Author: Living Silver

Biggest barrier to completion

When a drawing is coming out well, I’m afraid to finish it because I don’t want to ruin it.

I either start at the drawing forever, taking forever to make the next “move”, or I’ll stop working on it and instead pick a new project to work in that I care less about. Then, if the new project starts coming out well, I’ll stop that one too.

Professor Xavier; I did the pencils 7 years ago.

Case in point, both of these just started out as jank practice drawing. The drawing of zorofessor X was original a sketch I did 7 years ago that I didn’t like. I decided to ink it for practice after I paused coloring this sketch of three of my Angels & Alchemy characters. 😒

Halted Tomorrow, Boom Whisper, and Ghost Nimbus

Don’t Fight Your Demons

Apple Music. Spotify. A very appropriate album to have on repeat right now, given all of the political activity happening right now.

The newest album by Arrested Development. This group has been hugely instrumental to my development as a youth in ways that I don’t feel like getting into right now. It didn’t surprise me that they would release an album following the civil rights activity taking place across the nation this fall. If you are a fan or remember there first album (Tennessee, Mr. Wendle, People Everyday), then you’ll want to get this. It’s their best since then, imo.

For me, the stand-out tracks are #4 Becoming, #5 Young Americans, #8 Sunset in Ghana, #11 Pardon You For Disrupting, #12 Journey On, and #13 We’ll See. Although, lately I’ve been playing #14 Amazing and #16 Forsaken an awful lot.

After three years, I finally played Scythe.

Really enjoyed it. Was surprisingly easy to learn, and game play was really simple.

I’ve found that these massive broadband that take an hour or more to play a game are very intimidating to start. Especially for the first time: it takes time to blunder through the rules, and there are always a few mistakes. My brother bought Scythe three years ago, and every time we tried to play, we took one look at the instructions and decided, “meh, let’s try tomorrow. I’m already tired tonight.” And then proceed to drink another beer. If that’s been your barrier to playing, then stop it. We finally gave it a shot, and the learning curve was painless. Now that I have a learning game under my belt, I keep thinking of what strategies I want to try next time I play.

WiP: My cover mock-up for the fictional All-New X-Factor #21

All-New X-Factor #21 cover mock-up
This issue doesn’t exist.

I had never been more crushed than when this book was cancelled. Peter David hadn’t written Quicksilver since I was a kid. You pair him with Gambit, and two of my favorite New Mutants: Doug ‘Cypher’ Ramsey and Warlock. It was incredible. PAD hasn’t been paired with an artist of A-list caliber since he worked with Dale Keown on The Incredible Hulk. I pushed this book so hard when it was around. But alas, it was canned. I didn’t think sales were that bad, but whatever “universe shaking” cross-over event was happening at the time moved the landscape beyond what this book was trying to do. Sales weren’t strong enough for it to survive that, and Marvel opted to take it’s chances with a newer concept.

Iris and Ghost Nimbus

WIP:: Iris and Ghost Ninbus

Character sketches, to see if these current designs grow on me or not. Iris will most likely always wear street clothes, probably a combination of skirt and jacket consistently, as to maintain an identifiable look. Ghost Nimbus is actually supposed to wrapped in a cloak most of the time, but I am feeling his boots at the moment and wanted to show them off. I’m going to try and color this thing with markers.

Ghost Nimbus: the current design

Ghost Nimbus
Ghost Nimbus

Conceptually, I’ve been developing this character and his powers since I was in high school. This is a design that I did in my sketchbook a few years ago. I guess it’s his current character design. He’s one of the characters from the Angels & Alchemy world that I am developing with my best friend James.

Unicorns: why are they so popular in Grocery Stores?

My girlfriend and I went out for our second grocery shopping trip since the stay-at home order was given. The experience was entirely different: hella fewer people. No one was frantic, everyone kept their distance, wore masks, and were eerily silent. My other observation: unicorns were everywhere. I took a few pics, but there were way more.