Steampunk Story

For more than a year now I have been craving a good Steampunk game. There have been quite a few that claim to be Steampunk but they don't fit the bill. There are certain themes that are absent or they just go too specific into something that has already been done. I've also been wanting movies and comics, might have to look up some books too. If you guys can recommend any and give a little synopsis without spoiling it that'll be great. So anyway, as some of you know I lost my job and would really like to get back to what I really love doing which is drawing. I have a Steampunk setting, more than a few ideas on what to do with it but only one seems doable. But even that one has two alternatives. Basically I thought about a web comic, but then I would have no money so how can I keep this going? then there's the whole selling the book through PoD (Print on Demand) sites. It is tough and I'm still on the pre-production stages. The tentative title is Alma City.

It won't be a story about a certain character but rather the story of things happening in this City. I'm planning on having chapters that change points of view, others that will be a sequence, basically what happens in Chapter X1 continues in Chapter X2 but from another perspective. I have yet to design the characters, those in the sketchbook are there to get me in the right mood. Won't promise they'll make it in the story but knowing me, they probably will. I already like them lol.

These two were drawn about a year ago, so yea I've been very Steampunkish for a while

If you have any ideas how I can get this done and still make money in the process please share those with me. Most of the projects I have in mind never see the light of day 'cause I end up needing money to either replace things that break (like my old wacom tablet) or upgrading my hardware. Either way I have more loses than gains. Also monthly bills are no joke.

Resident Evil

Once again it's been a while and this post won't include artwork but does have something that I need to say about this franchise and what I think about the reviews for their latest release RE6.

First of all I don't even remember in which console I played RE1, I know I played the original (before the director's cut) and yes it was scary. The forced camera angles that made you walk in the wrong direction (often times killing you in the process as you ran towards the enemy instead of away) or that kept a scar "hidden" from the player until it was too late. Those were great moments of tension back in the day, today those are frustrating mechanics that break the gameplay and the immersion. Yes I used the freaking word, immersion. Along with Niche, Epic and Entitled, it needs to be in a video game dictionary. Anyway not the point of the post, with the current technology video games have crossed the line between interactive entertainment and movies. Long gone are the days of Q-bert and Pac-Man for a base of how to make a video game, we demand more. You may argue that old games are still fun, I agree that some people still find them interesting, I don't. So what we get is the so called AAA titles getting a story that usually has Hollywood looking over to see if they can get a piece of the pie, voice actors that sometimes include Hollywood stars, and a musical score that more often than not, makes a stand alone appearance to get even more money out of a product. I'm OK with all that, lots of people getting paid for it and if the big publishers have the money they should pay for quality. That includes motion capture actors, nobody quite does it like Naughty Dog but they've set the standard and it seems more and more studios want to follow. Whether it's by "motu propio" or not, that's for another rant. Back to Resident Evil, it's obvious they had to adapt and change the technology so no more locked camera. We have our first taste (if I remember correctly) of this in RE Code Veronica when you unlock the first person play. And the full treatment on RE4 which by many it's the best Resident Evil game of all. With that said, Resident Evil 5 and the newly released Resident Evil 6 have been called a departure from the series' root, which is survival horror to a more action oriented game. Departure from what exactly? from old technology? Just start a list of things you couldn't do in the first Resident evil games, try to find logic as to why these character were unable to shoot while walking, see things in front of them, move straight and why can't they jump (still can't) We're not talking about civilians here, this isn't RE Outbreak, these are trained cops, special ops people. They can kick ass and do and finally the games are catching up to what these guys are supposed to be.

Resident Evil may have been the father of survival horror in video games, but ask yourself why is it scary on the first games and not anymore and you'll see it's not because of the new mechanics. But because the story has evolved. First game, you're a member of a special ops team, sent to this mansion expecting human enemies and the first thing you run into are zombie dogs. You're trapped inside a mansion, no idea what happened there, or how those things came to be or who was psycho enough to build a mansion that you need to move crap around to open doors. Everything was new for you and for the CHARACTERS. Yes that's the most important part of Resident Evil and why I'm sure it has such a lasting appeal. Even the crappy movies focused on making Alice the appealing character, that you care about what she does even if you think the movies are garbage. So Chris, Jill and company are going through this for the first time just as you are. In Resident Evil 2, you have a rookie cop and a college student looking for her brother. Again two characters going into unexpected territory and the game is creative enough to let you experience the whole story by allowing you to play as each of the character. You get introduced to new people on each story arc, these people will be more than just survivors, but we'll get to that later. On Resident Evil 3 you play as Jill Valentine. After the horrors in the mansion she knows what to expect and how to react, even after watching some of her friends die in the process. She knows by now this is kill or be killed and surviving requires a cool head. I think that if you're going to point a finger to which game removed the limitations from the original Resident Evil that would be RE3. Jill could finally dodge, and the game still had tension in the form of Nemesis. This tyrant type of character that followed you around with a damned Bazooka screaming STARS even when he wouldn't appear (the Jaws type of scare, love it) Then we visit Code Veronica, a really disturbing story but that explained something about these viruses. Some people can adapt to them. Once again the story is broken by characters as you play as RE 2's Claire and RE 1's Chris Redfield. I'm glad this Resident Evil doesn't have a number on it, this is a true side story. Perhaps I'm more attached to the events of Racoon City and everything after that is bleh for me. I mean I did play RE1-3 and Outbreak and enjoyed them, when I played through Code Veronica (original on Dreamcast) it just wasn't as fun. To be honest I can't remember a scary moment in RE:CV but fans seem to love that game. Steve is a crappy character but some fangirls liked the whole "relationship" with him and Claire in the game. So after that came Resident Evil 4 with Leon as the main character. Why would I play as Leon? Isn't he a secondary character? what about the STARS people? So Resident Evil had shifted the character's importance and now Leon is the big dog. I never played the game, also the zombies weren't zombies anymore. A new type of virus was created and these were smart Bio Weapons. You got an over the shoulder camera that was highly praised and a very hard to manege inventory system. LOTS of Quick time Events and button mashing things and people loved it. OK back in the day that was great but again I feel we're past that.

Resident Evil 5, the game fans love to hate. This is the first Resident Evil to actually have co-op, outside of Resident Evil Outbreak. You may say that Resident Evil should be a single player game but when you look back, even RE1 had co-op but the computer had to control the other character. The technology and limitations of that time couldn't allow for a co-op game. Later on we get a game inspired by the Resident Evil franchise called Obscured that allowed us to play a survival horror with friends. Used the same mechanics and was quite fun, also had multiple endings depending on who survived. Capcom also released Demento (known over here as Haunting Ground) which was scary, disturbing and incredibly sexy. Yea all those together. The game never used loading screens to increase the tension (or to preload an area that is a door away) Again that's a game that used Resident Evil style of "horror" mechanics but broke with certain restrictions. I also remember back in the days of the Sega Saturn I bought a Japanese game called Deep Fear. The fear in that one was that it was Japanese with English dialog scenes, so if I missed something I would be screwed and the game was quite expensive ^^; It also used Resident Evil style camera but the protagonist could do things that were impossible in RE. It was still kind of scary. There's also the Silent Hill games but I never played those so I can't comment on it, same with Alan Wake and others that have taken the survival horror to a new level. What do they have in common? The areas are relatively small. A mansion, a submarine/ocean base. You feel like you really have no way out of the predicament you're in. That sets the tension, then you have your quiet moments. These days it's all bout high production and people with incredibly sound equipment want to hear even the breathing (which if done right could help set the tension but would get annoying FTL) but as some people say, sometimes complete silence can be scary. And I'm not talking your classic silent + "big expected but not totally prepared for" big noise, no I'm talking about feeling alone in an enclosed space/area that you know has a variety of horrors looking for ways to kill you. Darkness can also help with the scares as does water, but you need to get to a happy medium here. Don't keep the player too long on either 'cause that would drain the fun out of it. I'm always pro options and I know there are people that like challenges like not using a health spray, beating the game in X amount of time with only a knife etc. Well I could got for an option that lets you play the game without any lighting except for the one coming out of your flashlight or fires around the area. But just an option and no way I would play in that option, needs a freakingly good reward for clearing such a thing.

OK so on to Resident Evil 6 and the reason why I talked so much about those other games. Resident Evil 6 is not the 6th game these characters have been in, the events from Resident Evil 1 happened in 1998 and we're talking about a 2013 storyline in Resident Evil 6. Some characters have grown up (very nicely too) others have become killing machines. Point is they weren't rookies to begin with and now they're very seasoned in the art of BOW (Bio Organic Weapon) ass kicking. Using these character will remove a big level of tension found in other games just 'cause these are professionals doing what they do best. So yea it takes a more action oriented approach in gameplay but that's 'cause the story demands it even more than the publisher does (publisher rant on hold for now) If I were to criticize anything is that it doesn't go full throttle into an action game. It still insists on using outdated mechanics that include pressing a button to jump down a crate or something stupid like that. The game takes what it did with Resident Evil 2 to a whole new level. You get to play 3 campaigns with an unlockable one after you finish them and playing through all of them is the only way to get the "whole" story of Resident Evil 6. The three main campaigns are long, and I mean long even if you don't die often. They weren't done as good as they should have, they opted for simple minded approaches rather than trying to innovate even more. What I mean by that is that once again co-op makes a return, being a popular aspect in RE5, but this takes the cake. Each campaign crosses over at certain points, let's say you and a friend are playing Leon's campaign while I'm playing Jake's campaign. When their story crosses over we could be put in 4 player co-op (of course we would need to be at that point in the story for it to work I imagine, but damn that's interesting and something worth considering for future games, not just RE.) That's something new and very welcomed but all campaigns are in essence the same, get from point A to point B and deal with the hordes in different ways. If you complain about RE6 because of that aspect then yes, you are correct that it makes the game tedious but in my opinion I prefer that over backtracking to solve stupid puzzles. If that was their compromise then I suggest they look at other options for future installments. There was a time when anything coming out of Japan was great, and I think that was mainly thanks to the focus they used to place on characters over anything else. Resident Evil story is silly, interesting of course but silly, the characters make the games and franchise what it is now. You have your Leon fans, your STARS fans (me) and your extra goodies that keep popping in these games. Chris' story is kind of emotional  very action packed but they focused on what Chris is thinking and feeling, and that carries over. I didn't play the game 'cause I don't like how it plays, I would prefer if it went full on action with the same story and people in Japan like messy menus for some odd reason. But I saw full walkthroughs of the campaigns and damn it was as if I was playing the game. We (westerners) need to understand and accept our cultural differences, don't know how asian the concept of fate is but I know for Japan it is a big deal. Most of the stories if not all of them work around the fate of a character and that's why we get incredibly linear games and why they tend to flop with general audiences. I'm a big BioWare fan because of the simulation to have your choices impact the game/story (let's ignore the ME3 ending thing) I don't like being forced a path and I don't believe in fate the same way, I believe in free will too, both competing for dominance. Fate presents you with a choice, the decision is your free will. So in any case no asian game that I have played ever gives you free will, so with that in mind nor does RE6. You're once again stuck with old mechanics and even more QTEs than before. Is the gameplay outdated? yes, is it like 5? no, it's a big improvement over 5 but too small for what the series needs in my opinion.

So we talked about Chris' campaign being emotional, Jake's campaign is surprisingly "warm". We have this unknown character who we find out has a very important role (and heritage) and again with the Fate thing he gets paired with Resident Evil 2 survivor Sherry. Sherry was like 12 years old in RE2 which should make her around 23-24 now If I remember the events of RE2 correctly.


Seriously, WOW!


Jake is about the same age, and funny enough less mature too. I'm sick of these" enhanced" characters, they started going over the top with Ada Wong now every character seems to have a mutated Bruce Lee gene or something. You look at Claire in Code Veronica's intro and later Leon in the movies Degeneration and Damnation, then Chris, Jill and Wesker in RE5. So everyone is a super fighter now (feels like an RP gone bad) but I can't be mad at Jake's superhuman abilities. His "heritage" aside which really shouldn't make any contribution to his abilities, he is a very well done character. Anyway precisely because of who their parents were is that we see Sherry paired with Jake (The fate thing I was talking about) Looking at fan reception I think everyone loved the characters.

And last we have Leon's story which the game makes into the main story. The others complement his', heh go figure the character I care less about. I find Leon boring but that's just me, I know a lot of people love the character for his ability to pull shit out of the air. Anyway his story was meant to be more like the classic Resident Evil games. More "scary" than the other two which at times I have to agree. They seem to have borrowed not only from their own titles but Leon's campaign early on feels like an episode of The Walking Dead. Helena's character seems interesting (haven't finished watching his campaign at the time of this post) which is another newcomer to RE. The thing with Leon is the pacing is similar to the others' when it shouldn't be. The others have down times, in Leon's case you're framed and you're looking for evidence as well as revenge. I might get to that later but I feel at the point I'm at in the story that it's past that and the 6 months some characters had of downtime meant 6 minutes for Leon. anyway let me stop that here.

Other aspects from previous titles they decided to bring were the boss fights. You get your Nemesis type of boss in Jake's campaign, your colossal over the top boss in Chris' campaign and Leon has the true boss battle. Another complaint I've read is about the graphics. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The game looks incredible and yes the cutscenes are prerendered but they used the same models and they look better than their full CG movie counterparts.



And the voice acting is great. Very good choices. The script may still suck at times but the voice actors did a fantastic job and will love to see them do more of these. My personal opinion based on a general overview, this is one of the best Resident Evil games to date. So get your heads out of your asses, realize that the characters here are badasses and that the survival horror aspect in this game lives in a smaller way. Survival games nowadays don't have that many sequels 'cause they know they can't fool the audience often with the same thing. The fact that Resident Evil has such a big library should speak for how well they've developed the connection of the player with the characters and brand.

Saints Row: The Third

I don't want to make this a habit, this blog isn't for game reviews, however I felt the need to do this post for this particular game. I admit that I played Saints Row 2 before I even bothered to check out the first game. The reason is simple, I've been a fan of GTA since GTA3 (did play earlier GTA top view games but they are meh) and my favorite so far is San Andreas. So when GTA4 came into picture I had to buy either a 360 or a PS3 (back then they were absurdly expensive) and Microsoft made a "smart" move by getting exclusive content earlier (one whole year earlier than the PS3 version) so that along with Mass Effect (back then BioWARE was doing games only on the 360 and the PC) sealed the deal. I can't say that GTA4 was disappointing, more like it was a new kind of game, focused on characters and story telling. Giving you less freedom to play but at the same time accomplishing what few games can, (and movies) an engaging story. Soon after GTA4 was released Volition decided to advertise Saints Row 2 comparing it to the masterpiece GTA4 had become. That's usually suicide but when they actually were advertising "would you rather have fun than just play an interactive movie" I took interest and ended up buying it (after I read you could create your own character in literally any gender) Then I played through it and while the graphics weren't even close to those in GTA4 the game was way more fun than GTA San Andreas. Add to the mix full co-op through the campaign (multiplayer was added too but it sucked) and you have an incredible game that quickly became one of my favorite games of all time. There were some bugs and DLC was too expensive considering the content and what was requested in the forums. So we were all waiting for the third game to fulfill those wishes.

So Saints Row: The Third had to do a lot of things, improve the graphics, gameplay, overcome the limitations caused by their game engine (reason why they couldn't fulfill our requests for SR2) and stay over the top. I'd say they did just that but with this new engine new limitations were brought.

POSITIVE:

I'm going to start with some of the positives in this game, there are many more than I'm willing to type here. First of all the graphics, not hyper realistic like GTA4 and that's a great thing, I like the semi cartoony look SR3 has, it's perfect.

Animations are excellent. People give a lot of praise to Uncharted 3's facial animations (their mocaps are excellent thanks to the actors that play the characters) and that's undeserved. They were done a lot better in Uncharted 2, in fact a lot of things were better in uncharted 2 but this isn't the time for that. The facial expressions in Saints Row 3 are so good, that sometimes they didn't even use dialog to make a joke or have a character to character interaction. For example the way Pierce looks at the MC after saying "The last time a big naked dude said he could help me, it did not end well" and the MC giving him a WTF look is just priceless. Or Shaundi losing her temper with Josh.

Voice Acting. Once again it was incredible, kudos to Sasha Grey too, I liked Viola and I was pretty sure I wouldn't like her. Hulk Hogan as Angel was also good but he has acting experience, or should I say more acting experience than Sasha, yet Sasha did better, Hogan felt like he was reading most of the time. Daniel Dae Kim once again as Gat is perfect, would love to see him play the actual character in a real movie or voice him again if they do an animated one. Eliza Dushku for whatever reason(s) did not play Shaundi this time, that doesn't mean that Danielle didn't do a great job, she was awesome. Pretty much everyone did great, didn't like MC Fem voice 2 much but that's relative I guess.

Story, well... The Saints are at the top and a lot of shit happens, then some weird shit happens, then some weirder shit happens and it ends. I liked the story but I'll write more about it in the negative section though.

The fanservice, well we finally get what we asked and asled for. ZOMBIES!!! In Saints Row 2 you had the game within the game called Zombie Uprising, in that you got to play as a pre selected character on a specific map and had to survive wave after wave of zombies. It was fun and could be co-oped but we wanted to take it to the streets and use our own character. We asked for a cheat code to make pedestrians zombies or at least zombie like. don't know the reason but they didn't comply then, we got it now. In Saints Row: The Third they introduce a zombie outbreak during the story, that section of the map gets "isolated" by STAG in an effort to contain it.

From that point on that section of the map will always have zombies, so you and a friend can go there and play around just killing zombies. You might get crew alerts (random phone calls from members of your crew and other people that tell you about a survival type of mini game) around that area. If you get the Luchadores one you have to be quick or the zombies will kill them before you do and you lose your chance at beating the survival (at least during the first wave) especially if you bought some gang related upgrades. Volition included a cheat code (remember cheat codes disable achievements and trophies so I don't recommend activating them on your main save file) called BRAINS that turns pedestrians into zombies. Personally I think it's a nice touch that adds a certain low level of replay value. Why low? well unlike getting the alert to help your crew against the zombies there's nothing you can do but kill, kill, kill. Especially after you've finished the game when you're pretty much untouchable with all the upgrades. Some creative people might use it to make some movies, especially on the gorgeous looking PC version.

Professor Genki is perhaps the greatest addition to Saints Row. I didn't think too much of it by watching the trailers. even though I preordered the game to get the Genki stuff I didn't get into it until I played through the mission. It is awesome and the voice actors doing the narration are awesome, you'll have some laughs especially if you come from Saints Row 2. Not only is it fun to play but talk about a cash cow.

NEGATIVE:

First of all the story is too short, they made it "longer" by forcing you to play activities. Boss fights are a joke and every villain outside of Killbane lacks interest. Sure Loren holds your interest as he is supposed to be the main villain but he dies so fast it's absurd (funny death though)

Shaundi is another negative in this game, even more so than a certain Saint's death. The voice actress did an amazing job, but just the same it wasn't Dushku playing Shaundi, so not only her appearance changed a lot but her voice too. I wouldn't be too harsh on that if they kept the essence of the character but they butchered her personality. Now don't get me wrong, the Shaundi in Saints Row 3 is a good character, just not the Shaundi we met in SR2. I would rather have them call her a new name, say she was Gat's new love interest as she's a lot more trigger happy now and it would be OK with the story as it is. Sure you might want to know more about how the two of them met and how she ended up being a lieutenant but that's what car chit chat during missions is for.

Forced ending, yes you supposedly have two endings to choose. At first I thought cool, whatever you play first is canon. Wrong. OK so whatever your second option is becomes canon. Wrong again. If you decide to take your revenge, the statue blows up, then you get to pick the ending in which you save the statue. After you saved it and everyone in it you're returned to a city where the statue was blown up. I read about a "glitch" that if you play the same ending twice (has to be done in co-op the second time to have the option available again) the game count it as the true ending, will have to try that.

SPOILER
Gat's death is probably the lamest part of the game, even though it's not the worst.

Not cutscene nor mission replayability. Seriously What The HELL? SR1 had it, SR2 had it better why remove that feature? It doesn't even have a New Game + option which would be enough. They made a fuss about being able to track your game progress on the website yet the game forces you to have a new game (to play with different paths) which completely destroys your accomplishments on the website. If you have to I recommend doing it after you've unlocked everything you can unlock on your first run, finish all the side missions and activities, basically get as close to 100% as possible. then start a new game to get the alternates and once you get all achievements/trophies you go back to your near (hopefully it's not near but 100%, co-op helps too) and do an activity, win it and save. That should bring back your stats.

No more clothing layers. You're forced to wear the tops and bottoms the way they are shown at the store or the Initiation Station if you don't have the game yet. So basically mix and match tops and bottoms and change their colors, that's it.

Zombie pedestrian cheat doesn't work in co-op. Now seriously What The Fuck? So what's the point?

Season pass. I hate it and I know SR3 didn't invent this crap but whomever did deserves death. They did the same thing for Uncharted 3. They can shove that one too, I'm not buying season crap. One thing is what BioWare did with Mass Effect, adding a code for their online store that came with new games. If you bought one used and the code was invalid you had to buy access to it and it wasn't cheap. $15 no less. So yea I approve of that and a totally different is asking you to buy stuff that should have been in the game but not only did they "exclude" it they also want you to wait for it to be released. Sorry Volition but I don't give a crap about outfits that have a one way to be worn version. Want my money? give me some of the stuff you removed from Saints Row 2 or good clothing packs.

There are a few more negatives as they are positives but that's it for now. Overall the game is a lot of fun, even better in co-op. the best missions are in the first Act though. Totally recommend a buy.

Update

Well it's been a while since I've posted anything on my blog. First of all I want to apologize to those of you who are waiting for me to finish your commissions. I've lost my computer and the moment I bought a new one my monitor, which lasted 12 years, died too. So I had to use another monitor that I have (this one is an LCD with 7 years of age) but this one is too bright for accurate drawings. I've messed with the settings but still it doesn't look like it should. I also have constant back pains that are annoying the hell out of me.

I've been doing some drawings at work to keep myself practicing, here's a set of those.


I've also been playing a lot of uncharted 2. This has to be the best game I've played in a long while. The mechanics are awesome and the multiplayer is a blast when you aren't paired up with a bunch of asses.

Zairyo's Scrapbook Volume 1

It is finally done. After countless designs, sketches and full illustrations I finally managed to put together my first Artbook. The book has 42 pages of art with over 100 illustrations which contains full color images and sketches. Some illustrations feature artistic nudity. The type of characters in this book range anything from Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Mystery. From Cybernetics to Magical girls to Demon hunters, everything of my interest is showcased here.

There are different ways you can get it. If you want a Digital version you can buy it through lulu.com by clicking here:







If you prefer to buy it directly from me and you have a deviantart account you can send me a note there. You can read more details about it on my journal entry.

There's also a hard copy version available at IndyPlanet.com
You can buy it here:



P R E V I E W




























If you sign up to Indyplanet.com or Ka-blam.com let them know that Zairyo sent you. Thank you and I hope you enjoy the book.

How can you make money with commissioned work

Well as most of you know I work on commissions most of my free time, some people appreciate the low prices and give out bonus payment which is extremely gratifying after you've spent a lot of time trying to get that commission to look just right. Others want to get commissioned work but they don't have the money to spend on that "luxury" Granted it can be seen as just that, a luxury but it also can be an investment. I watch a lot of artists on Deviantart and I've noticed that some have been hired by the same person, which usually has an original character. Now here's the important part, since it's your character you're the owner of that intellectual property therefore you are free to do as you please but keep in mind that you should always ask the artist for his/her blessing before you go off selling the art.

Let's use my character Sam Irons as an example. Let's say I don't have a lot of money on me (so true) but know that $10 is something I can afford on art, even if it is black and white only. I would then browse deviantart for artists that charge that much (which believe it or not there are plenty good ones) I would go with my favorite first and keep the others on watch for when I get another $10. OK so I have selected my artist, the character belongs to me and I have a plan on how to make a profit off my commission. Basically I have different products in mind and there are sites like Zazzle, Lulu and Cafepress that sell them for you. So you get the dimensions of the largest product you need and request the artist to do it that way or at least something close. Now you got your first commission of that character done, It looks great on a shirt but you know a Black and white drawing doesn't always make a good all around product, however your aim is to get enough art so you can make an artbook of your character. So you take the picture and save it somewhere on your computer where you'll keep adding commissions, name it so that you can easily identify it and make sure you have all the artist's info so you can give credit where credit is due.

OK let's skip ahead and say I have around 40 illustrations of my character by different artists. I need a cover for the book and a back cover image too and they have to be colored. I've already spent $40 on the illustrations alone now I need to spend more. Let's say you've already sold some of the products you've made and have gotten some of the money back, nice feeling huh. OK so you're willing to spend $60 more for both images, that means you could either go for a simple design for the back cover and use all $60 on high quality stuff for the cover or divide it in $40 for the front and $20 for the back. The front cover is what might sell your book. Since this is my hypothesis I would go with 2 artists for the cover and do something simple myself for the back. So I'm spending the whole $60 on the cover what should I do? well I have an artist in mind that has great drawing skills and charges $30 but no inks. That could be troublesome so I just add him to the list and keep looking. I find another one that does everything, pencils inks and colors for $60 but it's not as great as the first one so again I add him/her to the list and keep looking. I ran into some guy that does great colors for $30 so I sent him/her a note about the inks, if it matters or not. It happens that he/she paints over the lineart as if it was a painting so technically the lineart is lost. It's a gamble but looking at the artists galley I know it will turn out great so I hire my first choice for the art and then get the painter spending the $60 I had. The end result is great but I feel like I should showcase the lineart anyway so I used it for the back cover. I start then making sure all the pages are done correctly and that every artist has been credited. Now it's time to sell my book. Lulu and Comixpress are the best choices so use the one that suits you best and remember you can also add the digital download option. Selling your products at conventions (if you're lucky enough to live somewhere where they have them) is also a great thing.

Hope this gives you an idea of what you can do in the future with your commissioned work. One more thing, when you contact ther artists that did the illustrations let them know about the book, chances are they'll be the first ones to buy them as it counts as published material and it's great for the resume.

Trading Cards Slide Show

Just a Rock You slide show featuring some of the trading cards I've done.