-
The Code Orange Blues
Ah, June. The official start of Halloween decor hunting season, at least in recent years. I am a Halloween ghoulie through and through, but admit I’m unsettled? exhausted? by the holiday creep. (Halloween stuff going out in June, Christmas stuff coming out as early as July?!?!?) And I’m saying this as someone who loves seeing Halloween stuff all year round!
What really frustrates me is the focus on and rush to buy things from the big box stores as soon as they start putting out pumpkins and skeletons.
I know I’m not alone in this frustration, and thankfully a lot of the spooky and Halloween focused creators I follow have stepped back from this. I appreciate their support of small and local businesses and artists, on thrifting and searching out preloved items. I also appreciate when they take the time to ensure their audiences that you don’t need to run out and buy the latest holy grail item.
What I really crave, though, is handmade Halloween, and I can’t seem to get enough of it. It’s not that I don’t see anyone doing crafts or making their own decorations—home haunters, for one, rule and do incredible work. I just wish it was more the norm over shopping trips and hauls. Am I just looking in the wrong places? Give me all your homemade sheet ghost costumes, your papier-mache masks, your creepy baked goods! I want to see what paper decorations people are sticking up in their windows. I wanna see more scarecrows and homemade props. I want to see Halloween party spreads!
That’s why I want to put my focus into making things, and sharing what I make. Be the spooky crafter you want to see in the world and all that. Plus making things is fun and you end up with unique pieces. And, I mean, I’m still watching all those Halloween hunting Code Orange videos. Taking notes, even! Seeing what’s out there and getting some ideas for stuff to make out of clay and trash.
I’m not immune from the retail bug, either. I’ve bought craft kits and the occasional clearance decor, and I love finding things second hand. But I can safely say that after getting a peek of what’s on offer from Michael or Joann…I have no plans to run out and buy any of it. There are other (imho) more satisfying ways of getting that Halloween fix. Hell, there’s so many great podcasts whose whole thing is Halloween and spooky stuff. I can brew myself some pumpkin spice chai and drink it out of my cauldron mug ANY TIME OF YEAR! Nobody can stop me! There’s books and movies that can scratch the itch, and yes, Halloween hunting videos.
I think the raddest part for me is that I can enjoy all (or at least most) of that from my little craft table with my messy little hands making messy little guys.
-
Sanding by
Hey, kids, wanna read about something fun? Well, too bad! This post is about sanding!
One thing you’ll notice if you hang around long enough is I’m a bit of a hobby hopper. One month it’s macramé, the next it’s embroidery. And don’t get me wrong, I absolutely intend to return to these eventually. But the current thing I’m stuck on is making little air dry clay trinkets. I’ve experimented with some templates, made some pins and magnets, and I’d like to make some charms for jewelry.
The most fun parts (for me) are creating the templates (or selecting shape cutters) and painting the pieces. The most necessary part, of course, is forming the clay. The part I’d like to argue isn’t necessary but sure does make for a better surface is sanding. It’s a very messy process, and one I have trouble just sitting down and sitting still to finish. My process is basically thus:
- Get all the dried clay pieces arranged
- Realize I don’t have any sandpaper and instead dig out an old emery board from the depths of the medicine cabinet
- Sand one or two pieces, all while keeping Olive (my dear sweet cat) from jumping up into my workspace and knocking things around
- Decide I’ve had enough of this for the last five minutes
- Pour the collected clay dust into an empty bottle to reconstitute or turn into slip later
- WASH HANDS WASH HANDS UGH DUST DUST DUST
- Wander off and do something else for, oh, an hour or so
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
But, I mean. I can’t argue with the results.
Before:
After:
Still some divots, but that allows for the handmade look I like.
Before:
After:
Well, would you look at that!
Got a handful more of these to go, and then I get to paint them all! (My favorite part!!!!) And then I get to decide which I want to make into pins, which I want to make into magnets, and which I’ll try something new with.
-
Recalibrating…
Wowie, it’s been a while! But with the current state of social media, I’ve found myself wanting to focus more on my personal site and blog. I want to use this space as the dumping ground for my projects and thoughts. Like old times, I suppose?
I haven’t put much focus into my writing for some time. Blythe vs. the Werewolf has been on hold for what, two years now? I’ve decided to take it down for the time being, allow myself to actually finish a better version of it before I share it.
As for what I plan to post here on the regular, I’ll be throwing some things at the wall. See what I’m able to keep up with, figure out what kinds of things I enjoy talking about. I want this to be fun for me again, and things may be a bit wonky while I figure it out.
So…let’s give it a go!
-
Losing Track & Getting It Back
First thing’s first, I have to announce that Blythe vs. the Werewolf’s update schedule has changed from “every other month” to ”when it’s good and ready.”
When I first started posting it, of course I worried I’d have to do this eventually. But life happens, and all you can do is adjust! And it isn’t even bad life stuff! I’d picked up more hours at work for the summer, and I just haven’t been able to work on BvtW as much as before. My hours will change again at the end of the month, so we’ll see what happens with that, but I’d rather take a more relaxed pace and make the story better for it than half ass the whole thing just to get it out.
That’s been my struggle for the last few years, I think, is bouncing between ”take time and do it right!” and ”just get it out there!” I haven’t quite struck the balance between the two. ”Perfect is the enemy of done,” yes, but I’m not striving for perfection. This is a hobby, a passion project, and I guess I at least want to be able to impress myself. When all is said and done, I want to be able to look at this thing, flaws and all, and think, ”Wow! Hey! I made that! Cool!”
I don’t have an estimate for when the next part will go up. I may decide to start posting a scene at a time rather than on a part by part basis. (Which is what I want to start doing over on pillowfort probably, once there’s enough to post at regular intervals for a while.) It’ll depend on how progress goes on it in the coming months.
I’ll try to get better about more regular updates, but I can’t make any promises right now.
-
2022 Yearly Redraw & 2021 Reflections
Happy 2022! I know, we’re already a month into it. I started my year off with the ‘rona, but I’m fully recovered and have been working on Blythe vs. the Werewolf in the meantime. More on that later, but first, my 2022 portrait for the yearly redraw challenge:
Yearly Redraw 2022 edition
(I’ve actually had this finished for a few weeks now, but shhh) This year I wanted to go for a simpler look instead of the more painterly approach I took last year. I’m working with black, white, and grays for the BvtW illustrations, and I wanted to do the same sort of style for this year’s redraw while I’m in that mode.
I kept the birch tree theme from last year, and will probably keep it for future redraws. They’re my favorite tree, and a lot of the symbolism behind them is important to me.
Here are the previous versions I’ve done for this redraw challenge:
[2021 Redraw] 
[2020 Original Sketch] Reflections on 2021
2021 didn’t bear as much fruit as I’d hoped at the beginning of the year. I had declared it my “year of finishing things”, but that didn’t quite pan out. I wasn’t able to complete anything to the point where I could share it.
I started the year with a very structured writing and revision schedule, but that fell off real fast. Trying to keep a detailed record of every instance that I worked on something and how many words or how much time I spent tripped me up way more than it ever helped.
Earlier this year, I accepted that tracking word count was holding me back. It took me a bit longer to realize that tracking my time spent writing and revising caused me the same issues. I’d get so caught up in making sure I had whatever tracker or spreadsheet or checklist ready to go, in HAVING to track everything, that I’d be too frazzled to actually work on anything. Drawing took a backseat altogether, first to generating words, and then to recording my writing time. It just wasn’t working! So I nixed the trackers.
My new approach has been taking separate tasks within a project (drafting, revisions on a scene by scene basis, thumbnails, illustrations, etc), and treating those as my milestones. No goals based on word count or time spent.
I feel a lot freer, more relaxed. Like I’ve gotten more actual work done since. I’ve made progress, even if I didn’t finish anything to the point where I could post it last year.
SO! What did I make progress on in 2021?
- Some character and setting design for Strange Company
- Some character design for Blythe vs. the Werewolf
- Finished the first draft of the Blythe vs. the Werewolf script
- Converted that into prose
- Divided the BvtW draft into five installments
- Revised the first installment of BvtW
- Began illustrations for BvtW’s first scene
We’ll see how ambitious I’m feeling this time next year, but in 2022, I just want to focus on one or two projects at a time. Basically, my energy will go into completing (and posting!) Blythe vs. the Werewolf and getting the next thing off the ground soon after.
Speaking of!
Blythe vs. the Werewolf update
You may have noticed a new addition to the main page, including a projected start date for BvtW! The remaining illustrations for the first installment are currently underway, and I’ve only got a few small revisions and tweaks left on the draft before it’s ready to go.
If all goes according to plan, expect the first scene of Installment 1 on March 5th. I’m posting it on its own since it acts as a prologue of sorts. I’ll follow that up with the remainder of Installment 1 on March 26th. All following updates will go up on the last Saturday of every month.
I’m pretty stoked and also nervous about finally putting Blythe vs. the Werewolf out there for people to read. But mostly stoked.
Comics
More Comics: