Soon to be new website!

So I'm working on a new website! Like, totally starting from scratch new. I happen to be in close cahoots with someone who makes a living doing fancy online computer stuff, and who has offered to help me make a super high-tech-running site! I will still be doing all the design side though, and I really like how it's coming along. I will be using my first-ever custom designed font, which I originally made to avoid having to handwrite all the dialogue for a certain nameless, all-knowing entity in Lilith, but which I have come to see as my own personal font as well. I'm not sure what that says about how I feel about being an artist--am I the god of my work?

I'll let you know when the unveiling happens! It won't be for quite awhile though as we are in the barest beginning stages.

My New Webcomic!

Wow, it's been awhile. I've been a little on hiatus from illustrating in the classic sense. You see, I've just begun to venture into new media: webcomics! That's right, I'm ears-deep in serially publishing my work (gulp).

It's hard for me considering I spent 2 years getting my first picture book just right. To make a comic, and then that same night release it into the world is like putting my sketchbook--which for me is like putting my most vulnerable part of myself, my talent--out in a fairly rudimentary, unedited form. I have planned ahead for the first fifty comics or so, but we are already at 28 and I am looking back thinking, "Oh I wish I'd done this or that differently." Well, too late! It's now set in stone--I mean, cyberspace, where anything can and will happen.

Let's hope it's good.

Lilith, A Webcomic
Lilith on facebook

Although Lilith and The Big Something come from the same dust-cloud, they seem to have inherited completely opposite qualities. For one, The Big Something is an omniscient, yet non-physical being. Lilith is a little girl. Grounded in logic, The Big Something has all the answers. But Lilith has all the power of the magic of the universe. The Big Something has a plan: it wants to use Lilith as a tool to build a new universe, intricately planned and governed by reason and logic. Lilith wants to let her imagination run wild in what she views as a blank canvas for her own subconscious creations. They are often at odds. With her friend Samael beside her, Lilith finds new ways to harness the universe's power with results that are sometimes beautiful, humorous, and terrifying.

Introducing "Lilith": A Webcomic!

Well here it is! It's only been in my head for five years now! It feels so good to make real. What a relief. It's like all this creative pressure just builds up inside my head, and it can even make me kind of moody if I don't let it out (what a temperamental artist, I know). It was one of those things where I had these vague perceptions of who the characters would be, but I couldn't for the life of me get it all out correctly on paper. NOTHING satisfied me when I tried to sketch this thing out, but I knew I loved my concept. Then one day, I just blocked out a chunk of uninterrupted time and forced myself to start it. Not sketch or plan, but just jump in. It turns out that method works for me! I have about 9 comics drawn and ready to go, all loaded up on the website. It's such an exciting feeling. I really needed a change from picture books after trying again and again to start one only to have it either be too similar to one on the market, or to just not be feelin' it. It's always going to be hard to top Lizzie Fox-Top I think because it was a story so close to my heart and it was about someone I cared about so much (who just passed away this Easter). I needed a new creative outlet, and I think webcomics are it.

Webcomics are scary though, I have to admit. It's like the first time clicking that "send" button for the printer of Lizzie Fox-Top, except it's that feeling every day. That nervous build-up, quadruple-checking to make sure everything's how I want it, and then the brief but immediate moment of panic just after I hit "publish." Because once it's up there and everyone sees it, I really can't go back. Every decision has to be final. That will be something to get used to.  Anyway, Lilith will be updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at midnight (yay automatic uploading!) so please check back to hear more of the story each day. Lilith is also on facebook, so please "like" her! Thanks!