June 2010

So this month has been ok so far. Haven't had much time to do my comics but I've been trying to work over-time when I get home from work trying to do what I can to keep up to date as much as possible for Tom Boy Tara. I've been drawing caricatures for people, and just completed a portrait of Deena for my friend's b-day. I hope she likes it. I'm normally not cheap like that, but she enjoys the character of Deena and also I spent a ton of money when I was down in Niagra Falls for the weekend. It was very unexpected. Beautiful down there, but man does that place financially drain you. There are in fact, no cheap vacations! Well, that being said, I also attended the Fan Appreciation convention this month, in which you have to pay to get in on the Sunday, but you get a $10 voucher that you can spend at the con on any of the vendors. I ended up getting a pretty cool comic belt and a Scott Pilgrim wallet that some dude was making. Tried not to spend too much, but you know how it goes. Love the summer for cons...but my wallet hates it. So I shall now leave you with a portrait I drew, scanned and coloured in Photoshop. The portrait of Deena:

May 2010 Update!

Hello! I've been so busy in the month of May I haven't been able to do a blog post in a while! I've been attending comedy shows, Rock Band nights, and even got a new job! It's been nothing but creativity happening lately...it's a bit over-whelming funnily enough.

The month started out amazing with the help of FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! I love that day anyways, I look forward to it all year 'round. This year was somewhat different though, but in a good way (as if FREE COMIC BOOK DAY can get any better!) and I ended up drawing with a bunch of pro comic artists in the industry at Paradise Comics! It was extremely fun and quite the honor! Of course few people had heard of me but I had a lot of friends come out. I drew about 12 drawings in 6 hours...one every half hour I guess while I chatted with the cool artists, cosplayers and many of the comic fans and kids who made it out for the awesome event! It was very exciting! I drew one pic of the Swedish Chef as an inside joke for a friend and everyone wanted me to draw them a Muppet for the rest of the day. I was type-cast but that's fine by me as I love Jim Henson's creations anyways so it was my personal tribute. There were many pix and videos taken of the event with my brand new digital camera I saved up to buy. Thanks to the wonderful people at Paradise Comics who made it all happen! Later on in the evening I attended Nerdgasm Comedy show where I dressed as my version of Hermione from Harry Potter and attended a Rock Band event much later! It was a tiring but fun-filled day for sure!

The next weekend my work sent me and some other fellow employees to a charity auction where I happened to meet Michael "Pinball" Clemens and I had no idea he was going to be there! He was super nice! I've also been extremely busy drawing some pictures for wonderful clients of mine. I just did an image meant to be turned into a tattoo for a fellow nerd girl pinup I met as well as drew some caricatures for a comedian for an upcoming flier for his comedy show. I've done this all while working full time at my new job and trying to keep up with posting my weekly comic.

Oh and who can forget TCAF! I attended TCAF (the Toronto Comic Arts Festival) in which a lot of Indy artists and webcomic creators, etc. came out of the woodwork and I even got to meet the very humble and cool Daniel Clowes! I was so beyond nervous as I am such a fan of his work! His unique art style and inspirational writing has made me want to pursue this industry for quite some time. I am not saying I am like him by any means but I feel he and I have a similarity when it comes to intuitive comic creation...at least from interviews I've read about him and things I've heard. He was very cool, he signed the copy of Wilson I picked up as well as the cover of "Now Magazine" that featured a giant article on him as well as a self-portrait drawn by him. He joked about how he'll sign his self-portrait by giving himself a tattoo on his neck and how he should do that in real life. I was so nervous I blurted out something dumb about me being a wuss and wouldn't have the balls to get a tattoo but that'd be cool. He musta thought I was a huge dork. Either way he took a ghetto flier I was handing out of my comic and said he'd check my stuff out. If he did I'll probably never know, but man, it was still cool that he took the flier anyways...ahhh, I'm such a retarded fan girl!

TCAF had many other cool comic artists there too! I talked to so many cool people and was practically broke by the end of it, buying comics, a t-shirt, a balloon, a Frisbee, socks, etc...so many things, so little time. I was there for only 3 hours but it was a blast! Then I had to go off and paint some kids faces at a party. Which was totally fun too!

So my latest comic #146 has been a cartoon cross-over...which is kinda lame I know but it managed to work out a bit in my comic. I like to draw some inside jokes in my comic sometime...so inside only I seem to be laughing, so I decided to let people in on a little secret as I know not everyone has read my actual published comic books! Sarah (the red-headed girl Tobey seems to be slightly smitten with lately) was the star of my one time only book "Why I Hate Cheerleaders", so I decided to make it known with a little asterisk in the comic. I advertised for the Dork Girl trilogy way more than I did for "Why I Hate Cheerleaders" which is a shame 'cuz I really enjoyed creating that book. Maybe after I made it known that Sarah is Tobey's new love interest all grown up and in college now, people may search it out and pick up a copy or two. If not...it was worth a shot? Anyways, may I say, this has been a very interesting and creative May.

Jade Coloured

So I decided to colour in Lexia's line art of Jade she drew for me at the Wizard World Convention. I had some time and wanted to do some art so it made sense to just have fun with it. I like how it turned out. Now, I made the pillows those colours for a reason just so you know. A friend of mine is doing a project for the H.S.S.E. (Heterosexuals for Same-Sex Equality) and I liked the idea of the organization. I just did my own mini tribute to it by colouring in this picture of Jade and using the pillows to show the colours of the groups logo. More information of the H.S.S.E. can be found here:

www.straightnotnarrow.ca

In case you're interested in further information on it.

Jade

So this is Alexandria Proudfoot's sexy version of Jade. And such a fitting picture to add after posting my newest comic #139. It's a pivotal twist in the comic and may or may not be shocking to some. If you haven't read the comic I suggest you go and read it now before reading forward in this blog post.

I always deep down knew that I was going to make Jade bi. She's a very experimental person to begin with. Plays by her own rules and does not care what society thinks of her. For a long time I was contemplating whether or not I should do this particular comic, seeing as some people may either be pissed off or maybe even happy that I did this. It could go either way. The comic is about gender stereotypes and being who you are, and I think that it was only fitting that I made one of the characters gay or bisexual to show that it's ok to be yourself. Even though Tara's reaction was abrupt and Jade read her all wrong, I'm sure somewhere down the line there will be some kind of reconciliation. Jade is too cool of a character to phase out. This will not be the last you see of her. However be prepared for more drama unfolding soon after. At least now people will get the point of the comic #69. Yes I've known since then that Jade was going to be this way, actually it was a thought I had when I first created her but for a while I wasn't brave enough to follow through with it. I think it was a good idea to allow Tara to trust Jade and then have her spring it on her unexpectedly. Hopefully you won't stop reading the comic after this, it gets interesting later on.

Wizard World Comicon 2010

Well, Wizard World Comicon was a tremendous success! So many cool things happened! It's amazing how just sitting in one spot at a table can accomplish so much. A person brought a ferret by our table so we had to take a picture of my boyfriend Matt wearing a "You Dunno Jack" Shirt. A girl with Tom Boy Tara hair wandered by so we had to take a picture of her, naturally. I met Winston from the Ghost Busters! He hugged me!!! Also signed a Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man piggy bank I own. So cool! I'll explain most of these pix.

This is me at Wizard World on the first day with a random con outfit I decided to wear. Plus my cool utility belt for making change when someone buys my merch.

Me at the table on the 1st day, guarding all my merch.

This is the second day, with me at the table guarding my merchandise.

This was my crew that stayed with me at the tables Saturday and Sunday. Alexandria with the blue/purple hair and Matt with the Cicadas shirt on.

This was my t-shirt I made for Tobey in one of my comic strips and thought it looked cool so I bought it for myself to wear around on Saturday.



This is my friend Tina who is a colourist/cosplayer that attends my comic book Wednesday crew hang out sessions on occasion. She found my dolls and robot pencil sharpener and enjoyed them immensely, as you can see.

I got this cool "Game Over" cuff for fun! I like video games on occasion and it went with my blk and wht ensemble quite well.

I tracked down artist Attila Adorjany and purchased a shirt from him. He does a very cool webcomic Metaphysical Neuroma, definitely check out his stuff!

These are some of my pins and Convention Magnets I made by hand to sell. They're all like unique fridge art. I drew lots of replicas of these babies.

This is me and the comic crew on the 3rd day at the con. We're all pretty tired by this point but we're still havin' fun!

Ok so this guy isn't the real Jack, but we had to take a picture of him. It was just too cool to see a ferret at the convention when I had Jack plastered all over my merch as you can see here.

Yes, it's Tom Boy Tara for realsies! Naw, this girl just had her hair but it was so epic we had to take a photo of her!

I met Xena! I mainly took this pic for my friend Melinda who loves Xena, but man, her costume was really incredible! So much detail! It was superb!

Me gettin' in the middle of a Storm Trooper prom. I just had to disrupt it!


Lexia was doing some cool drawings for me of Jade and has done past awesome drawings for me of Tara, Tobey, Jack and Deena, so on the last day I told her she should make some money off her drawings. She ended up making $30 bucks after drawing two commissions for people and had so much fun doing it she wants to be more prepared for next time and make a ton of prints for the next con. Hopefully we see more of her work soon. I will soon post her Jade drawing in another post.


As if the con wasn't cool enough I met Ernie Hudson, A.K.A. Winston from Ghost Busters and got my piggy bank signed by him! My boyfriend then bought me a Ghost Busters jersey (which I've wanted for a long time) for having such a good con! Seriously best con evar!

March Update

The month of March has been an interesting one. A lot has been going on. My birthday was on the 5th, and we ended up doing a little karaoke party in celebration of the occasion. I got a friggin' amazing present! Most of my friends know I'm a huge fan of Back to the Future, and every week when I go into the comic store on Wednesday I drool over the Back to the Future miniature Time Machine replica from the 2nd movie (my fave one) but I could never afford it. I honestly didn't think my friends were listening every time I said, "I'm going to get that when I get the money to...someday it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine." Turns out I was uber shocked! My friends had cameras poised awaiting my reaction when I peeked inside the bag and realized what they pooled their money in to buy me. I was so gleeful I couldn't stop hugging my new delorian. It lights up, and makes sounds and everything! Definite conversation piece if the party convo ever died down...which I don't think it ever did. It was a super fun night, and I don't think anyone had a shitty time...if they did I didn't notice cuz I was having too much fun myself.

Well, it's been decided. I'm going to the Wizard World Toronto Comicon on March 26-28th at the Direct Energy Centre. I have a whole table to myself in which I will be displaying my t-shirts, buttons, prints, my comics and portfolio of other things I have done. Not to mention will possibly be doing commissions of my cartoons for a small fee which will either go to me eating food for the day or I may put it towards my site depending on how many people will buy stuff from me I guess. A cool little pic of me and my work as well as a bio of me is being displayed on the Wizard World Site here:
http://www.wizardworld.com/home-toronto.html
and here:
http://www.wizardworld.com/emilyragozzino.html
Needless to say I'm super excited to be going to the event! I hope to see a lot of cool people there!

I think that just about ends my little blog for March...there were many other things that happened in this month too, but whatever, it's not necessarily comic related. On that note, enjoy some of my new comics I've displayed. The plot's been thickening:
http://www.tomboytara.com/comics01.php

Facepaint, "Fan Art" and Feature

So I tried my hand at face-painting recently. Went to my niece's 1st birthday and tried to paint her face, but as I predicted she was all fidgety so I painted her mom's face instead. It's harder than I thought on another person, but perhaps it's because a lot of moving around was going on, seeing as my niece was in her mom's lap, and well, you know babies, they have attention-span problems and won't sit still. or something. So I painted my own face afterward. I tried a bunny design. Yes I actually went in public with this paint on my face too. It was too funny. I went to pet shops and toy stores and the kids seemed to love it. The adults mind you, some thought it was great, others tried to veer their kids away from me when I was walking along. I got a few disgusted glances. I'm a girl for crying out loud! I just came back from a b-day party for my niece! I'm not trying to creep anyone out...but whatever, people are afraid of clowns and dolls, I guess it's a legit thing to be freaked out about. I guess I was just brave walkin' around the mall like that. Most people wouldn't bother, they'd instantly wash it off.




So whatever, it was a fun little adventure anyways. As well recently I coloured in Alexandria's guest art she gave me recently. It was incredibly hard to resist...I just had this urge! Her line work was so inviting! I just needed to, ya know?

Also for those interested, I have a little advertisement on a cool website about the Canadian Creative Community called Thebroker.ca

My webcomic as well as my products are shown there and other info about my business is listed.

http://thebroker.ca/home/classifieds/for-sale/8/Tom-Boy-Tara-Products/Toronto/Artists_

If you're a Canadian artist and would like to advertise for a whole year for free please join "Thebroker.ca" and you will be able to easily do so! It's a great place to be for artists and you can converse and meet other artists like yourself that will make your current business more fun in the long run!