Texas Book Festival!

When will you be at the festival this weekend? My son is so excited to come down and buy his own copy (the other was from the Library) of Little Bunny Kung Fu I wanted to know if you would be signing copies?

Thanks, and hope to see you this weekend,

This was an email from a parent of a child who will be coming to the book festival starting tomorrow. I needed this email, as I am running around doing a fairly good impression of a chicken sans head!

We had issues with our booth, the tent had no walls and we were working in gale winds (no fun). We learned that the old adage "the squeaky wheel gets the oil" still holds true (or "the bitchy publisher gets what she paid for" saying). I got to face off with the ladies who were half set up in our booth spot, and after much map pointing and huffing, they had to haul their stuff down a ways. That was a organizer foul up, not us but it's more fun to yell at Miriam and me, it seems.

Well, I got work to do. Wish me luck!

For the TX book festival, I'm making a portfolio with images from Camp Lizard, with Leon and Oz as commentators... fun, fun! I'll have to make this an online tour soon. 

imagine THIS is your camp counselor! I based Mr. Beardy on Brisby my bearded dragon. He's not normally this prickly, at the moment he's instructing the campers on some safety rules, and he means business. (Note the whistle... the mark of authority at camp, if I recall!) 

New character! This is the swordsmith in the grahic novel I'm workin on. He's an older japanese man (here inspecting Kahf's sword). Nice to have other folks to draw, and I'm really looking forward to Mikona (kindofa sausage fest so far). 

working to get the design of the webcomic page done. This would be a dedicated site to come see my life as a comic (it's getting more comical by the day) 

What a handsome baby! My little nephew :) 

We've got Nephew!

An 8 pound 6 oz bundle of boy named William Thomas Deutsch was born tonight! Congrats Tom, Kristi, and Lauren!

Trying to get some new work ready for a conference this weekend. This is the redux of the Day I Won the Zoo story I have. The first one didn't have the colors or the perspective I wanted, but I'm happy with this one. The plane will have my name and the space below is for the title. 

Aussie Slang

Though it's research, I'm having a blastie looking up Australian slang. It's mainly for Oz and Mr. Beardy who are Australian lizards in my graphic novel, but I can't help laughing at these I found:

Ankle biter : small child
Banana bender : a person from Queensland (Oz will be from Queensland)
Budgie smugglers : men's bathing costume (doubt I'll find use for this one)
Bushman's hanky : Emitting nasal mucus by placing one index finger on the outside of the nose (thus blocking one nostril) and blowing. (I call that a "Snot Rocket")
Chuck a sickie : take the day off sick from work when you're perfectly healthy (nice!)
Dead dingo's donger, as dry as a : dry (I mean, what the?!)
Dead horse : Tomato sauce (Mike would agree)
Figjam : "F*ck I'm good; just ask me". Nickname for people who have a high opinion of themselves. (ok, not for the kid's book, but it's funny)
Flat out like a lizard drinking : flat out, busy (interesting...)
Gyno : gynaecologist (that's for dad!)
Holy dooley! : an exclamation of surprise = "Good heavens!", "My goodness!" "Good grief!" or similar (that's just too cute, Oz'll have to say that from time to time!)
Liquid laugh : vomit (hahahahaha)
Mappa Tassie : map of Tasmania - a woman's pubic area (tell that to your patients, dad!)
Rack off : push off! get lost! get out of here! also "rack off hairy legs!".
Rip snorter : great, fantastic - "it was a rip snorter of a party"
Root (verb and noun) : synonym for f*ck in nearly all its senses: "I feel rooted"; "this washing machine is rooted"; "(s)he's a good root". A very useful word in fairly polite company. (Ok, it's inevitable that at some point the bearded dragon will go "Oh, for root's sake!")
Shark biscuit : somebody new to surfing
Spewin' : very angry
Stickybeak : nosy person
Technicolor yawn : vomit (I'm getting the feeling that Aussies drink and puke A LOT!)
Useful as an ashtray on a motorbike / tits on a bull : unhelpful or incompetent person or thing - "he, she or it is about as useful as tits on a bull" etc. etc.
White pointers : topless (female) sunbathers


Fun, eh?

this was fun :) 

Finished "Beauty Brew" and it was a fairly successful experiment where I converted a pencil drawing into black lines, printed, watercolored over the drawing with the lightbox, scanned in color, fit with digital drawing, then tweaked. All this to keep me from drawing it again, because I notice I lose something fresh when it's redrawn sometimes. *Note, that's my Tokay gecko on the cauldron, and there's a tongue acting as bookmark. I also like the black widows she's pouring into the potion, too. 

I've gone back and rethunk (that a word?) my website again. I actually looked through about a hundred illustrator's websites, and many of them made me shudder, but the ones I liked a lot had a simple set up. The white cards on top will have a preview image on them corresponding to their portfolios. I am going to take out the design stuff on the illustration site along with the newsletter (didn't have time for it anyway) and the sketchbook feature since my blog has sketches. I'm happier with this set up now. More to come... 

This is unusual, but it's Mike's Birthday Present. It's sort of an in joke, that to be honest, it's been so long, I started forgetting about it. Something about a conversation about the prefix "dura" and how I didn't know it could be used for other words like "duratruck" or "duralast" ect... I don't know who said dura-borse, but it was supposed to be a horse/bicycle combination. For several years Mike wanted me to draw his duraborse, so now, finally, here it is. :) 

Someone got a piggy bank and some moola from Nana and Pop! She's a cutie! 

Happy Birthday Lauren! My niece turned 3 on Monday! :) 

I may use this in Camp Lizard for endpages or something, but I really just did it for fun. Wish I could have sheets like this :) 

I got to design a logo for the division of blooming tree's graphic novel imprint. I like it, it was good to work on a logo again. The diamond pattern of lines is taken from the handle of a katana sword where the cloth is braided around. It's a subtle reference back to the sword.