Back to work!

Here's a pic of us in Ashland as we toasted hopeful accomplishments for the coming months.

We zipped off to Ashland late last week for a pre-planned little getaway for some theatre, some sight-seeing, and (duh!) some romance.

Also, we find that long car rides work fantastically for collaborating on little stories and plots that we work on as side projects (after, of course, Laini's mandatory immediate car nap as I exit the driveway of our home). Long rides helped us hammer out our collaborative graphic novel THE DROWNED (www.thedrowned.net) as well as a few other things that are temporarily shelved until we can find the time to work on them. This ride was very helpful to me, in that I have written a plot and about 30+ pages of a story that I want to partially illustrate and eventually try to publish, but there were/are some story details that needed work. So, Laini and I talked out the plot and I THINK some new ideas were introduced that will allow me to get to the "meat" of the story a bit more quickly and compellingly. No details on it yet as it's going to be a loooong time in the making.

Anyhow, we saw "The Importance of Being Ernest," a play I knew just a little bit about when I bought the tix a few weeks ago (given as a Valentine's gift at dinner) but I knew enough about Oscar Wilde to know that it would be a fun production -- and it was! The acting, costumes, and sets were fantastic, by far the best play I've seen. (Okay, so I've only seen about a dozen plays or so, but I think this one will hold up for quite a while). Anyhow, I highly recommend Ashland and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for anyone able to attend it. We're DEFINITELY going back this summer for an actual tale by the Bard in their outdoor theater (that theater doesn't open until June but the other 2 theaters have plays year-round!).

So, for some actual pix of Ashland and it's nearby old mining town neighbor Jacksonville, go to Laini's blog entry from the trip. But for weird, potentially blackmail-worthy pix of me that could definitely be used against me if I ever vie for political office, look no further:





Now, as the title suggests, I've got to get back to work! In brief, I'm currently working for one of my favorite clients, White Wolf Publishing. I've done illustrations for about a dozen of their books and I did some RPG (Role Playing Game) cards for them a year or more ago. Anyhow, they're fantastic to work for and I'm glad that I've been tapped to do some more work for them. Currently I'm doing 5 paintings for their "VTES" (Vampire The Eternal Struggle) RPG set and it's loads of fun. With these I'm trying to go for more subtle portrait-like scenes for the 5 characters I've been hired to portray. Going too far over the top with some of the imagery could push the corny-factor a bit too much and I wanted them to be more subtley creepy. I'll post some eventually once I finish, but for now there's work to be done! :)

Jim

Tagged by my dear friend

Finding myself tagged yet again, this time by my EXTREMELY dear friend Alexandra (and knowing the seriousness of ignoring such a calling!), I copied and pasted her questions below. I tried and tried to answer them meaningfully and thought-provokingly.

However, each time I got to the "kitchen quote" question and the "flower" question, my male DNA kicked in and I couldn't find my feminine side long enough to answer with any sort of emotional depth. So, I backtracked and answered as the smart-ass that I can certainly sometimes find myself being.

(P.S. - love ya Alexandra! :)

HERE ARE THE QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:

What were three things when you were little you wanted to be when you grew up?

Older
Taller
Happy


You can live one day over again from your childhood. What day will it be?

The day I invented "The Slinky."


You have two minutes (and a mover with you if you need heavy lifting help!) to grab 5 things from your home before it morphs into a polka dotted hobgblin and hops away. What will you take? (Food/drink/family/friends excluded!)

All of the photos of myself
My mirror
My trophy collection
My hairbrush
Pictures of myself with my photos, mirror, trophy collection, and hairbrush.


You have to paint one quote on your kitchen wall. Whats it going to be?

"Are you going to finish that?"


What is one thing you want to have accomplished by the end of this year?

Finishing my book "The Slinky Memoirs."


You are moving to the moon for one year and can only bring one flower with you. What kind will you bring?

A magic flower that makes oxygen.


You just received word that aside from one flower, you can also bring five books with you too! Your choices?

1) "How to Build a Spacecraft in Zero Gravity with No Parts: FOR DUMMIES"
2) "How to Build a Teleporter: FOR DUMMIES"
3) "How to Survive without Food on the Moon: FOR DUMMIES"
4) "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey (to see what all the fuss is about)
5) "The 5 Books to Bring With You to The Moon: FOR DUMMIES"



(Alexandra's blog can be found at my link entitled "marvelous madness")

Tagged

Well, my wife's first post just went up and what did she do? That's right, she gave me homework! Drat. But at least it'll get me to finally do a new post, so I forgive her :)

And, since she posted a self-portrait of herself I'll post one of me even though it's a few years old now:



Anyhow, there's this thing called "Tagging" other bloggers that I wasn't aware of until just now, and that's my homework, so here it goes:

Four jobs I've held:
Karate instructor
Auto Insurance Claims Adjuster (ugh...painful to remember)
Bartender
Freelance Illustrator (YAY!)

Four movies I HAVE watched over & over:
Amelie
So I Married an Axe Murderer
The Matrix
tie: Die Hard and Lord of the Rings (trilogy)

Four places I've lived:
Santa Cruz
Turlock, CA (ugh)
Oakland
Portland, OR

Four (or more) TV shows I've watched (and freaking love):
Arrested Development
Firefly, Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Office (British & American versions)
24
The Wire
The Shield
Spaced

Four places I've vacationed:
Italy (twice)
Bulgaria
Turkey
Prague

Four of my favorite dishes:
Chicken anything
Butternut Squash fries
Pizza
Pie

Four Sites I visit daily:
www.salon.com
www.marvelousmadness.blogspot.com
www.netflix.com
www.imagecomics.com

Four places I'd rather be:
In my future villa on the Amalfi Coast (with my wife)
driving around France (with my wife)
at the comic book store or music store (without my wife because she hates both)
tie: writing in a coffee shop with my wife OR at the movies with my wife

This is the place where I'd then "tag" someone else, but, since I'd like to tag Alexandra (www.marvelousmadness.blogspot.com) and she's already tagged herself, then I'll hold my tagging someone else for now and use it wisely for someone in the future. So, beware, you could be next...

My First Digital Painting (1-hour practice piece)

In the past 12 months I've been trying to teach myself more and more computer-specific skills, some out of necessity, some out of pure interest. I've learned how to color artwork in the traditional comic book way (which involves flatting/color separating and rendering, etc.), and some basic web design. Now I'm going to try and learn how to paint digitally -- we'll see how it goes amidst trying to get other things done (I know I'm not the only one who wishes the days were WAY longer -- ah, to be able to get MUCH more done every day ... sigh...). Anyhow, I will often do a "warm-up" drawing of something before I start working on anything else, just to get my creative blood flowing and it often works as a boost too (depending, of course, on how the piece turns out!). So, yesterday I drew this 9 x 12 drawing (approximately 15 or 20 minutes):


Then, after reading up on a few tutorials online (which were basically building on what I've learned about digital coloring from my work on Rex Mundi this past year) I decided later in the day to practice digital painting for the first time using yesterday's drawing. I mostly tried to treat it as a very loose, very NON-precious practice piece, not zooming in at all until the very last pass or two.
So, while I know it's not some major achievement, I am pretty psyched to do some more experimenting with digital painting. Here's the piece again after "painting" it for about 30 or 40 minutes:

Website Up and Running!

Well, it took about 3 years but I finally updated my site! Actually, as I'd said in my last post, it's not as simple as that. In that time, the (very cool) guy who had set up my site is no longer doing web design that I know of, AND (mainly) I wanted to learn how to do it myself so as to not have to pester someone else to do things exactly the way I wanted them. So, while it's a pretty basic design (no Flash required), I'm still pretty darn happy with it. Check it out here: www.jimdibartolo.com

Website update a'comin'

Reality is unfolding around us (!EEK!), as I've learned enough web design to get my wife's new website up and running (www.lainitaylor.com) and mine all completed and ready to upload! I'm only waiting on the &%$# grace/waiting period needed for transferring domain names from one company to another and then it's ON BABY! If I seem overly excited, it's because Laini and I have been wanting to know how to maintain/update/redesign our own websites since before we ever got our first sites up and running. To now have the god-like power to do our own updates without having to pester someone else to do things "just so" is a freaking dream-come-true.

For those who care, we've had the ability to design our own sites for more than a few years now (knowing enough about Photoshop to lay things out) but to actually do anything webby with the designs, well, we just couldn't devote the time (or so we thought!). For the time being, our new designs use a lot of white space and simplicity. This is mostly because we sometimes get frustrated trying to load sites that try to be too clever. I don't want to bag on sites like that too much however because there may come a time when we want to be a bit eccentric ourselves, so... :)

Soon I'll write about my December solo art show and link to some of the pieces on my site that I had up and some that sold.

Cheers and a belated Happy New Year!

A Sequential Sample

Here's a sample page from the aforementioned comic book REX MUNDI. For those who might be reading this and not be familiar with it, it's a fantastic tale written by my now friend Arvid Nelson. He describes it in a nutshell as "A quest for the Holy Grail, told as a murder mystery." It takes place in an alternate history 1930's France and will ultimately be a finite story concluding in 35 issues (again, issue 15 -- done by ME! :) -- just came out last week). The new artist on it will do a fantastic job, and if you're interested in the comic, check out www.rexmundi.net for more info.

I've spent the first half of my day finishing up a 20"x30" drawing that has a bit of watercolor on it that I'm doing for a local art show at the restaurant I work at. I plan on having about 10 pieces hanging for my show and hope to make some holiday money by selling a few. Last time I hung some art there I sold 8 pieces, so wish me luck! (hello? Is anybody out there? Hmm -- If a person blogs and no one reads it... :) Once I get my computer/scanner issues resolved (don't ask) I'll post this and other pieces--fun stuff (imho).

Jim

Some whimsy and a ramble

This is a mixed media painting (watercolors and oils) I did as a personal piece for my portfolio. Shortly thereafter an editor from Paizo Publishing contacted me and asked if she could show this painting (and several other artist's paintings) to "a writer" to see if "he" wanted to write a VERY short story using the art he chose as inspiration. When the editor phoned to tell me that my piece had been chosen, I was flattered. During the conversation though, she informed me that the writer was Harlan Ellison AND that Neil Gaiman was going to write an introduction! My jaw dropped and I could hardly believe it!

However, neither fame nor fortune have followed, but it's still a pretty good story when I tell it to people who know who either of them are! If they don't, well, then it's actually NOT that great of a story I guess ... :)

Welcome!

Greetings world! Get ready! ...

... although nothing may happen here for a while... :)

Jim