smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Dwarven Drinking Contest ~Round 3~ WINNER by SmudgeDragon on DeviantArt

Mage: The Fawn won the Dwarven Drinking Contest!?
Fighter: No wonder he's been turning green.
Fawn: Baah!* (Championship round; BRING IT!)
---

So We Love Fine is running yet another T-shirt contest. This time with the Dungeons and Dragons Neverwinter MMO (which I play). I've had some cartoon ideas rolling around my head for a bit and figured I'd put them to (digital) paper and see what happens.

Well some fawn's getting his drink-on!

Voting is not yet open, but when it does, VOTE HERE!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Feed the Mimic by SmudgeDragon on DeviantArt

Mage: So, is it a real chest, or a mimic?

Rogue: I'm not sticking my hand in there to find out. That's the Tank's job!

Fighter: *le sigh*

---

So We Love Fine is running yet another T-shirt contest. This time with the Dungeons and Dragons Neverwinter MMO (which I play). I've had some cartoon ideas rolling around my head for a bit and figured I'd put them to (digital) paper and see what happens.

Mimics go "Nom Nom Nom!" in your face.

Voting is not yet open, but when it does, VOTE HERE!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

The Laughing Troll by SmudgeDragon on DeviantArt

New art by me!

I call him... "Richard".

---

So We Love Fine is running yet another T-shirt contest. This time with the Dungeons and Dragons Neverwinter MMO (which I play). I've had some cartoon ideas rolling around my head for a bit and figured I'd put them to (digital) paper and see what happens.

This is my first - a classic D&D troll .... trolling.

Voting is not yet open, but when it does, VOTE HERE!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

That's right, you asked and we listened! 'To Kill a Dragon' is now up on Comics Plus Apps, for your Smartphone/Tablet/Web-Page viewing pleasure. With Issues 3 and 4 quickly following over the next two weeks. Come check it out!

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To Kill a Dragon #1
To Kill a Dragon - 01

  • Publisher: SmudgeMarks & EngelWerks

  • Written By: Christina "Smudge" Hanson

  • Art By: Christina "Smudge" Hanson

  • Language: English

  • Genre: Action/Adventure | Drama | Fantasy

  • Digital Release Date: May 6th, 2015

  • 13 pages, $0.99

Description

After a devastating attack by the assassin Veniamin on the King's airship, a lone survivor wakes up confused and mute after falling into Nadine's apple orchard. With the entire kingdom in an uproar, only this strange, quiet man holds any knowledge on what happened that day and where the Great Dragon 7th, the assassin's real target, has disappeared to. Now both friend and foe want him, and the race is on to who can find him first.

--

To Kill a Dragon #2
To Kill a Dragon, Issue 2

  • Publisher: SmudgeMarks & EngelWerks

  • Written By: Christina "Smudge" Hanson

  • Art By: Christina "Smudge" Hanson

  • Language: English

  • Genre: Action/Adventure | Drama | Fantasy

  • Digital Release Date: May 13th, 2015

  • 13 pages, $0.99

Description

Market Day has come! Nadine and Benard take their mute charge into town to see if they can reunite him with his people. But Veniamin has realized he has not finished his job in slaying in Great Dragon and will stop at nothing to complete his mission.
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

FCBD_wide_logo

Sat. May 2nd is Free comic book day. And to celebrate, We here at SmudgeMarks and EngelWerks are offering up grab packs of Smudge's comic work! Starting at midnight PST 'til midnight Monday, full runs of Bureau of Mana Investigation, Liberty from Hell, and a grab-bag of random fury books will be offered for FREE (with shipping). This is a limited time offer, so don't miss out!


Bureau of Mana Investigation Sample (RadioComix) Liberty From Hell Sample (RadioComix) Random Furry Sample (Mixed)

Bureau of Mana Investigation pack - Liberty from Hell Pack - Random Furry Pack

**Please make a note in the shipping notes at checkout you'd be okay with some random adult titles (mostly Genus Male/Dangerous) in your order**

smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)
Well, for good or for ill - We've made the jump, as it were. Yesterday, Baron put in his "two-week" notice at work. I put that in quotes because it's actually longer than 2 weeks. He wanted to hang around long enough for one of the other co-workers to get back from Vacation. We both are looking forward to this and are terrified all at the same time. But when it looks like Baron can pull more money in via commissions that he can from the day job - it's time to make the jump.

The biggest scare? My medical which just keeps piling up. I mean we've known Baron wanted to make this jump for some time, Murphy's Law, it just so happens to occur just as all my medical appoints are coming around. Insurance helps but ... Yauzers! One full head dental X-ray set ($90.00 out of pocket), and Optometry in the same week. lol.

I ended up dropping $300.00 for new lenses today because my eyes are changing focus points rapidly. According to the doctor, I need two sets of glasses now, progressive bi-focals for general use/driving and desk glasses. The amount I just paid were for the progressives. I'll be getting a uber cheap set of desk glasses via Online, since they don't have to be so rugged with extra coatings for glare and such.

Good news is that my allergies and general sickness are keeping in check this year so far. Yes, I'm feeling this allergy season (it's a whopper), but am holding it together better than previous years. Because of that I'm getting sick and taking downtime less and less. It is a serious improvement in the long-run and I am very happy for it.

I, myself have been doing a lot of small, but ever present, business things to keep them off Baron's desk so he can just work on art. So far it's working out. Accounting, website work, paperwork and filings, business to business communications, ect. Oh, and I'm still working on my own stuff too, just not direct commissions atm. If you wanna check out my WIPs for my new project, they are slowly becoming available over on Patreon if you wanna check them out, for a small fee.

I'm currently setting up for printing 'To Kill a Dragon' as floppies. I'll be holding off printing them until after the last issue is available digitally from ComiXology. And when will that be, you ask? I have no freak'n clue. As it is, all four will probably be posted up on Comics Plus before ComiXology at this rate. Comics Plus, however will be posting #1 on the 6th and each issue, once per week, following. I really like working with the Comics Plus guys so I was happy to get 'To Kill a Dragon' up there too. Just took a bit longer since they are more hands on than ComiXology.

I also plan on having an update to the SM-EW Comic Easel <3 S2member plugin for WordPress next week. WordPress rolled out a new version last week, and I'm a little behind in testing it for compatibility. Should be no issues, but it's gotta get done. Also talked about about admin updating on the Radio Site (since that is way too big/complex for Elin/Joe/Will to deal with). Once I get a couple more things worked out on SM-EW, I'll be reworking their site to get it more mobile-friendly, and updating programming to take advantage of newer coding. They will still be responsible for post updates, not I. It will take a while to get to this however, but I should be on it by mid-year if all goes well.

One thing I have discovered about myself recently, is there is three of me. You know how [livejournal.com profile] haikujaguar describes herself as three separate individuals (Artist Jaguar, Business Jaguar, and Marketer Jaguar) when it comes to the mental states you have to be in to accomplish different jobs? Well, it seems I have three of my own, Artist Smudge, Business Smudge, and Programmer Smudge. The trouble is, Artist Smudge and Programmer Smudge ... hate each other's guts with an unbridled passion and will not exist in the same room at the same time. With Programmer Smudge being much more in-your-face aggressive (when it comes to programming, I seem to have anger-management issues), poor Artist Smudge gets kicked to the curb. You so do not want to be around me when I'm programming. Needless to say, I'm having to re-juggle my schedule to make sure I can have Art Days and Programmer Days and neither the twain will meet. Fortunately, Business Smudge co-habitats with both so at lest I can balance that a little bit better.

Funny how the brain works.

Anyways - I think that's about everything for me rambling. Wish us luck!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)
As folks might have heard - there's a campaign currently brewing to have the twenty dollar bill redesigned to have a woman on it. And I'm all for it. But not for the reasons you might think.

Yes, I think having more of gender diversity in our government is a good thing. Having that diversity also represented in our currency is also a good thing. But even more important, sad to say, I think getting Ol' Hickory OFF the 20 is long overdue.

Some people out there really have it in for Obama. Other's blame everything on Reagen. I, personally, think this country went off the rails thanks to the hideous legacy of Andrew Jackson. Not only did he did he royally screw over just about every native tribe there is in the states (the Trail of Tears was only a part of it) by setting our national policy towards Native Americans that still reverberate to this day, but he walked all over the Supreme Court to do it. Yeah, denying a legitimate claim to statehood, to be followed by a human genocidal act while blatantly ignoring the laws he's swore to uphold as leader. And you always wondered why you can't withdraw a $20.00 at the reservation casino....

So, yes, a woman on the $20.00. Good.

They started by holding a public vote via the internet on 12 candidates, all of them having very strong merit, to pair down to a top three. I, indeed, did cast my vote and it was a tough choice. And one of my choices made it to the top 3 finalist. Yay!

The top three candidates are:

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962) - FDR's main squeeze, she was the first lady who put politics into the pseudo-elected office as she took an active roll in both Civil Rights and Women's Rights.
Harriet Tubman (c.1822 - 1913) - The Civil War heroine of the Underground Railroad and Suffragette.
Rosa Parks (1913 - 2005) - She who gave-no-fucks when riding the bus. Which helped, in turn, led to many of the segregation laws being ruled unconstitutional.

But wait, there's also a fourth, surprise write-in candidate...

Wilma Mankiller (1945 - 2010) - the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation*.
...
....
......

Why have I never hear of this lady before? Probably the same reason that I was taught in school that Susan B. Anthony sewed the stars on the American Flag and that's why she's on the dollar coin. Yeah. Sarcasm; heavy, but not joking in the slightest.

So, now the vote is open to all for the grand final winner. And for me, I am seriously torn. Mrs. Roosevelt was my top choice until Chief Mankiller came along. While Ms. Tubman and Mrs. Parks are really super important ladies who should not be forgotten, in my opinion, when it comes to our paper money, we have a tradition of those who actually hold an office being placed on the bills. U.N. Delegate and Chief count in my book. But which one to vote for?

Ah, who am I kidding. I love well-deserved irony. And a Cherokee Nation Chief named Mankiller booting Old' Hickory off the $20.00 is about the finest divine-justice irony there is.

Want to cast your vote as well? Go -->HERE<--



*How is a Cherokee Chief qualified for a US bill? Aren't they an independent nation? Well, yes, and no. It's really fucking confusing and convoluted. Something else that isn't taught in schools, even when your school practically freak'n borders a reservation. Again, thanks Jackson, you S.O.B.
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

So we've gone and done it.

Both Baron and I have created Patreon accounts. Baron will be funding his dreamscapes sketch blog, including his current Pony Dreamscape that he's been running on DeviantArt and Furaffinity, While I will be using it to help offset the development costs of my new project, "Magical Homeowners Association". Like all things of this nature, it will start slowly and built up over time. You can check both pages at out:

Baron - https://www.patreon.com/baronengel
Smudge - https://www.patreon.com/smudge

Thanks so much for looking!

smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

This have been really busy here at SM-EW this past week. Baron is getting ready for BABScon tomorrow and is currently matting his little heart out. He's got a panel in the artshow, so if you happen to be going to the show, please feel free to stop buy the artshow room and check it out. Here's a quick look at some of the stuff he'll be hanging:

As far as things here on the site - We have found a new project management system, Project Panorama, that I think in the long run will be a lot better than our previous one. It's a lot simpler for one, and it was expressly designed to be a communication tool between clients and services, so using it as a quick reference for who has what commission and at what point it's currently at is going to be great. It's already up and going for select commissions and will be filling in the other outstanding work in the next week or two. Please note - you need to have a login to smudgemarks-engelwerks.com as well as an outstanding commission to be able to see this feature.

I have also been busy redoing the code to make the site much more mobile friendly. I still have a ways to go with the menu bar and the gallery pages, but it's moving along at a steady pace. Next up on my work docket - getting our SSL in place so we can take cards directly online. Until then, it's PayPal via the shopping cart or contact us and we can send you an invoice that is credit card capable, via our merchant service. Once that gets all in place, it's time to start filling out more of the online store. ^.^

In future news, once Baron gets back from BABScon, we'll be making him a Patreon account. We know several people have asked for this and we listen! So keep your eyes peeled.

smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

Just a heads up to Commissioners - due to an error (then followed by the worst tech support I've ever seen), we are going to be migrating to new a project management system.

Yes, I know we just got this last one installed and were just starting to put it though real-world stress tests.

This sill take a while to get it all in and working again. However it will not affect Baron's current schedule for turning work out.

Thank you for your understanding.

In the meantime, have a interwebs cat. Cats make everything better.

ComputerIndy(color)

smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

To Kill a Dragon #3

To Kill a Dragon #3


Cover by: Christina "Smudge" Hanson
Written by: Christina "Smudge" Hanson
Art by: Christina "Smudge" Hanson
Price: $0.99

After Veniamin's failed attack, Nadine's mute charge reassesses his situation. Slowly coming to grips with who (and what) he really is, he suddenly realizes it's not just his own life that's now in danger from the determined assassin.

Buy now on comiXology!

smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)
Part 2 of 'To Kill a Dragon' has started updating on SmudgeMarks & EngelWerks!

Also, If you've created a login, but never recived your password email - fill out this form so I can resend your confirmation. Thanks!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

The most awesome skilled character designer, Sue Nichols-Maciorowski needs help in fighting cancer. I was real lucky to have Sue as an instructor at CalArts. I remember her as this warm, bubbling, infectious personalty with awesome-mad skills. Hearing her fight with cancer is just breaking my heart. Please, think about helping out if you can.

http://tinyurl.com/n5ym5ka
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

This week is full of art management stuff.

This weekend Baron opened (then promptly closed) for commission work, leaving me to organize it. Weee! We have got to set up a form or something for commissions - Barons spending way too much time juggling communications between all the different clients. Like ever waking moment this weekend. So that's something I'll be putting together soon. I also need to get the new docked put together on the site so folks who do have commissions and have logged in can see where they stand.

Filling out tax forms is fun... NOT. I especially like it when they give lengthy instructions for something that obvious, but no instructions for something that's super convoluted. *head desk* But it will get done.

‘To Kill a Dragon’ continues to update like clockwork - pg. 11 went live yesterday. Only hiccup is that the front page plugin that shows the current viewable page is barfing into the Prose section. Will be fixing that ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience, guys. Just a reminder - I do have a bookmarker set up on the site, so you can always click on that to get to the page you last tagged. Thou thinking about it, I should probably move that to the top of the comic instead of the bottom. Less scrolling to get where you want to be. *makes note to add/move plugin*.

Baron and I are also looking at putting a Patreon together - one for him and one for I. More details when we know what the frack we're doing. Our main goal is to get Baron outta his day-job and working back in artwork full time again by the end of the year. And if his commission docket remains similar and steady to what he just took in this weekend, it's totally doable. But art is a highly volatile and fluctuating market so we need to make sure all our ducks are in a row to make it happen.

Art-wise, for myself, I've been poking at a couple of sketches to help learn the painting tools inside of Manga Studio. This is taking a lot longer than I originally thought. I was painting up a character design in a paper doll format so I can play with costumes designs. Just to do the body, took me 4+ hours which is way too long for the amount done. And my hand hurt. Lots. I then worked on his clothes and figured out a way to work the colors faster, but it still beat on my hand. So much so I could only work on it in one-hour blocks, once a day. Any more than that and I'd be in real trouble. To be honest, I WAS getting better results than in Photoshop, but Photoshop, very slightly, beats on my hand less. At this point, I realized that I had made a lot of bad proportional mistakes in the figure. Enough that just cutting out and re-scaling wasn't going to help. So I'm starting over, from the top, this time inked (which Manga Studio is a GOD, and doesn't beat on my hand) and approach it more as coloring instead of painting. We'll see how it goes.

I spent a lot of time last week scanning in some sketches for another project I'm organizing, 'Magical Home Owners Association'. I hope to have more up about it later this week. I've got a lot of stories/projects that need a little organization. I have been... artistically constipated for some time (years) and I'm trying to get some of it out so it's not backing me up mentally. MagicHOA is just one of them.

In other household projects, I almost have my sewing machine accessible again. First thing up on my sewing list is a draw-bag for the emergency meds for my allergies. I'm suppose to carry around Predizone, some Claritin RediTabs and an EpiPenfor if I have an attack but haven't because they won't fit in my pockets without taking damage. I don't want to damage my EpiPen. They are not cheap. I have other sewing projects as well, but the bag comes first and I will not entertain any others until it's done. Just waiting on the fabric to come in for it. ^.^

Also - because spring is starting to show itself, it's time to restart the herb garden. Anyone wanna take out a poll on how fast I kill it this year? lol!

I'm happy to report that my bicycle has finally gone to the shop to get fixed up. I started fixing up the bike last year but stalled out because, well, dealing with a non-working front derail-er was simply out of my league. Turns out is was bent. But since we're probably going to be selling my van in the near future, I need something to at least get me to the market and around town for basic errands. And I miss biking. Only other thing to really make this work is some masks to keep the airborne allergens at bay. But that's what my sewing machine is for.

The other project I'm working on is finding drinks. Due to a combination of health and allergies, the possible thinks I can drink are getting slimmer and slimmer, so I've been scouring the specialty sodas and drinks for alternatives. Right now, I'm looking for stuff that is low to caffeine free (my caffeine tolerance is pretty slim nowadays), not citrus based (I'm allergic to all forms of citrus), and has cane sugar (I cannot stand artificial sugars but want to avoid high fructose corn syrup as much as humanly possible). This particular combination is actually really nasty to find for drinkables. So I have been turning to ginger ales and beers. I'm thinking about doing blog entries on each of the ones I find because... oh Lordy, every brand is so wildly different in character. @.@

I think that's everything for this week. Schedule: lots of website and back-end tweaks, 'To Kill a Dragon' going up MONDAY - WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY, character art to ink/color, MagicHOA synopsis and some character info on (probably) Thursday, 1 herb garden to start killing, bicylce to pick up at the shop Friday, and more drinks to be drunk. Busy week I say!

smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

To Kill a Dragon #2

To Kill a Dragon #2


Written by: Christina "Smudge" Hanson
Art by: Christina "Smudge" Hanson
Price: $0.99

Market Day has come! Nadine and Benard take their mute charge into town to see if they can reunite him with his people. But Veniamin has realized he has not finished his job in slaying in Great Dragon and will stop at nothing to complete his mission.

Buy now on comiXology!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

So now that 'To Kill a Dragon' is in the can, I now contemplate what my next project will be. Only problem is, now that I'm not consumed in a project, ALL my other ones are scrambling for attentions... at the same time. Including a new one, something I told my self I wasn't going to do. Thanks, brain.

Right now, I'm trying to sit down and organize the different stories: outlining basic arcs, getting characters ironed out so I know the different casts I'm dealing with, and trying to take a long look at the media each of the stories wants to exist in. As such - my art production is mostly going to be super rough pencil sketches and semi-random doodles that probably will only make since to me for a while.

In the meantime - here's what I've been poking at for a bit; Character designs for the new story I told myself I wasn't going to do. Tentatively titles "A Song for the Earth and Rain", it's a Romeo and Juliette styled love story set in a fantasy Far-East.

Gau-studyThis is Gau (Farwalker), an Elf and main character. He's a long traveled merchant who ends up in the orient ala Marco Polo. Since doing this, he has told me that he's also dances Ballet, but thinks he's no good at it and keeps it more as a hobby.

Do note, his "not that good at it" is kind of like someone who just missed the cut at the Royal Ballet saying they are "not that good". We all wish we were "not that good." ~.~

Design is totally NOT final. Not sold yet on the Tutor fashion, but I really like the concept of the cod piece as part of his native dress.

Rest below cut due to slightly NSFW artistic nudity.

Read the rest of this entry »

smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)
To Kill a Dragon Pt. 1 pg. 6 now up for your viewing pleasure! Come check it out. ^.^
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)
To Kill a Dragon pt. 1 page 5 is now live on SmudgeMarks-EngelWerks. Come check it out!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)
To Kill a Dragon pt. 1 page 4 is now live on SmudgeMarks-EngelWerks. Come check it out!
smudgedragon: watercolor of dragon cleaning its magic pearl (Spit & Polish)
I'm currently setting up the updates for 'To Kill a Dragon' on SM-EW. Unfortunately, due to the drip-feed, I'm going to have to hand post update announcements.

Basically, if I currently let the WordPress automation do it, it will post announcements that the subscriber page is live, but leave the public page hanging. I'd rather announce the Public page and let the Subscriber page be. Kind of annoying, but deal-able. In the future I'll probably set up some sort of automation for it but that's more coding that I'd... well.... rather put off.

Right now, I'm setup to announce the pages in Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

Is there anyone watching LJ here that would prefer to get announcements here as well?

It'd be a little extra work, but not that big of a deal. I'll be asking this same question in other outlets as well, so if you watch me else were too and would rather have me post about it there instead, chime up!

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