Olivia the Dragon Knight

This is a short process article about how I draw my Dragon Knight Copic Marker illustration in five hours at Sablecon back in October 2023!

This a throwback to an older Copic Marker style that I rarely use but I can give you insight into the five hour process I spend drawing between sales and conversations with guests

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This Indie Author talks about her experience as a vendor at CODCON 2023

As prolific as I am with this conventions, most of my knowledge is from the school of hard knocks. If you want a break-down of the arduous task of tabling at these conventions, take some time to listen to Alice the Author as she goes through her hour-to-hour break down of selling books at CODCon!

Most of this stuff I learned in the School of hard knocks myself, so Alice’s vid has fantastic insights on selling work at conventions.

A current new thing I’m doing with my setups for smaller conventions is to take a smaller amount of inventory with me. I don’t go more than a dozen of each of my large stickers, and I don’t bring every print or book I have with me on my trips. Library shows are a smaller one day showing, so even if I sell out, It’s not a big problem.

This system has also been a good way to not just manage my sale but analyze the rate my items sell. If demand is low for an item, I stop printing more and keep my table setups lean.

As I go around Artist Alley’s at conventions and hear about them, I write them down in a Spreadsheet on Google Docs. The majority of this list consist of events in my home state of Illinois. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start for any other artists seeking to do more conventions.

Convention Spreadsheet

I have a full year packed with cool conventions and events! Take a look through my Convention Schedule to see where I’ll be next!

How to Reset Wacom Driver Without Computer Restart

I’m on and off with my streaming on my Twitch Channel! From tech issues, scheduling conflicts, and that eternal feeling of being behind, streaming art videos is tough. Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to catch interesting stream clips to make as short tutorials for all who are interested.

This video tutorial talks about the common problem of how to reset your non-functional Wacom Driver without resetting the machine.

  1. Windows Logo Key+R
  2. Type services.msc then press the Enter
  3. Right-click the Wacom Professional Service and click Restart

Your Wacom Tablet should be good to go! There are several ways to tackle this, but this was one of the few that I’ve learned. I keep falling off my regular streaming schedule, but when I do, I archive them on my second YouTube Channel for anyone to catch up!

Mia the Cat Dancer Illustration

Mia Copperbelle is a singer and dancer of a traveling cat band, spreading joy all over the land through their music.

Mia and the rest her merry bards are frequently harassed by the despotic Lion Kingdom. The Lions take no pleasure in the peace and love themes of the small cat band, and disperse any of their gatherings by lethal force. Despite the present danger posed by her father, Mia presses forward on her passion to be the greatest dancer of them all!

I had this Cat Dancer piece on the back burner for three years. Drawn traditionally in Brush, Ink and Paper and Later Digitally colored in Procreate and Clip Studio Paint. You can get a 9×12 Print for sale on my Etsy Store!

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Simple Art Practice on the Go

To help people out with their New Year’s Resolutions of learning to draw, I thought I’d drop in my two cents on getting started or getting into it.

Mini Sketchbook Pile B

A concern I find is the lack of time to draw. When I’m always on the go and away from my drawing desk at my day job, having a small sketchbook helps me jot down ideas!

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My Top Tools of 2022

As the year wraps up, I thought I’d share some of the tools that I’ve been using often to work on my art and art-related projects! The software I use is the similar to what I’m rocking before, but it doesn’t hurt to drop some new stuff I’m trying out too!

Blue Sky Weekly/Monthly Planning Calendar

This is a simple 6×9 spiral-bound date book that I use to track my schedule. The pages are set up by week, so it makes it easy for me to plan it out. It’s portable to carry anywhere in my bags.

Pilot G2 Gel-Pens

Pilot G-2 Gel Pens

Together with this calendar, I also use black or blue Pilot G-2 Gel pens for general writing. The color packs are a great start to buy as well. From my daily tasks to my regular maintenance tasks to my annual events, I use various colors to organize the types of tasks I do.

Post-it Notes

Nice and simple leaves of paper help me with little notes that I need to add. When I fill my notebooks, sometimes I want to add other notes if I don’t have enough space. If I don’t want to erase what I already wrote, so I can use post-it notes. Sticky notes are also fantastic bookmarks for novels and calendar books. If you get them in different colors, you can even organize them by subject.

Sketch Wallet

SketchWallet 2022

As of writing this, I have a day job, so I’m always on the go and never at my home studio. I keep having ideas but little time to draw them. With my SketchWallet, I can hold a sketchbook, credit cards, and cash in one spot, so I don’t need to fish for them. When you first buy the wallet, it comes with its own sketchbook from the start. Luckily, it can hold any other 3.5-inch by x 5.5-inch sketchbook inside.

Pentel Graphgear 1000 0.5 Mechanical Pencil

Pentel Graphgear 1000

My trusted mechanical pencil that I never need to sharpen! I have other sizes, but 0.5 mm is my best-feeling pencil. All the pencils have great lead capacity, so you don’t need to refill them as much. The side clip is a switch that retracts the tip of the pencil to save your point from breaking or stabbing you in the leg. Not having a large enough eraser can be a dealbreaker for other artists if you erase all the time. The next time might suit your needs.

Tombow Mono Ultrafine 2.3mm Elsastomer Eraser

Using my pencil’s eraser is a pain in the butt because it rubs down too short or pushes down into the lead barrel. The Tombow Mono Eraser is an eraser pen where it stores one long eraser. It’s cleaner to hold in my pocket than a kneaded eraser, and not as big to erase on like a white plastic eraser.

Dick Blick Mesh Bag

This is a mesh bag I use to stash my Copic Markers. It’s got a good zipper, and it’s sturdy enough to carry inside a larger backpack or by itself.

iPad Pro

128GB iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd Generation) Wi-Fi

I got an iPad for the Procreate App and the potential of having a digital art setup to practice on. I wrote a review about my initial impressions along my first instances in the Procreate App! It took some getting used to, but over the year I got used to my iPad. I purchased more brushes for Procreate and I got apps like Pixaki, VisRef, and LumaFusion.

SanDisk USB Type-C 128GB Flash Drive

SanDisk Ultra Dual Drive Luxe USB Type-C 128GB Flash Drive

This USB 3.0 Flash Drive is a fantastic partner to my iPad. I can move files around my computer, phone, and pad with ease! I worry that it gets hot enough to be a problem. Even though it has 256 GB of space, I don’t rely on it too much for storage.

Kdenlive

I began trying out Kdenlive around June on a lark. I was sick of dealing with Adobe Premiere’s issues, and I wanted to find alternatives. It was rocky at first, but after watching tutorials, I improved my video editing. The fact that this app accepts MKV files is a massive time saver! No more Remuxing VODs and I keep a higher quality video!

This is my personal list of things I currently used over the year to stay productive. It’s not perfect, but if you want something to start, you can try out what I have here. I keep a larger archive of my personal recommended tools on my Supply Page! I update it enough to have info that you can look at for your own art needs.

Sir Keely the Bird Knight Illustration

Sir Peer Keely is a royal knight of the Kingdom of Seraplume. Together with the mighty Blade Wing Knights, the plucky bungling budgie hero dedicates his life to protecting the Kingdoms of Sopranado from the rising menace of Sky Piracy!

This is a blog post about my process of drawing my bird knight illustration. It was a struggle, but I pushed myself to complete my art piece. After several months of self-doubt, I finished this Bird Knight Illustration. I juggled this drawing between the Procreate App and Clip Studio Paint to complete this artwork.

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First Days with Pixaki

From learning pixel art in Procreate I found my efforts limited. With the extra money I had, I invested in Pixaki 4 Pro, a $30 USD app on the Apple App Store. I do most of my pixel artwork for personal and game art in Aseprite. With Pixaki, I want a good portable option that I can trade between the two programs for faster pixel art output.

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Az & Miko Marker Commission Process

I couldn’t finish one of my commissions by the time Anime Central ended. So I needed to finish this two-character piece at a later date and mail it to my client! With this, it gives me a short opportunity to tell you about my Copic Marker technique for this piece.

This commission is for ToastyGhostey’s OCs and Az and Miko. I dig the art style, and it was a nice challenge to figure things out with my markers. ToastyGhostey told me that I didn’t have to draw AZ’s helmet, but I took that as a challenge. Do I regret it? No, this was still great.

I start with a Mignola-inspired ink drawing using a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, Pentel Tradio Stylo Pen, and drying Copic 0.3 Multiliner. I was hoping it would be fast enough, but I got sloppy on my Bristol Board.

After letting the ink dry for the rest of the night, I began the color layering with my Copic Markers. Starting with E35S Chamois, BV00S Mauve Shadow, B12S Ice Blue, YR21S Cream.

Next, I fill in Miko’s first jacket with YR18S Sanguine. I should’ve used a lighter red marker since the color is too orange compared to the refs. I pressed forward to avoid my perfectionism. Likewise, I also took the time to add Y18S Lightning Yellow trim to Az’s jacket.

Then I needed to layer more colors to darken Miko’s fists. I tried using E15S Dark Suntan and Mauve Shadow. Then added V06S Lavender, but it wasn’t enough. Using an N2S Neutral Grey 2, I dulled the stone color down.

I realized that messed up a detail for Miko’s Jacket. Failing to notice the small patch on her Jacket from her refs until after I colored it. With a Colorless Blender, I attempted to clear away the color to the best of my ability. Time to add in the YG03S Yellow Green in the eyes and a 0.3 Pentel Arts Hybrid Tech Pen for smaller details.

Continuing on, I layer more color with V09S Violet and B39S Prussian Blue to darken Az’s coat and pants.

Finally, use the E27S Milk Chocolate to darken the wood of Az’s rifle and antlers.

After all this, I add a smidge of Ice Blue for shadows and complete Miko’s jacket with Lighting Yellow trim! All that’s left is to message my client to get their approval, and mail the sucker off in an envelope!

This is a sloppy explanation of my process. This gives me a good idea to make a formal article about Copic Markers. Heck, I’ll try to make a video about it!

I’m still open for commissions and so if you want a commission for yourself, check out my Commission page to get some cool unique art from me!