It's Snorffle-riffic Friday!

When it rains, it pours! I will be doing a proper update on Kickstarter shortly, but for now I wanted to share the bevy of rewards and book progress that has all come to a head in the last few days! This is the fun part of working on a lot of things at once; it pays off all at once too!

First of all, I received the advanced copy of the book in the mail today! I can tell you, it will be worth the wait. The colors are vibrant, the paper stock is nice and thick and it's just a joy to be holding it in my hands. 

This copy will be on display at APE in a few weeks, should you like to hold it in your hands whilst considering throwing down for a pre-sale at the show. Shipping will be free, and you can take your exclusive tiger print home with you that day. Just sayin'.  If you've already supported us via Kickstarter and have a book ordered, then please stop by our table if you can. You can pick up all of your other Kickstarter swag, including the Totes Mah Goats tote! 

Did I mention I have a metric crap-ton of greeting cards debuting at APE too? 5'' x 7'' this time! I am waiting on a few more designs to come back from the printer, then they will be assembled into assorted theme packs (Ocean Life, Pocket Pets and For the Birds). I will have cards for sale individually at APE as well, not sure about selling singles online just yet. Flat rate shipping makes it kind of pointless. 

Things are starting to come together, despite the bumps in the road. I am really excited to be putting all of these goodies into the hands of wonderful people. I am sure I will have another update very soon - I still have to show you guys the ferret pillows, the stickers, and maybe a new piece or two!

You Are Who You Choose To Be.

So  much has happened since my last update! First off, here are less than stellar photos of my piece for The Iron Giant Mini Tribute at A Little Known Shop in Anaheim! Show is September 13th and ONE NIGHT ONLY! 

Housed in a 16” x 4” x 4” case, I cut out archival quality inkjet prints of a piece I originally painted digitally and arranged them carefully among circuits and wires. My lovely partner Rez designed the circuit board for me so that the blue bulb on the bolt blinks! I wish I had a gif :( 

Anyway, I learned a ton about circuits and soldering and how not to breath in fumes from molten lead. I’ve never had the patience for the elaborate, gorgeous paper cuts that I see at shows, so I decided to keep the paper elements simple and let the LEDs be the “wow” factor here :)

Also, we have been confirmed for a table at APE 2014! It's at a new venue, one of my favorites in the area actually, so I am very excited about this fresh start. Here is where you can find Jeannine and I - an EASY walk-in from the entrance!

Now for some less than happy news. At the moment there have been some snags with Snorffles & Meeps! Vol. 3. The books are still being made and everyone who pledged the proper amounts during the kickstarter will still get their copies, albeit a little later than anticipated, so it's nothing catastrophic. The worst that is going to happen is that we are missing our initial shipping deadline, which was in the beginning of October - unfortunately this is out of our control as the factory we are using to make these books has slipped the deadline and we can't recover the lost time. We are rather unhappy about that, but since neither Jeannine nor I have perfected time travel, we gotta deal.

In addition to setting back the book's ship date by a few weeks, this means we will not have copies to sell in-person at APE this year. This is the toughest blow for us, since it would have saved us shipping costs to be able to give these to kickstarter pledgers locally and also have given us a chance to reach a wider audience at the show. Not to mention we were looking forward to seeing people react to the book in-person! Having books at APE was the primary reason why we set our initial shipping deadline in early October, however, we will be offering pre-sales for the book on-site at APE, with free shipping, and you can take home a 5'' x 7'' signed tiger print when you pay for the pre-order in full. All of our kickstarter goodies, such as the tote bags, the cards, pillows and pins are on schedule to be ready before October, so we can also give out those goodies in-person to pledgers.

Finally, one way or another, we will have a sample copy of the book at our table for people to look through. We may be able to have an advance copy of the book straight from the factory, or we will mock something up via a made-to-order site.

When life gives you lemons, you make Snorffles. And Meeps.

Some progressively cooler palettes for some of my favorites from the book! Can you hear the sound of the candle burning at both ends? I can!

Getting my forest vibe on with some California Quails and White Tailed Deer!

Channeling my love for The Lion King on this one ;) 

And channeling my... well, I don't exactly love musk ox, but I don't not love them, but they do make for really good parents of the animal kingdom. 

And now a dose of color to balance out the palette of those musk ox.

Oh man, where do I even start? The kickstarter ended on Friday and all of my expectations were surpassed - we are not only funded but we passed our goal by $3000! As soon as the Totes McGoats stretch goal was revealed, everyone just knuckled down and got us there and beyond. Thank you all so, so much.

Here are some more additions of mine to the book: 

Our work is far from over. We have to finish the artwork and layout for the book, print hundreds of prints for the rewards, make a ton of pillows and paintings and order up the totes and cards and pins and all the things. Kickstarters are work, you guys. WORK! But so worth it in the end!

You'll be hearing from me again soon :)

So there's been big news over the weekend! Jeannine and I launched the kickstarter campaign for Snorffles n' Meeps! Volume 3 and we're so excited to show you what's in store and all of the rewards for backers!

The campaign has been very successful so far - we're just shy of halfway to our funding goal after only 3 days! We are so grateful to everyone who stepped up to pledge or shared the campaign to spread the word. We've gotten so much support, which is terribly reassuring when you spend hours and hours on something in which you have no idea if people will even want to see, let alone enjoy. Every pledge, share and reblog has helped replenish our energy and motivation and we're going to post brand new art as we reach various funding milestones.

But for now, I leave you with some African elephants, our exclusive tiger print (you only get it with the book purchase!) and good wishes for your week. Please spread the word about the kickstarter - this is the hardest part of the campaign! We promise to keep it fresh with new artwork and will give you something worth talking about :)

This week was all about ranchu goldfish, rockhopper penguins and a sneaky little ringtail lemur (with a side of kuhli loaches!) I am going to be caught up for the next week or so with work and last-minute preparations for something big, so keep an eye on here for the announcement. It might have something to do with all of the animal art I keep tossing up here >:)

Ferrets, Pillows, Procrastination!

Whoah, that was a long, unplanned hiatus from this blog! A lot happened in the last bunch of weeks, ranging from bursts of work, a couple of medical scares and a convention here and there. Things are back to being steady for the time being, so I am hoping to be more productive again. 

One of the new things I've been up to is making pillows from my artwork! It started with a prototype of the little sweater ferret and so far the reception has been great!

I decided to do a pre-sale for 10 pillows, since there was enough demand. At the time of this writing we're down to 8 left! You can grab one here if you like!

I'm still drawing, I swear. I will be getting back in the saddle with more animal illustrations for the book, possibly meaning some new prints for the art sale at NightLife on the 15th. Locals, come on down! I might have a few pillows left to sell in-person too!

See you in a bit, most likely with some lemurs. Finally. 

Ferrets! Ferrets for the book! Because I promised ferrets! :D

Three weeks from today I will be setting up shop in Seattle! Whereabouts, you say? 

EXACTLY HERE!

Jeannine and I are doubling up on a fancy booth to sell our book, prints and new prints from our upcoming book. I will also bust my butt to get some gouache stuff done so that I can be one of the cool kids and get some originals out there! 

I also drew some manatees last night. I've never had the honor to meet one in-person, but I would like to some day. We seem like we have a lot in common, including but not limited to an aversion to exercise and a chronic algae problem. Well, maybe not the algae part.

Now sea here, you otter visit this kelp forest! Special guest appearance by Lenny the spiny lumpsucker!

Does anyone think oarfish are as awesome as I do? Sad that we really haven't seen any living ones up close, but it's also kind of cool that they're still so mysterious. Another illustration for the book! :)

There's some color tweaking to do, but for now, I present the first illustration of this year's art book. Nothing like a friggin' neon Habitrail to break compositional walls.

 Yay hamsters!

Oh my gosh, have I not updated the blog this year? I am sorry. I am a dufus.

This year marks a turn in my career path, as I am back to being self-employed and buffing up the portfolio in between gigs. It's a scary time right now but I really just can't keep up momentum with working in games these days. I need a change and we'll see what some focused, hard work can bring with that.

But why be bogged down with stuff like that when I have a couple of new personal pieces to show?

Shaking off some of the rust with a Siberian Flying Squirrel study! I was hoping to do a full illustration tonight but I just ran out of steam, so this will have to do for now. I am sure I will get more momentum once I start doing daily animal studies again.

This is a bare-eyed cockatoo Fledgie, the first of two for a customer. Things have been busy these last few weeks but I hope to get the second one done soon!

There's going to be a lot of stuff happening between now and March, so thank you for bearing with me! There are some biggish announcements coming up but it's a little too early to go into specifics. I can say that I will be at ECCC at the end of March (on my birthday, no less!) so if you're up that way please say hi! I should know my booth placement in the next week or so and will post that up here as soon as I get news!