Spreading the Word (Advertising Post)

Occasionally I like to put up a few links to my Etsy store, and let everyone know what’s been going on. I’ll try to mark those posts clearly, so that people can skip over them if they choose to.

I haven’t been adding a lot of new items to the Greyed Out Etsy store lately, but I did renew a few items.
The Wilderland map sold, so it was renewed just yesterday.

As always, the Drawstring Bag section of the shop has a ton of options, everything from Freestanding Brown Suede dice bags to a variety of dice bags in colorful prints. I’ve even got a commercial up for the dice bags on Youtube.

If you’re interested in fantasy art, the Monster Skull might be a good choice… I based it off a hyena skull, but changed the proportions around a bit. There’s also a Skeletal Hand painted in acrylic on matte board.

Last but not least, my crooked houses.

This is just a small selection of the items I have listed, so please stop by and take a look. I also have a secret, unlisted coupon code – it’s 15% off your order when you enter THNXMUCH as your coupon. Pass the word along to friends, as well!

Artisan Dice, Kickstarter, Warmachine, Dice Bags, Writing

A veritable gallimaufry of topics.

 

The Artisan Dice Kickstarter has almost finished, and will almost certainly be done by the time you read this post. Originally asking for only $300, the campaign has exceeded all expectations, and is now at just over $80,000. It’s incredible. I emailed Charlie Brumfield, the guy who is running it and making all of these amazing wooden dice, and asked him if he would be interested in some of Greyed Out’s dice bags. He said yes, so I mailed him several, and they’re listed as part of some of the rewards levels. Being involved in the Kickstarter, even only very marginally as I am, is ridiculously exciting, and I really liked being able to see a project as cool as this one gain momentum. I’m really glad that it’s getting funded.

I’m posting another update to Airships of Marrakesh tomorrow, and I’m hoping to make it another 1,000 words or so. Stay tuned for that. I’ll try to post to my Twitter when the update goes live. (Find me at @greylikestorms) I’m excited about the project, and I’m thinking of delving into art with it as well, doing some thumbnails in a Moleskine and seeing if I can’t make a short comic out of Janus’ earlier adventure(s).

I’ve been working on Beast-09 the past few days, and I broke out my gesso and got to priming the Beast. He’s currently in 4 pieces – torso, legs, and arms. The arms will get put on last, since that lets me get into most nooks and crannies. I really like the model, and the pose ability, although I went with a fairly stock pose, nothing too action-oriented. Expect pictures as soon as he’s done, as well. The legs have been posted already, and I’m excited to see how the base will turn out once I have it fully painted. …on a random note, I literally just remembered that I wanted to try adding a back banner to Beast, and it completely slipped my mind until just now. I might have to dig through my remaining GW bitz tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

I’m also eyeing the Portable Warfare bags again – the Tactical Orange is very tempting, because it’s such an unusual color that it’s hard to miss, and stands out so much. The bag I threw together on the sewing machine to carry my foam trays is starting to show its age, and I’m afraid that one of these days it’s simply going to rip a shoulder strap and throw my miniatures across the concrete. I’d love to get a Portable Warfare bag with a full foam load-out, and those are priced reasonably at $85 for the load out I’m looking at, but even an empty one would be amazing. Unfortunately, it’s not an expense I can justify right now, so I just wanted to mention here that I sew some pretty cool dice bags, and have an Etsy store which can be found here. I have the Freestanding Drawstring Bag in Brown Suede up, and I can also make them in a smoky gray suede. If you’ve got a friend that needs a new dice bag, pass the word along! These hold a huge amount of dice, and by huge I’m talking upwards of 120 dice, provided that your collection includes some of the 12mm d6′s like mine does.

Tomorrow is going to be a writing/painting/sketching day, and I can’t wait. Thanks for reading!

Crafty Update

Hello my dearest readers,

 

Tonight I have just a quick update, but lots of pictures.  I’ve been doing some character sketches in my moleskine for an idea I had for a story/comic/something.  It’s about a crew of wayward airship pirates and their quests to glory.  Well, it’s more than that.  But it’s going to be steampunk-ish, without being too over-the-top.

 

The tree above is something I did with watercolors, and I was surprised at how much fun I had doing it.  Normally I prefer acrylics over watercolors, but whatever I did this time seemed to work, and I’m really happy with how this came out.

I’m also planning to try doing some cartography work on leather, using acrylic paints to do some maps, perhaps of Westeros or other familiar fantasy places.  I recently saw a map on Tumblr done that way, and loved how it came out.

In the Etsy shop, I have a new dice bag available – the Freestanding Dice Bag in Suede.  I made one version in brown suede, and was ecstatic when it sold just a few hours after I listed it.  It’s been re-listed, and I plan to make a second version in the smoky gray suede to list as well.  Those pictures are shown below.

 

 

Per-suede Me.

I recently picked up some suede, and have been making it into dice bags. Let me just say that this fabric is incredible, and I love working with it. I have two colors, a smoky gray and a rich sienna. I think the pictures have come out really well – I took them both on the map I’ve been working on, with dice scattered around.

The smoky gray suede bag is perfect for moodier gaming days. The color is reminiscent of a stormy day, the sky flashing thunder and lightning as the dice roll.

The rich sienna suede dice bag is more of a traditional fantasy bag. It’s easy to imagine this bag hanging from the belt of a warrior or a wizard, holding spell components or a handful of coins for that night’s ale at the tavern.

I’ve also been continuing with my 365 Sketch Project. So far I’ve been getting at least one sketch a day done, which you can see at my Tumblr. It’s a mix of Mouse Guard fan art, pin up girls, and random other sketches. I’m really enjoying it so far, and I can’t wait to have 365 full days of sketching done.

2/365

Mouse Guard illustration.  Day 2 of 365.  December 31st, 2011.  This is Guardmouse Olaf.  My obsession continues. Done on the inside cover of my new Moleskines, which arrived yesterday thanks to a wonderful Christmas gift of an Amazon gift card.

The paper on the new Moleskine sketchbooks is thinner than the one I purchased about two years ago, which makes me sad.  I’m hoping it will still hold up to what I have planned.  I want to try some urban sketching with light ink washes.  I was counting on the thicker paper to hold up better to the watercolors/inks.

 

Tuesday Blog: Etsy Edition

It’s Tuesday, and I thought I’d go ahead and put up some links to fellow Etsy shops that might be a potential source of Christmas gifts. These are wonderful shops run by great people, so please be sure to check them out!

First up is Bumbleboo Handmades, which does illustrations, prints, and other small odds and ends.

Kecky and Jewelrenee also do illustrations and prints; Kecky is more focused on fantasy art while Jewelrenee does incredible watercolors of sea life, including octopi and great white sharks.

And last but not least, AntB does amazing pottery.

Inspiration Post – Sharing Art

In today’s post I’m going to share some inspiration with you.  Over the past few days I’ve come across a few art blogs that I really feel like everyone should know about, so I’ll be sharing those as well as a few links to blogs that I’ve been reading for several months now.  I feel sometimes as if I’m opening doors one by one, and keep finding treasure chests behind each separate door.  Each of these blogs contains a lot of art, namely fantasy illustration.

First up is Cory Godbey’s blog, Light Night Rains: http://lightnightrains.blogspot.com/     He releases yearly sketchbooks that each follow a theme, and his illustrations and art often focus on fairies and the hidden world.  The image below is one that he did of Hagrid from Harry Potter, carrying an infant Harry to Number 4 Privet Drive on Sirius Black’s flying motorbike.

Next is Justin Gerard’s blog, quick hide here:  http://quickhidehere.blogspot.com/   Justin’s illustrations and art feature dragons, knights, and the world of Tolkien.  Several years ago he did a series of paintings based on The Hobbit, to preserve the mental images he had in his head of the characters and scenes before the movie is released.  The picture below shows the scene where Bilbo is captured by the three trolls, and they debate the pros and cons of eating hobbit.

Both of the above two artists post not only finished work, but also work in progress shots, thumbnails, and sketches, which makes their blogs invaluable for any starting artist, or anyone who likes to see the process behind an art piece.

I’ve also been reading James Gurney’s blog, http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/   The creator of Dinotopia posts daily with advice, helpful hints, examples of early illustration work, and much more.

The Drawn Today blog is a collection of artists posting their work, and is the website for their podcast, also named Drawn Today.   http://drawntoday.blogspot.com/

I’m going to try to continue these types of posts when I can, because I feel that inspiration should be shared freely, and these artists all do incredible work that fires up the imagination.  In my next post I’ll try to have some recent artwork of my own, as well as a few sketches.  Would you be ok with short posts that largely feature sketches or works in progress with little text?  Let me know in the comments section.

Here Be Dragons.

Dragons are magic.  There’s no other way to put it.  I’ve been fascinated by the big scaly things for as long as I could remember.  I can’t recall when I first found out about them, but it was at a really young age, because I’ve been enjoying stories about dragons since I was a tiny child.  Whether your dragons are winged with four legs, or winged with only two, or even with no legs or wings at all… they’re incredible.

One of the first books I remember reading about dragons was called The Book of Dragons, by E. Nesbit.  It’s a tiny, slim little volume.  Collected inside are stories of dragons from myth and legend, with enough fire to spark any boy’s imagination.  Then, in fourth grade, at a school book fair, I picked up Bruce Coville’s Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher.  The book is about a young kid who, running from bullies one day, gets lost in a fog and finds a magic shop.  There he buys a dragon’s egg, and hatches it, and gets to watch the young dragon(whom he names Tiamat) grow up.  It’s completely magical and wonderful.  In high school, I read the Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman.  That led me to Dungeons and Dragons, and in my time around the gaming table I’ve killed a dragon or two.

The other day, inspired by my long love of the dragon, I sat down to do some inking.  I sketched a few ideas first, and when I was satisfied, I broke out the steel nibs and black ink.  I didn’t want to do this project in Micron pens.  I wanted the old-fashioned method.  A while later, I had a dragon skull sitting on paper in front of me.  I’m not quite sure it’s done yet, but it was fun to do, and I can’t wait to try further projects with the steel nibs and ink.

Here are a few pictures:

Dragon*Con Musings: Pre-convention Thoughts

I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend Dragon*Con this year – I’ve been wanting to go for a really long time, but have never been able to make it to Atlanta to attend.  This year, when I’m actually living in Atlanta, I can’t afford to go.  Oh, life.

I’m glad that the convention happens here, because from everything I hear it is one of the biggest, best, most incredible conventions for gaming, fantasy, sci-fi, etc that you could imagine.  Thousands of people flock to Atlanta every year just for a chance to attend Dragon*con, and who can blame them?  I have heard from some friends of my wife’s that they attend every year and just walk around in costume to see everything and everyone.  I’m not sure they even buy tickets or passes.  If that’s the case, I may try something similar, and attend without attending anything.

I feel that a lot of the products I make for my Etsy store would work really well for convention attendees – particularly the dice bags.  I make each one with a belt loop, so that you can carry them around without having to hold them or store them in other bags/pouches.  The double drawstring lends itself to a tight closure, which I feel is important – it not only keeps your dice safe, but also your other small change and loose items.  I have a variety of colors, but would be very open to custom choices – just talk to me!  If anyone is interested, email me at greylikestorms(at)gmail.com or convo me on Etsy to discuss other fabrics.  It’s not too late to get your stuff in time for Dragon*con, and I’m always happy to use a faster service than USPS.

I’ve also got a costume shirt listed that I feel is timeless enough to work for a variety of costumes, ranging from the late Renaissance to the early 20th century.  Steampunk, anyone?

For the curious, my Etsy store can be found at:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/greyedout