better! :)
We're Still Here! (I promise)11/30/2014 Hello there! It has been a little while since I've made an appearance, but better late than never, right? Life has been happening... Drew had eyeball surgery on Halloween, and I broke a tooth shortly after. In the meantime, I did some live art for 3 different Blick Art Materials in-store events. Event 1: Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School. For that event I was working on 2 watercolor pieces. One of a "sad ballerina", and the other is a Day of the Dead pin-uppy lady. Event 2: Zombie Munnys! Event 3: Monster Mash. For that event I created the "Little Piranha Shop of Horrors". We've done a few commissions that were really fun as well. Please take a peek at the Works in Progress, Mice and Everything Else to see what we've been working on. Drew will be posting soon to let you guys know where we are with the comic book and what the plan is. TO THE FUTURE!
Progressing the dare devil5/18/2014 Hi Everybody! (That is supposed to be read in a Dr. Nick voice) I'm having a hard time focusing on the computer right now because it is absolutely AMAZING outside! Plus I slept in until 12:00 today which is VERY unusual for me, so now I feel like a zombie. I'm pretty sure I was trying to save the world in my dreams as well, so I woke up exhausted on top of it all... now that just read all of that, I'm convinced I'm just fighting off some cold... the human body is crazy... Drew got some more lasers in his eye on Thursday. He's got 3 more sessions to go, so we're going to take it a little slow on the comic book for the next 3 weeks. We don't want to push it too hard and do permanent damage to his peepers because we couldn't wait. In the meantime, I'm almost done laying out the panels. I know we could do all of that stuff with computers now, but we're pretty adamant about having this thing be 95% hand made. On a paint-y note: There has been progress on "At Least He Still Has His Teeth". I would say he's about 85% done now. I added the background and changed the color of his jumpsuit because the gray wasn't working. So it just needs fencing added in front of the audience, much more shadow contrast, and some aging... I'll keep you posted! *with the pics below, Oliver got in the way of the first shot and I had to share... Its cold outside, and there's wolves5/14/2014 Oh Chicago weather, you so crazy! Now it's time to get crazy beautiful... Not much going on right now. We're re-doing what we have of the Issue 0 comic, and I'm almost done creating the panels. Tedious business, but I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy working with rulers and triangles. It makes me miss carpentry more than I already do. May 12th, 20145/12/2014 Ok, so still working out the blogging regularly schedule, but I'll get there I swear. There were a couple of hiccups in the work schedule last week because of Drew's less-than-expected eye surgery. He had to get the left eye taken care of on Thursday, and the right eye will get a lasering next Thursday. Fun times! I hope all the mommies had a good mommies day! You are loved, and for who it applies to, very missed. Tonight I'll be working on laying out panels for the Issue 0 comic book. So, no interesting images coming from these hands today, just much needed foundation work. On a more productive note: Our ETSY shop just went live! we have a limited selection of prints up right now, but expect to see more in the very near future! If you want to see what kind of prints are available right now head on over to https://www.etsy.com/shop/OfMiceandMadness Stay tuned for more! Another indecisive Wednesday4/30/2014 Man, why do I watch The First 48? I just cry... but then again I cry at The Price Is Right too....and Let's Make A Deal... IM EMPATHETIC!....dont judge... So, I'm on the fence at the moment. I have a gazillion 1/2 finished pieces at the moment, but I have some new drawing burning my brain to get out...I'm a liar. Im not on the fence. Of course I'm going to start the new thing... how else am I going to get more 1/2 finished things? The new picture, I'm thinking, is going to be mostly ink, possibly some light muted watercolor washes, and it's going to have a Sleepy Hollow/ Nick Blinko feel to it. I'll get to the other pieces eventually. It's an ongoing process that I'm working on inside of myself to figure out how to get re-excited by almost-there paintings, without making it feel like homework. The Faith No More Pandora station helps... that's right... there are still die-hard Faith No More fans out there. AND EPIC DOESN'T COUNT!!!! Side note: I'm going to try to blog every Mon, Wed, and Friday, which is a little intimidating to me, only because you guys will see what a weirdo I am...I guess it had to come out eventually.... :) D & DWe are the creators of Mice and Madness. Here you will get all of our information as far as what's going on, and even some sneak peaks at in-process work! Archives
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