Fire and Ice

Hey folks time to break away from the workstation and talk Fire, Flood, and Coffee. ...

Things got really busy the last few months and I've only now had the time to stop, and take a breather before diving back into the inkwell.  Looking back at my posts I see we have a lot to catch up on. I'm going to be brief and get through it as quick as I can. 

Late January we had a huge disruption here . It was as if the world was on fire. Literally. My house caught on fire. 

It was scary, and surreal, but in the end we all lived through it. Most of what we lost was via water damage, about $500 worth of comics and games. We were displaced for a bit as repairs were made, but with help from our local friends and the community at large we have come through it stronger and more focused than ever.

There is probably some lesson to be found here about how to deal with raging orange monsters, but I'll leave that to better men and women.

I picked up work coloring another comic. Goblins which posts most regularly. ( We try for one a week - and make it more than not) - http://www.goblinscomic.org/ 

I've been doing more video editing. Thanks to your support here, I was able to invest in some software package upgrades. This has allowed me to add 3D effects to my list of skills, and really step up my game.

I also just completed a whole bunch of art for the new release of Buttonmen from James Ernest . I also illustrated the cover for the new edition of Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues - out soon.

The Illustration above is some work-in-progress character illo's I'm doing for a friend. He has been working really hard on a game setting called Empire of Bone, and needed a few more options for his convention demo. EoB best described as "if Tim Burton directed a saturday morning cartoon based on the works of Lord Dunsany".  

As you know Bob, one of the ways I've been fueling all this work was Coffee. However a recent crippling bout with ulcers forced me to find some kind of alternate means of ingesting caffeine. Being needle adverse, I looked into the merits of cold brew coffee. Specifically, less acid, and controllable sugar levels.   

The experiments have gone well so far. I am currently sipping on a dark espresso roast (5 to 1 ratio water to grind), with a shot of half and half and a tablespoon of simple syrup. I am most interested in hearing about anyone else's foray into the arcane cold brew arts. 

Meanwhile I have to get back to these character sketches...