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Cyan Eyed Dog

Hyena Bear...thing

As an added bonus, here’s another one I made just now:

Seriously wtf is this?

Character Name: Zelaphas (zel-LAH-fuss)

Nickname: Zel

Species: Striped Hyena

Sex: Female (originally male, explanation below)

Creation Date: March 2008

Purpose: Zelaphas is my representation within the Anthro Fandom

Origin

Zelaphas was created shortly after the movie The Golden Compass was released in theaters. In The Golden Compass, an entirely alternate world is shown where the souls of humans exist outside of their bodies (as opposed to within, as they allegedly do in our world). These souls take the form of an animal, and the animal reflects the true personality of the owner. These soul-animals are called daemons.

I saw the movie in theaters and became absolutely enthralled with the concept of daemons and the world they existed in. I looked up as much online info as I could on the subject, and found a whole fandom of people equally engrossed in the world created by Phillup Pullman in his series His Dark Materials (of which The Golden Compass is the first book). I remember being up until 5 a.m. some nights during my senior year of college reading this series, regardless if I had a class or exam the next morning.

As I explained in a forum I briefly joined for fans of the series, I found a variety of fun quizes you could take to find your “true daemon,” and one of my results was a hyena. After a bit more research on the animal and its different sub-species, I decided the striped hyena fit me the best. At a glance, their appearance is ugly or off-putting, but in truth they are beautiful, unique creatures. They both hunt and scavenge, eat meat or vegetation, and are solitary creatures some times and family-oriented pack animals at others. All in all, their general demeanor very much reflects my own personality and behavior. Not to mention the association between hyenas and laughter!

Creation

Much like the image above, I researched as many pictures of this creature as I could find. What I found was that all striped hyenas look different from one another. They share the stripes and dark coloration on their ankles and faces, and the distinct tufts of hair outlining the front and back of their necks. After looking through enough pictures, I sketched out a few designs until I created a very distinct look for a striped hyena to have, and one that would fit how I wanted to be represented.

I tend to exaggerate features I find interesting in an almost Dr. Seussian style, and as such I gave Zelaphas such long chest hair it nearly drapes to the floor. In the photos of striped hyenas I saw, I noticed their ears came in all sorts of odd shapes and sizes, and I gave Zel some embarrassingly large and twisted ears as a result. I loved the stripes on the ankles, which I feel make whatever pose the creature is in (be it stationary or in movement) more interesting. I didn’t like how some striped hyenas had stripe overload all over their bodies, so outside of a handful of stripes on Zel’s rear back, the rest of her body is white or grey. Additionally, I wanted to give Zel some features that most creatures don’t have; Most creatures have a lighter underside and a darker backside to blend in with their environment. Zel, however, has a slightly darker belly and a completely black underside to her tail.

I also created Zel at a time that I was venturing more heavily into graphic and web design, and wanted to create something that would lend itself to a particular design scheme, possibly for Twitter or whatever other sites I sunk my teeth into. Ever since I was young, pink and blue has been a favorite color combo of mine, so I used a dull pink for Zel’s fleshy features and a bright blue for her eyes.

I felt the striped pattern deserved some sort of repetition on the face, and thus Zel got some odd, white stripes over her eyes to help them stand out a bit more against the black and dark grey. Although her mane was originally a dark grey, I later added in black stripes to add more interest and color variance to the overall design.

It took a lot of drawing and re-drawing before I finalized the design, but after tweaking the features I mentioned above, I was able to settle on a design that was true to the nature of a striped hyena, over-emphasized per my own style, fairly unique and overall interesting and appealing to the eye.

Bringing Zelaphas to Life

Name

According to His Dark Materials, a daemon isn’t given a name; it has one at the moment of its owner’s birth, and the owner simply knows it. Once the owner comes into knowledge of words and names, it simply looks at its daemon and knows what its name should be. In the same vein, many of the fan sites I visited suggested you name your own daemon, however real or imagined, in the same way – simply think of it, and know what it should be called. Perhaps because hyenas are associated with laughter that I had the word “laugh” in mind, but the rest of the syllables forming the name Ze-laph-as just sort of spilled out.

Gender

Originally, Zelaphas was a male. This is because in the world of His Dark Materials, daemons are the opposite sex as their owners (with a few exceptions). I introduced Zel to the Internet as a male character and as my imaginary daemon, but more recently I decided Zel should instead simply represent myself within the anthro fandom, since I otherwise had no anthro persona for myself. Zelaphas is now simply “me” as a striped hyena.

Use

I’ve grown more interest in drawing Zelaphas and bringing her to life through art now that I’ve finalized her design and decided to use her as my representation. As per my post on MFF ‘09, I used the name Zelaphas for my attendance badge. As I may attend more conventions or other events in the future, I will probably continue to use Zelaphas and proudly display art of her when I go.

Just checking in after a long hiatus from this site to wish everyone a happy holiday season. I sent out a handful of Christmas Cards to people who gave me their addresses on FA – hopefully you’ve received them by now! I drew a little something in each card; I hope you like it!

As for myself, I have a few dinners with family planned for today and tomorrow, and I’m taking a break from work until January 4th to do some much needed job hunting and work on my personal life. I do have two outstanding commissions due, but I’ve been dealing with some personal issues that has withheld me from turning out anything worth looking at. But since I’m taking a break, I will get everything done now that I can have a little breather and focus. I’ll be including extra gifts for those waiting for being patient.

Anyways, have a great holiday season! I will be back soon with a newly refurbished site (you can see I’m remaking it…yet again…lol) and hopefully some new art for you all.

Commission Queue:

1. Voodoowolf 2-character sketch —> ink —> flat color —> bg and texture
2. Shouden wolf reading/writing icon

Planning for getting there

• If possible, go for all three days of the convention. Although there weren’t too many panels and such at MFF, there was nonetheless a lot to see and do. There are always new people to meet and talk to, plus if you know you have all three full days, you can experience the con at a more relaxed pace instead of trying to cram everything in at once. We spent nearly 10 hours in the Artist’s Alley and desperately drug our exhausted bodies to the dance floor afterwards JUST so we could be sure to see some costumes and crazy antics. Rochelle and Andrea didn’t even get to take a break to see the parade!
• Figure out transportation routes and gas costs. My parents were generous enough to lend me their car with a full tank of gas, so this wasn’t an issue this time. However, if we go to FCN or a con that’s further away from us than MFF (MFF was roughly an hour drive from us, only a 20 minute drive from Andrea’s place), it’ll be important to factor in the cost of gas when trying to recoup that money later in commissions. Also, we had a pretty easy route to take, but still shaved off several minutes when we were briefly lost, plus when we had to print out the directions beforehand. So, know where you’re going and roughly how much it will cost to get there.
• Figure out Lodging and costs. For MFF, Andrea had a relative who lived, as mentioned, 20 minutes from the con. This saved us the cost of renting a room or driving a much longer distance to/from our houses or one of my relative’s houses. If we attend conventions that are further away, we might ask to crash with someone who lives nearby, or if the hotel isn’t too pricey, we might just have to find a fourth roommate to cut down on that.
• Finally, add it all together. Keep a tally on how much this planning will cost to make sure you can afford it and to set a goal to break even against when/if doing commissions.

Preparation for your actual time there

• FOOD! Pack breakfasts and lunches! Pack fruit, granola bars or oatmeal that can simply be mixed with water for breakfast. Bring a box of juice boxes for some healthy hydration. Make some sandwiches and bag them to nibble on later. The less you have to spend in restaurants and the less you have to leave the con to find food, the better.
• Bring everything you need to make badges. Badges seem to be the most popular item to buy at a convention, so in addition to whatever your favorite medium is (inks, markers, pencil, etc.), bring sticker lamination sheets and badge clips. Lots of them!
• Have lots of samples of your work, but not too many. It was sheer luck (Tom Shear luck?) that I even had a handful of inks in my new sketch book to cut out and lay out on the table. They were mostly tiny doodles and one larger, slightly more realistic piece. Yet in the end, this is what sold a lot of people to my work. There was enough to show what I was doing, but not enough to turn someone off from one or two sub-par samples in the bunch, or to think that I was trying too hard, or to make them feel overwhelmed by how much there was to look at. I feel some other artists there turned people off from having several giant binders of their work. It’s kind of exhausting for someone to go through, and if there’s too many options they may be worried how their particular commission might come out. However, I will say that having too few samples (as I sort of did) turned some people off from my work. Find enough samples of your work that really, really show your one specific style that you will use in the badges, so people will know what they will get when they commission you. If you insist, have a separate binder and label it “alternate styles” so people feel they have a choice in how it will look. What ends up convincing people to buy or not is style; Everyone is going to draw their dog fursona with the same colors and markings, but how will yours look?
• Offer some standard priced commissions as well as “cheap” commissions. This one comes from Rochelle. She and I were offering our standard $10 – $25 inks, badges, sketches and marker commissions, but Rochelle also offered $2 chibis. People who commissioned her ended up tossing in an extra $2 with their orders to get a second, smaller version of their character (and they loved it!). As people buy and buy throughout the con and run out of spending cash, have some small item for them to tack on their purchases or spend their last few bucks on. In fact, our last commissioner for the night was a gentleman going around getting $1 badges from every artist at the con. When he approached us, he was at the end of his roll of singles. Sure, it’s only one dollar, but it ends up stretching your bottom line that much more.
• Have an order sheet prepared. You can either get something fancy printed out at Kinko’s, or just use your home printer, but have some standard order sheet prepared. It should have room for the person’s full name, the name (and spelling!) of what they want on the badge, their cell phone number (for reaching them during the con when their commission is done), e-mail (you’ll see why later), and enough room to write in a description of their character if they don’t have a ref sheet. I luckily had my trusty Iron Man notebook to write much of this down, but it would have looked more professional and kept me better organized if I had a standardized sheet to use.
• Have a con-related business card. Rochelle and I were planning on making some biz cards, but so much got in the way and we never got around to it. We both wanted to get the biggest bang for our buck and focused on having more long-term info for the card, but really, having a con-specific card is not only fine, but really, much more appropriate. The card should have your personal web site, any other community/social sites on the ‘net you care to share with others (in the case of a furry con, you would include your FA or DA account). Include your cell phone so commissioners can contact you during the con if needed. Include your contact and paypal e-mail addresses. Have your full name and alias. Include a very eye-catching piece of your work on both sides if possible. Have a stack of the cards spread out on your table so that people are encouraged to take them. Have LOTS spread out at all times so that people don’t worry about taking the last one. Make sure everyone who commissions you takes one (or several to hand to their friends!) so they can reach you.
• Know what events are going on, and what you’d like to see. We were going to do this beforehand, but again our time got cut short and decided we’d look when we got there. But then, of course, we ended up spending our time at the Artist’s Alley and missed most of the events and panels. So if the con releases their event schedule beforehand, print it out and highlight the ones you’d like to see most, and highlight some back-up ones. Now, we went on a Saturday, and much less “interesting” panels were going on, so I feel that attending events and panels is best reserved for Friday and Sunday of the con if you go all three days. You want to maximize your availability as an artist, of course, but you also want to enjoy the con while you’re there!
• Know who’s going! Luckily for this con, we had three of us so that two could hold the table while one ran off to get food or check out the convention. But doing this would be a lot easier and a lot more fun if we knew even more people to tag-team with when leaving to go to the bathroom, get food, attend a panel, view an event, mingle, etc. Even if you only know someone through the Internet, so long as you’re on good terms with them, you should work out a sort of buddy system for watching one another’s tables or attending events. The more, the merrier!

During the con

• Keep a commission queue list. I CAN’T STRESS THIS ONE ENOUGH. I started to do this in my Iron Man notebook as more and more people commissioned me, but before I did I was pretty disorganized. This list should note: Who commissioned you, what they commissioned (ink, badge, etc.), what they paid, to whom they paid (if, like Rochelle and I did, you’re doing collaborations. She and I had some confusion with the exchange of money on our first collaboration), and what time they ordered. This list will help you and your customers know what “order” the commissions are being done in and when they can be expected to be done. It will help you keep track of how much money you’ve made so you can know if you’ve broken even yet with your other expenses, and how much more you want to take on to make a profit.
• Take e-mail addresses. Make sure to get the e-mail address of everyone who commissions you, and try to get the e-mail of those who visit your table. After the con, send a thank-you note to everyone! This is not only professional, but gives people who stopped by a second reminder of who you are and a chance to check out your art again online. Send the e-mail within a few days of the con so that you remain fresh in their minds.
• At around 4p.m., post a sign saying, “Now accepting DINNER in exchange for art!” As evening rolled around, we got VERY hungry. But we felt like we couldn’t leave the table since we had so much work on our plate, and people kept returning to ask if their commission was done yet. Earlier, however, one very kind gentleman gave us some soft drinks in exchange for some doodles in his sketch book. He mentioned to us that other artists were accepting lunch or dinner as payment for food. So, to help avoid leaving your table, make sure this option is available for your buyers. Let them know if you have any food sensitivities or allergies, but besides that try not to be too picky. Also, take the sign down once someone agrees to get you food!
• Work steadily, but make time for breaks. I’m still trying to figure this one out. We worked so hard on so much art that we hardly took any time for ourselves. We were extremely burnt out by the end of the con. The most ideal situation would be to have an actual hotel room at the con so you can run up for a quick cat nap, but otherwise just try to be aware of how much work you’re taking on and what your own energy levels are at. Bring lots of healthy snacks to keep your stamina up. You should have some sign prepared for your table to notify people when you are gone on a break.
• Have fun, be social! We did this at MFF, that’s for sure. We’re very loud, giggling people, and drew in a lot of others to join in on our mischief. There are a lot of asocial nerds (ha!) that go to these things, a lot of people that go alone since they have no other friends with this interest, or a lot of people that are unsure of this environment. The happier you seem and the more outgoing you are, the more fun you will have making friends and the more business you will draw to your table!

Alright, I think that’s a good, solid list for now. I’m sure when/if the next convention I attend rolls around I will rewrite what I have for it. But this is definitely good to get in writing at least while it’s still fresh on my mind.

The next con we may go to will likely be “Furry Connection North” in Michigan. I’m thinking about trying my hand at ACEN just because Rochelle gives it such rave reviews, and one of these days I would love to attend Comic Con and Anthrocon.

Have any of your own con advice? Leave a comment below!

As I said, MFF was my first con, but Rochelle and Andrea had gone to other conventions before, so they at least knew some things about getting thre early, what to prepare for registration, what to bring for the art table should we get one, etc. So, thanks to them, I packed up my bristol board sketch book and Micron inking pens in a simple tote bag, and we drove there at ridiculous o’clock AM (around 9:30).

When we pulled into the hotel, we didn’t see any signs or anything and weren’t sure we had the right place…until we swung in front of the lobby and saw a group of people…wearing tails…standing outside having a chat and smoking. We started screaming and giggling like school girls at the sight of that, excited yet apprehensive about what lay ahead. We found a parking spot, gathered our things and walked towards the hotel. Seeing the tails was one thing, but we knew we were really in furry territory after seeing this:

So we walk in and take a quick grasp of our surroundings. It’s pretty sparse, but a surprising amount of people walking around. We see where the Dealer’s Room is and a few other important locales, passing by people in tails, ears, wings and full fursuits along the way. We finally find where registration is, but realize we’ve arrived too early. So, we hang tight and doodle in our sketchbooks while we wait for someone to show up for us. I spotted this guy catching a nap while waiting for the action to start as well.

A lot of people started piling in and getting in line, so we did too. We noticed very early on that not only were we probably a few of the only people not wearing anything furry (except my shirt, arguably), but we were among the very few girls there. Hmm…

While we waited, more people in costume popped in to entertain us. I’ve seen these guys on Youtube and the like before, but didn’t learn their names until now. Jaggers and Littlebluewolfie were wandering around, offering high fives and the like to other earlybirds. I jumped out of line and asked them for a picture, so they obliged.

We got our badges, and I registered under the name Zelaphas, as per my striped hyena character. I’ve always had something of an “identity crisis” (lol) in terms of my involvement in the anthro fandom. I’ve been Erdraug, Evilinnocence, Industrialwolf, more or less Charles, Danale and now Zelaphas. But I think Zelaphas is a good character to use for events like these, or even for my involvement in the art scene. She doesn’t have to be “me”, but she can represent me, my art, and my…furriness? *shudders* Danale will always be something of a nickname for me, in real life and online.

Anyways, Rochelle and Andrea more or less bolted to the Artist’s Alley and got a corner table all to themselves. I decided not to register since, really, my intention was mostly to be a customer and an observer. In a perfect world I would have planned more carefully to make more art to sell, have samples and business cards ready, etc. I’ve been feeling kinda lackluster about my drawing hobby lately, so even though I knew I’d feel sad not to sell anything while my friends did, I mostly wanted to enjoy the works of other artists and gawk at the costumes.

So while Andrea and Rochelle set up drawing, I found my way back to the dealer’s room and checked out everything that was for sale there. I had no idea how much art, comics, literature, plushies, costumes and other junk the furry fandom churns out! It was pretty cool! There was a big emphasis on industrial and steampunk items there. I probably would have bought some goggles if I felt them worth the expense. The craftsmanship in these things is amazing, so I don’t blame them for the price tags. Just not something I want to spend my cash on right now.

Several of the “big name” artists like Arphalia, Hibbary, Ursula Vernon and others were there (or had tables/merch set up) so I said hi and browsed their works. I found Skulldog, whom I’ve done a commission for not to long ago, and had a brief conversation with her. She was extremely friendly and told me about her con experiences. My family brought me up to have an interest in the business aspect of things, so I asked her how she typically does in sales at conventions like these. She told me that attending conventions and selling art was her job. I was very impressed! I imagine there are rough patches, but overall, to travel around, doing what you love and earning the praise and money of fans for it–that’s gotta be pretty sweet. I made my rounds through the Dealer’s Den again before coming back to buy some prints from her. They’re very good quality, so I’m anxious to frame them and hang them up somewhere.

I also got goaded into some spot selling plushies. The guy running it said, “any species, you name it, we have it! What species are YOU!?” Now, I don’t really subscribe to any otherkin or even real furry beliefs, but I just played along and said I was a hyena. His assistant ran past me and pulled out this big hyena plushie, which was extremely detailed and very well done, even with bendable arms. Of course, it had a price tag of about $60, so I was prepared to leave until I chanced upon an adorable little llama on one of the lower shelves. It had the softest, little curly hair and the perfect pose, and it was only about $8 so I caved.

Back at the artist’s alley, Andrea had already racked up a pretty penny in commission slots, but Rochelle hadn’t had such luck yet. It was still fairly early, though. The con now was much more crowded, and a lot more people started coming through. Including those in suit, who stopped by our table to say hi and look at our work.

“Flux,” definitely one of the best costumes at the con. Really glad he stopped by our table for some pictures and costuming fun!

So since I felt I had seen enough of the Dealer’s Den and not much else was going on, I decided to sit down and offer some moral support to my artistic friends…and try my hand at drawing some things myself. I cut out some old inks of mine and set them out with a lame price tag, and then doodled for a bit. Sure enough, after a while both Rochelle and I were getting hits from a number of people. One of whom was Venaul, something of a newbie to the fandom, who, like me, was enjoying his first con. He commissioned Rochelle and myself for what became our first official collaboration commission, and it came out awesome. He may or may not be able to link the final product, but I at least caught a blurry picture of how my portion (the ink) came out. You can see him in the background to the left.

He was extremely delighted with how it came out.

For the bulk of the rest of the day we sat glued to our spot in the Artist’s Alley. We’re very loud girls, cracking jokes, laughing our asses off and bringing in complete strangers to our conversations. It definitely lends well to the con setting. We had a number of interesting people come to our table. One of whom was the marshmallow peeps guy, Jell-O-Blue. He handed us a business card with his character info – just a marshmallow peep – and told us to have fun with it. He offered us our base price for our basic commission type and took off. Below is my interpretation of “anthropomorphic marshmallow peep” (kinda inspired by Sponge Bob, I must admit) as well as the other art and badges he collected.

The ACEO card with the peep in the top hat, monocle and martini glass is Rochelle’s. Nicely done!

This wolf man that came to our table was a laugh riot. He had a moveable jaw and carried around little plastic men to “nom” on. He was eyeing my new llama plushie with hunger…

After much texting back and forth, I finally bumped into Voodoowolf and her boyfriend Dearc. They’re awesome! They stopped by my table to say hi and chat for a bit. She helped me out with some lamination sheets (like I wrote above, I came very unprepared), and I gave her some of my inks to express my thanks, if nothing else. She told me she had a lot of success in the artist’s alley too, and even saw her art skill improve as she went along. Awesome!

A hound came by to give me a kiss on the cheek…

Much later in the evening, these two guys showed up asking for $1 badges. By this time we had a pretty full queue, and weren’t in the mood to do hard work for only a dollar. But these were excellent salesmen (erm…buysmen?), and convinced us to just do whatever medium and size we want and just have fun with it. And if we learned anything from the marshmallow peeps man, the “have fun with it” commissions are always the best.

His jacket pocket is bursting at the seems with all the $1 badges he bought. Seems to be the way to go!

After closing up shop, we decided to stick around for the dance. It kinda felt like being back in 8th grade. There was horrible alternative rock music playing, everyone was kinda standing around awkwardly, and there were chairs lined up along the wall where lonely people sat hoping the murry purry love of their life would show up and ask them to dance. By this point we were exhausted, and every bone in our body just ached, but we wanted to make the most of our one-day con experience, so we toughed it out.

These costumes were HORRIBLE. We dubbed the guy in the right “Roadkill in Pajamas”, which we later agreed would make a great name for a band.

During the fursuit parade, I noticed a rather infamous fursuit walk by, and couldn’t believe my eyes. This same costume appeared again at the dance. So instead of “Buyer Beware,” it’s “Buyer…ah forget about it, let’s boogie!”

Some time during the night, this cat/fox girl (guy?) saw us standing around and waved us over to dance. We couldn’t tell which of us its unfocused eyes were looking at, but Rochelle took the queue to go over. Andrea and I couldn’t stop laughing at what happened next…

There was also a very young girl with her parents there in full costume! I had mixed feelings about that one… But I give kudos to her parents for being open-minded, not to mention keeping an eye on her the whole night. She looked no different than the kid from Where the Wild Things Are.

This chick in chain mail…well I dunno what to say about her. Too much skin and too little dignity.

And we dubbed this guy the Orca Cat from Space (can’t see in this pic but he has a whale tail). We couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to be beyond that.

And this guy had the coolest hand paws…not sure why my camera went berzerk on the right, there.

We later bumped into Jaggers again – I loooooove his costume! I caught some video of him on the big screen dancing, but later when Rochelle, Andrea and I gave it a shot, we saw him waiting in line and waved him over for all four of us to do it. It was a blast!

Also, Venaul popped in again in the dance room, so I caught a quick vid of him as well.

One very notable thing that everyone who was there can thank us for (lol), is the dance circle! Rochelle, Andrea and I were busting out ridiculous dance moves until we caught the attention of some guy. He was rather flirty but not very good at including all three of us in the conversation, so we quickly waved over a green dog man to join our circle and spread things out. Later a few more people came in to show off their moves, and within minutes we had a huge circle going that encompassed half the room! One by one people both in costumes and without hopped in the center and showed off their stuff. Andrea showed off “the worm” a number of times. I cheered like a mad woman, but it was mostly to get other people excited and get more people to bust a move in the middle. It ended up being a blast.

After that, we left at around 12:30. I know that sounds kinda early, but that’s a 13+ hour day of drawing, mingling and dancing our asses off. We were beat. But it was definitely a blast, and I can’t wait to do it again.

I have some footage of the Fursuit parade (plus my commentary while watching!), but it’s too long for YouTube. So I’m trying to find another way to host it or cut it up. I’ll post an update once I get to that!

I’d just like to end this entry with a formal and emphatically appreciative THANK YOU to each and every single person who said hello, sold me something, bought artwork from me, complemented my skill, joined our dance circle, posed for a picture, told me I looked adorable, or was just there having a great time and being someone awesome to look at. Although I spent most of my time in the Artist’s Alley, I still met a lot of people and had a great time. You can definitely expect to see me at more Anthro Conventions to come!

Comments welcome, encouraged and appreciated! No registration necessary, just chat away!

You can expect to find my friend Rochelle, one of her friends and myself at this year’s Midwest Furfest.

I know, I know. A furry con? Really? Are we going to end up in some hotel room orgy wearing mascot costumes?

No. Instead, we’re looking at it this way: We love animal, anthropomorphic and fantasy art, and we’ve heard tell that MFF has some of the finest selection of it among all the conventions that offer that sort of thing in this country. This year in particular is the 10th anniversary of the con, and as such all the previous special guests (and their work!) are being brought back.

We want to check it out for this reason, and I want to check it out in particular simply because I’ve never been to a convention. I imagine we may meet some fun, like-minded people, as I often do whenever I hit up a “goth” concert like I do.

On top of that, we want to scope this out as a potential outlet for art commissions and sales. Of course this year might not be indicative of other years due to our current economic situation, but nonetheless we’d like to get a feel of what’s in demand or not at these things and how sales generally go. We were thinking of scrambling together some business cards and the like to sell this year, but the truth is these things take a full year of planning, especially with how busy we are. SO, we’ll see.

So, look for me there! I’ll either be wearing my red Combichrist shirt or my slate gray “tiger tee.” I will be there Saturday only. Should be, uh…interesting…

Current Commission queue:

1. Voodoowolf 2-character ink + flat color + texture
2. Chris Sevanick of Grains of Sound album art concept idea

Just letting you know that Rochelle and myself are offering collaboration commissions.

Basically: I draw + ink, she digitally colors. The whole thing comes out looking like it was done by professionals, but it only costs you $25.

You can click here for more details and to see a sample. If you’re interested, you can “bid” on that link, or just comment below!

Rochelle and I are gearing up for a possible appearance at this year’s MFF, so we need to start racking up some funds!

Thanks in advance! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send those my way as well.

For the umpteenth time, I’ve decided to rehash danale.com. Going with the format I was originally using was too time-consuming, and I was ultimately unhappy with the direction my graphics were going. I need a site I can update on a whim to keep up with my commission queue, art updates and more, so I’ve decided to go with Wordpress.

To keep things even more stupidly simple, I’ve employed the theme called “minimalist”. You’ll see me make edits here and there as time goes on, but I really like how simple this theme is and what you can do with it. I hope you enjoy it too, as well as the customization options you the viewer have.

That said, this site is still under construction, but now that I have a pretty clear idea of what I want out of it and where I want to go with it, things should move along much more quickly. Plus, with this blog I can post simple updates and keep a real commission queue going.

Stay tuned, and be sure to bookmark this page!

Comments and suggestions are always welcome.