February 26th, 2010
I am now up to page 3 of my still untitled webcomic. I didn’t make the 2nd page available when I finished it because I felt it was too dull on its own. Anyway, here’s a teaser panel from the newest one:
It has been a while since I put up that first page, so I strongly suggest readers start at the beginning of the story and read all three pages in sequence. I still don’t have a title or url for my comic, and I haven’t built a finished site yet. Come to think of it, none of my characters even have names yet! Well, one of them does, but I won’t spoil the surprise by mentioning it here. I still have a lot of work to do, so it looks like I am going to miss my March 1 launch date. It’s taking me about a week and a half to do each page from start to finish, and I’d like to launch with at least 5. I hope y’all like what I’ve done so far…
Posted in Artwork, Webcomic | No Comments »
February 14th, 2010
Here is the card I made Vanessa for Valentine’s Day this year:
In case it isn’t obvious, this is supposed to be a reference to the famous scene in the Disney movie, Lady and the Tramp. The gorillas were supposed to be nonchalantly looking away, just as they do in the movie right before they accidentally kiss. However, here it looks as though they are breaking fourth wall, anxiously waiting for the viewer to go away so they can eat their banana in peace. While this wasn’t what I was going for when I drew it, I think its kind of funny.
Here is the card Vanessa made for me:
Today is both Valentine’s Day and Chinese New Year, and CNY actually has special significance for the wife and I. We started dating on Chinese New Year 5 years ago. While the date of this holiday changes every year, we like to observe it as one of our anniversaries, along with the day we met, and our actual wedding. Vanessa did a pretty good job drawing the dragons, didn’t she? She is a biology instructor at MIT, and I always say that she’s way better at art than I am at biology!
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January 28th, 2010
For the past few years, I have been doing this 12-week fitness program through MIT, called Getfit. I’m on a “team” with Vanessa and 4 other of our friends. It’s really not supposed to be competitive, all it requires is that you keep track of all of the minutes you spend exercising each week. For me that is always a lot of minutes, but it doesn’t really matter too much. Anyway, each year they have a t-shirt design contest to come up with the shirt they’ll give out to all the participants. I entered last year, and did not even get nominated. This year, I am hoping to change that. Here is my entry:
So in case it is unclear, that is a fitness machine, along with two figures at “before and after” stages of the fitness process. I am actually really happy with it, and would wear this shirt even if I had no affiliation with Getfit. We’ll see how it goes. In addition to all the prestige that goes along with winning this competition, the winner also receives an iPod Touch. That would be a nice thing to get for free. Wish me luck!
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January 25th, 2010
Well, I finally finished the first page of my webcomic! See if you can figure out what’s going on from this single panel out of context:
I wonder if anyone has ever drawn a minotaur making that expression before. Anyway, it took months to come up with a story I really wanted to tell, but I have finally gotten the ball rolling. I actually took some elements from some of my story premises I posted here on the donkeyblog. I still need a title for the comic, a name for the url and I’ll still need to build a new site for it. I will be using a simple wordpress comic theme with some cusomizations. I have the first complete page posted at a temporary site here. Obviously this site is just a shell. At the moment, it only seems to work in Firefox, which is one of the things I need to work out before I actually launch. I also want to initially start with at least 5 pages, so my first readers have something to sink their teeth into. It took a couple of weeks to make this first page, but I was still finding my style and figuring out my process. I hope to be able to churn out 2-3 pages a week once I get going. Stay tuned!
Tags: minotaur, Webcomic
Posted in Artwork, Webcomic, story premises | 1 Comment »
January 10th, 2010
Now that I have a huge 12″ x 18″ scanner bed, it’s much easier for me to scan my artwork. Therefore, I can go back to showing works in progress without having to take crappy digital photos or composite scans. Here is the pencil sketch for my latest painting, The Jesus Turtle:
In an effort to save time, I was considering doing a mixed media piece instead of a full-on painting. I thought of just using graphite for the faces and arms, and then acrylic paint for the t-shirts. However, since I ended up buying gesso board instead of illustration board, I decided I should do it all with paint. For one thing, graphite does not work well on the solid surface. It’s like trying to write on plastic. Secondly, I figure since the gesso boards are 3 times as expensive as illustration boards, I might as well use the medium for which it was intended. So now, with all the other stuff I have to do these days, I am not expecting to finish this before February. But at least I’ll get to show y’all updates as I go along! Incidentally, The Jesus Turtle T-shirt is our Shirt of the Week, and is on sale for $13.99 through Sunday, 1/17/10.
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January 5th, 2010
I’ve always considered the prices at Donkeyshines to be fair, reflecting the cost of the high quality blanks I use. Part of the reason costs are so relatively high is that I print small runs of about 100 shirts at a time, as this is all I can really afford. $24.99 for silky soft, environmentally nice bamboo/organic cotton blend is pretty reasonable, as is $19.99 for soft, fashion-forward cotton shirts. When all costs were considered, I wasn’t even making 50% profit on these as it was. And if these prices were too high for people, I always had a Shirt of the Week for $16.99, and regularly offered high % -off coupons. However, towards the end of last year, I found a new cotton fashion blank that is about 25% cheaper than the ones I had previously been using. This will allow me to perminently lower prices on all my shirts from now on. Even though the prices of the bamboo blanks haven’t come down, I can lower the selling price of these because of the money I am saving on the cotton shirts! So from now on, The cotton shirts are going to sell for $16.99 and the bamboo shirts will sell for $19.99. By the way, the new cotton blanks I’m using are from Next Level Apparel, and they are not only less expensive than the ones I was previously using, but they’re softer and fit better as well. I’m so excited about the new shirts, that I have already put in an order for my latest design:
Look for brand-new Dino Volleyball shirts by the end of this month! Also, in 2010, look to see some classic designs like Donkey Pegasus and Gorilla Duck graduate from cotton to bamboo!
Tags: Dino volleyball, dinosaur, low prices
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December 29th, 2009
So here’s the X-mas card my wife made for me this year:
Sadly we didn’t get to spend the holidays together, as she is in Pittsburgh with her family, and I spent X-mas with mine in Latham, NY. Ideally, I would join her in Pit for New Years, but this year I have a Kaiju show. Which, I guess, is why she made this card. While Kaiju is not quite professional wrestling, we have been known to use those same scary props that the big boys do. Early on, I promised Vanessa that I personally would never use ladders, chairs or tables, and for the most part I’ve kept this promise. I’ve been involved in tables matches, but wasn’t the one going through the table. My involvement in ladder matches has also been limited. In one match, I carried the latter to the ring, and in another, I was on the ground when someone else fell from a ladder after being smashed over the head with a florescent light bulb. The glass did fly towards my face, but I swatted it away even though I was supposed to be “unconscious”. By the way, I am the Plantain in the picture, and actually have used a chainsaw, a trash can, and a slice of pizza as weapons in past matches, and have been clobbered by giant foam mallets in others. Due to fire code restrictions, we weren’t allowed to actually start the chainsaw because of the gasoline and smoke involved. That was disappointing at the time, but in the end, it made things much easier. Also, the pizza wasn’t real either. It was made of foam. I hope I didn’t ruin the Kaiju experience by exposing all these secrets. Seeing “The Wrestler” actually increased my interest in professional wrestling, so I’m hoping this blog post has the same effect. Kaiju really is fun, and anyone who is planning on spending New Year’s Eve in Boston should come to the show. It will be part of First Night, and will take place at Hynes Convention Center in Exhibit Hall A at 9:30PM.
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December 20th, 2009
I started this painting back in September because PS Print was having a sale on greeting card printing, but then I realized even with the discount, it wasn’t going to be cost-effective to print and sell them for the low price that I would want to. I also wasn’t sure how well it would sell at Donkeyshines since there were no animals in it, and it wasn’t all that interesting or funny of a concept. I ended up finishing the painting, though, because I had fun painting the ice. I printed up a few cards which I’m sending to family members, although they probably won’t get them before X-mas. I just finished this on Friday and the cards won’t go out until Monday. Next up is the painting for the Jesus Turtle, and then the Donkey Pegasus Hat.
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December 10th, 2009
Here are those story premises I told you about in the title of this post:
- An eccentric billionaire inventor makes jet packs for the consumer market. The problem is, they must be powered by human blood. Lots of it.
- Jerry Dolans, a.k.a Agent Jackknife, was the best spy in the biz. His Turret’s affliction was never an issue until one day it directly led to the death of his contact in Geneva. Because of his high standing with the president, Jerry is given clearance to try an experimental (and highly classified) treatment for his disease. Unfortunately the treatment actually worsens his condition. However, there is a happy side effect, as his extra swearing outbursts turns him into the ultimate stand-up comedian. His career takes off quickly, but he soon runs into trouble when he starts doing jokes about his old spy days. With his former employers out to kill him, he enlists the help of a small band of Facebook fans to protect him and help get his story out.
- Officials in a small Georgia town pass a law which makes obesity mandatory. The track stars of the local high school organize a major protest in front of town hall. When the mayor dies of an obesity-related heart attack, the track team is charged with murder. With their due process rights being ignored, they are forced to plan an escape from the jail house before what is guaranteed to be a sham of a trial. The townspeople are demanding the death penalty, and the judge is up for re-election.
- A celebrity chef must go into hiding after a series of ridiculously unlikely and unrelated coincidences cause the deaths of every single person eating at his restaurant one night. After a few months pass, the restaurant is abandoned and condemned. The chef then moves into the boarded up building and pretends to be a ghost to frighten off curious trespassers. However, it turns out the place really IS haunted- by the ghosts of all the people who died that fateful night. Fortunately, they’re all idiots and can’t see through the chef’s disguise.
- A kung-fu instructor has some explaining to do when is beaten up by two 10-yr old boys at a beach.
Tags: story premises
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November 25th, 2009
It took a bit longer than usual, but the Jesus Turtle is now available at the low introductory price of $16.99!
It’s printed on super-soft Next Level Apparel shirts, which I actually like much more than any other 100% cotton tees I’ve tried. All of their styles are side-seemed and they are roomier and less tight. Much easier to breathe, and it doesn’t cut off arm circulation like some other fashion shirts out there!
In addition to the new T-shirt, I am once again selling Holiday Cards, at a reduced price of $15.98 for a 10-pack.
Also, from now until the end of the year, you can get 40% of of EVERYTHING in the store with coupon code: donkey40. So come to Donkeyshines and do some X-mas shopping!
Tags: Holiday Cards, Jesue Turtle
Posted in Donkeyshines Announcements | No Comments »
