Freelance, Mebbe

I have a sign hanging in a comic/gaming shop down in Austin, and somebody apparantly liked what they saw. These are character designs for a pen-and-paper roleplaying game called Dardunah. If all goes well, these will appear in a book. If the directer of the project likes them, I'll have more work. It's kind a dream job, designing fantasy anthro characters, but I dunno. I'm not particularly fond of pencil and it's been a long time since I did a full piece, so I don't have a super high opinion of these. Plus, I'm not even getting paid what I'd really like to be; about half that, in fact. And what happens if the image does get published? Do I get royalties or what? Why are illustrators always seen as so expendable? "Look, you just draw pictures, okay? No reason to pay you minimum wage or anything, since YOU have FUN at your job."
Ah, the fine squiggly line between getting paid crap and not getting paid at all. Are you shy, squiggly line? It's all right. I forgive you.

Questions about Wacoms

The time is quickly approaching when I'll be able to end my senseless griping and finally purchase a +4 Wacom Tablet of Awesomeness. However, I'm a n00b.

I have very little idea of what the bonuses and limitations of a Wacom are (apart from its +4 modifier vs. kobolds). So, as I gear up to re-vamp my home system and buy this mysterious object, I'm asking you, my fellow illustrators: what's your advice on Wacoms?

To me, they seem like the best possible method of creating color work. I hate paint, and colored pencil is rather limited. So are Wacoms the devil? Are they heralded by angels and unicorn foxes? Do they take forever to get used to? What's the best one?

Any advice is good advice.

sketchjunk and product plug

I recently bought this really cool refillable brush pen, which I LOVE. Works so much better than the disposable pens I've tried (and I'm too messy to use brushes and ink.) Don't know if any of you guys already have one, it's called the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. Has synthetic bristles and refills with cartridges. Does not fray like the disposable ones! I highly recommend it to people who like to play around with ink.

Also, no one's posted recently so I thought I'd throw up a couple pages from my little sketchbook that I take to work.

Random pen doodle.


I saw this girl on the bus and her hat was pulled down so low it was comical. The top guy was not on the bus, fortunately.


A lush. That's actually an ornate word bubble coming from the puppet, but I haven't written in the drunk talk yet.