Drawing Every Damn Day

Drawing every day isn’t always easy. Seems easy. Just draw. Stuff can get in the way. You’re tired. You’re busy. You’re sick. I get it.

I used to draw every day. For years. Decades, even. There a few years, back in the early 10s where I almost did 200 pages a year. I slowed down, as stuff happened.

My daughter was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and we spent a lot of time in Children’s Hospital for a good 6 years. Still, I drew, if not every day, most days.

Then, the Car accident happened and I lost a lot of mobility and strength in both hands, most in my drawing hand. Months of physical therapy and I taught my hand to draw again. Since then, I’ve had fits and starts. I deal with pain and arthritis from the injury, and PTSD from the roll-over crash.

But, ironically, the best medicine, for my mental health is drawing. Without art, I become depressed, anxious and miserable. So, I fight through it. I fight through the pain, the doubt, the self loathing, the fear and the desperation, because I know art is my salvation.

I usually, these days, draw digitally. I miss the tactile feel of pen and pencil on paper, so I’m doing a lot more sketching and doing stories on paper to mix it up. Drawing is drawing.

Draw or die is a very real thing. Researchers discovered that people who engaged in artistic activities, such as painting, drawing and sculpting, in both middle and old age were 73% less likely to have memory and thinking problems, such as mild cognitive Impairment, that lead to dementia.

Right now I am in a stretch of about a month and a half of drawing every day. It feels so good!

I know I’ll go through bouts of doubt and art block. I’ll fight through it and draw.

Draw Together 3

On Tuesday, we had the 3rd Draw or Die Draw Together in Pittsburgh.

It was loads of fun and got to chat, draw and hang out with friends, new and old. Great fun, inspiring and very motivating!

Of you’re not already subscribed to Draw or Die, head over and do so for inspiration, drawing prompts and more from DJ Coffman!

https://drawordie.co/

New Stuff is On the Way

I’ve been working on new pages and fleshing out story ideas. A lot of my time, recently has been spent working on a commission story. This has been financially helpful, as well as a good kick in my creativity! I haven’t felt this good about art and art making since before the car accident that ruined my drawing thumb. I’m so excited!

The plan is to work on the commission AND my comic at the same time. Now that I’ve unstuck myself, should be doable!

I have been working out some kinks in the two current stories, buy sketching them out in my sketchbook. God, I missed sketchbooking. So, more of sketchbooking to come, as well. Helps me think out loud.

I should have a new page of “Barcrawl” out this week. Above are what I’ve been drawing in the last few days!

Phineus Animatic test

Did this a while back. Still want to animate a Phineus trailer at some point and actually use the animation part of my B.S. Degree.

Anniversary

Its a major anniversay! Now, I do celebrate two, there’s the one of the creation of my first issue (1991- we’re at 32 for that), but this is for the start of it all and the creation of Phineus and Sara, themselves. And the creation of my studio, Piffle Productions, my own personal studio moniker.

The characters were created my senior year of high school. Little did i know that these two would still be kicking around 36 years later. Ill be posting more sketches from my old sketchbooks and posting the original first takes on the characters in story form on my Patreon page.

I meant to be doing all this much earlier this year, but better late than never.

Holidaze

Work and the holidays have overwhelmed me, sorry for the lack of art. Been too busy to art! I hate that. Happy holidays and I’ll see you soon with new stuff! #100daysofcomics #drawordieclub

Main Site Fixed!

After a long, long week of my main site issues, my host escalated the problem and got it all fixed up. They ended up changing the url and screwing up my image links. All fixed, now.

Because of all this, i spent way too much time fixing what i could on this main site, but also preparing my backup WordPress site, just in case they couldn’t fix it.

Now, with that all out of the way, i can get back to drawing! Sorry for the delay!

Sites

Ok. They got most if the main site back up, still a few things to tweak, but this managed to take up the while weekend, so I didn’t get to draw. Stupid websites….

Last round of pencils going down…

New schedule!

So, the new schedule for the foreseeable future will be as follows:

New free comics go live every Monday around midnight. These comics are posted, along with progress shots, on my Patreon $1 tier, weeks in advance. The current storyline has 2 chapters to conclude, before “Barcrawl of the Damned” & “Boy Wizard” resume.

New Bonus stories are about to resume. These Appear on my Patreon $2 tier as I complete steps. When the full page is finished, it will be published here for Patrons to read, as well.

Hope this all makes sense. Please considering becoming a Patron, or as little as $1-$2 a month. It really means a lot to me, and you get all kinds of expanded or exclusive content. It’s a win-win.

Grandma Evelyn’s strip

Here’s an very weird, old strip I did for the tag team stream of consciousness webcomic, Gran’ma evelyn’s old-fashioned pudding treats wrestling theatre.

http://grabbagcomics.com/wrestling_theatre/wt_characters.htm

Update

So, my recovery is coming along. My hands are starting to heal, and the pain is manageable much of the time.

That said, I have three projects I am working on, right now. Phineus, Maynard and Grimm and Magician for Hire, so there’s not a lot of time for Teen Wizard, right now. That said, I do intend to get back to our story, do some exclusive stories for Patrons and move onward with it. In time. Thanks for all your patience and do check out all the other Phineus Universe comics I am working on!

Maynard and Grimm 2-5

1/1/2020

The History of Teen Wizard

This was the first iteration of Phineus Teen Wizard, was back when I was prepping “Zombie Rat Uprising”, but the style is much older.

I used a very cartoony style to do parody comics in Middle School.

In fact, Howie is my oldest used character and the only one to make it from my first comic, Pet Shop from Elementary school.

Merv and the Magictones

The Thing That Should Not Be

New strips will continue on my Patreon

New Gil strips and pages will be coming and they’ll be available over at my Patreon for as little as $1-$2 a month!

New strips will continue at my Patreon

New Gil strips and pages will be coming and they’ll be available over at my Patreon for as little as $1-$2 a month!

New Teen Wizard will be available at Patreon

New Teen Wizard strips and pages will be coming and they’ll be available over at my Patreon first, for as little as $1-$2 a month!

New Teen Wizard coming, soon!

Sorry I’ve been away from Teen Wizard, so long. It’s sometimes hard to split focus. I’ll be back with new strips in a few weeks and try and finish up the current storyline.