The Schlock Mercenary store has new stuff in it, including art prints from Keliana Tayler.
Keliana recently graduated with a degree in illustration. She has been doing commissions and covers all summer, sharing studio space with me. When the time came for Keliana to set up a store front, she and Sandra realized that it would be easier for everyone involved if they leveraged the storefront that already works.
Two weeks ago Keliana joined me at WorldCon in San Jose. On several occasions people looked at her work and suggested some sort of genetic connection to the arts. Speaking as one half of the parenting team that fostered, enabled, and helped to fund her development as an artist, I emphatically assured everyone that her mad skills were not genetic. She was not born an artist. She decided to become one. She’s already far better at this than I am. The only advantage I have is that I’m old and established and people view my mistakes as a “style.”
Keliana’s section of our storefront is not her only web presence. You can find her at KelianaRTayler.com, on Tumblr, on Patreon, and on DeviantArt, where she has been a member for longer than I have.
Last week I started a blog post about how, now that my convention travel was out of the way, I would be able to get busy with other things.
So busy was I, in fact, that I never actually published that post. Or wrote anything besides the title, which would more correctly read “And Now, Five Weeks of Being At Home.”
I’m in San Jose this week for the 76th annual World Science Fiction Convention. I’m not exhibiting, my schedule is light, and I’m Airbnb-ing instead of staying in the convention hotel(s), so it’s a little bit like I’m ghosting.
Here’s my schedule:
Saturday
10:00 am, room 211c: Mental Health and Craft: Creating with Depression and Anxiety
3:00 pm, autographing area: Autographing! This is your best chance to have me deface your stuff.
Sunday
12:00 pm, room 210b: Body Language—How to Improve Your Awareness and Use It in Fiction
Most of my time will likely be spent hiding somewhere and working on Schlock Mercenary installments. My GenCon recovery day stretched across half of last week, and these daily comics still don’t draw themselves. Oh, and although my schedule suggests I don’t need to be in San Jose until Saturday, I’m flying out today, Monday the 13th. I have two days of pre-Worldcon recording sessions with the Writing Excuses crew, so this week will be spent entirely out of reach of my usual drawing table…
I just returned from GenCon Indy, which I quite enjoyed, but which exhausted me. Next week I head to San Jose for WorldCon 76, for which I must be well-rested.
It needs to be a quiet week here. I’ll post my WorldCon schedule prior to the event, but beyond that I shouldn’t expect much in the way of blog updates. Such energy as I have will be spent making comics…
Two weeks ago Keliana joined me at WorldCon in San Jose. On several occasions people looked at her work and suggested some sort of genetic connection to the arts. Speaking as one half of the parenting team that fostered, enabled, and helped to fund her development as an artist, I emphatically assured everyone that her mad skills were not genetic. She was not born an artist. She decided to become one. She’s already far better at this than I am. The only advantage I have is that I’m old and established and people view my mistakes as a “style.”