About a Lost Cat and Mechanical Chess Pieces

It’s morning, slept late after working the past few days on a piece and trying my hand at self-promotion and marketing.  As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, self-promotion has never been my forte, but you are never to old to learn I suppose.

Usually when I am working on the drawing board I listen to either music or podcasts. I have been following the No Sleep Podcast for quite some time.  Not only is the No Sleep podcast well produced, if you are a fan of horror stories, you will find some well executed episodes that are well written with solid voice acting.

The other podcast that I have become a fan of is The Lost Cat.  It is hard to describe the Lost Cat podcast, its eccentric, surreal and a gem.  Some have compared it to if Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett all showed up at a party and began telling stories about a lost cat and their attempts to find him. The writer Andrew P. Clarke, who resides in London, is also the narrator and  a song writer, singer and uses his talents in each episode and spins not only a hypnotic tale, but also interweaves a song that is often cryptic and soulful. Think if Tom Waits had a love child with Nick Cave.

In other news I finally finished The Red Knight pen and ink drawing I have been working on. I really pushed myself on this one, I confess there were moments that I also thought it wasn’t going to work. I learned a lot from the piece, also gave me ideas on how to define the pieces that will follow it.

The Red Knight is a minor character in Alice in Wonderland who kidnaps Alice momentarily and is rescued by the White Knight in a comical jousting match.  I decided to make the Red Knight a mechanical chess piece. Since I am doing a twisted version of Wonderland, I felt it would fit.  Now comes the clean up and digital coloring process then I will make it available on Tees, posters, prints etc.

Halloween and the Trials of Self Promotion

As we near the end of August and creep into September, the air is becoming slightly cooler and with the coming of October, trees will shed their leaves and Halloween will come dancing down the pavement in a cascade of dead leaves and light, eerie laughter.  October is my favorite time of the year. Halloween horror movie fests, night coming quicker, the air is pregnant with mystery.

This Fall I find myself focusing more on producing and selling artwork. I fully confess that I target a niche audience, this has caused me some limitations in being able to advertise my work to its potential. Also, it has hampered me because I know that much of my work will never appeal to mainstream. I also confess this is fueled by a bit of arrogance, conceit and vanity.  Yet, in my feeble haphazard way I still meander down this path most likely to get lost in the woods and may have to set off a flair to be found. But you only live once.

I also have never been good at self-promotion, in fact most artists would rather be in front of a drawing table or an easel that ply their wares on the internet. But I am learning slowly and find that you must give as much into self-promotion as you do the act of creating. It can be disheartening, but it is the way it is.

Since Halloween is upon us, I do have horror themed Tees available on Amazon as well as Zazzle.  You will find the shirts on Amazon are cheaper, but the quality of the shirts on Zazzle, especially for black Tees, are higher, thus more expensive.  Zazzle does two passes on Black Tees with white ink to insure the image is probably defined.  Amazon, I am not quite sure yet. I have ordered from both and both have met my expectations and those that didn’t, I reworked and resubmitted. 

Below are designs that are Halloween themed available on Amazon:

 



Or you can visit my Zazzle Shop, not just for Tees, but posters, prints, postcards, playing cards, sketch books and more...