It’s like NaNoWriMo, but with 30 original character drawings in 30 days. You can check it out over at http://www.30characters.com

Here is my #1 character, because it is Day #1! We’ll see if I can keep this up!

I polled my friends, asking what animal I should practice drawing, and the majority suggested kangaroos. It turns out, they aren’t that easy to draw!

Well maybe this was a bad idea. I haven’t seen any cats in the neighborhood since he got his wings…

Well who doesn't want wings?

Here, have a tiny sketch of a faun.

A Fun Faun!

I decided to sit down and draw “a bunch of cute stuff” – here is a sneak peek! Check back for more info – they’ll be going into Etsy! ( http://glimmerville.etsy.com ) Drawing on these little 4×6 inch cards has given me more freedom to draw, er, freely (I say this because I have done this many tonight – for me, this is a lot of drawing.). I know if I mess one up, hey it’s just a little 4×6 card. It keeps me from getting angsty over messing up the inking on a piece I have labored over for hours – because I have only labored over these for minutes. They are also stiff enough to watercolor.

Cute Doodles

Now I need to color them (that’s the hard part, for me). Also I sure hope that the pen I inked with was waterproof. I was not very concerned about it at the time…  I used the free Bic UniBall Super Ink pen that I received in the mail. (Any pen with a really sweet mecha mascot is awesome by default, but it writes very smoothly too.) Hm, the site says it is water resistant. I hope that’s enough for me to put a little watercolor wash over it. We’ll see!

PS. Yes you’re right I could have used the Sailor Recruit I blogged about, because that ink is waterproof as well.

Continuing where I left off: The Graphgear 1000, and the Nomadic PE-07 pen case. Making this order from Jetpens convinced me to sort and organize the pens I already had (and throw out the ‘dead’ ones).

Overdoing it on the Pens

That, resting magnificently (note the consummate v’s)  on top of the box is the Nomadic pen case. I bought it because it had a bunch of pockets and the product info said it would hold 30-40 pens. I had this idea, just now, that it might do well at holding gaming dice, or craft supplies, or a GPS, or a Nintendo DSi & game cartridges, too. Quite versatile!

Two Main Pockets

Under the Flap is Another

Finally is the Graphgear 1000. This has immediately become my new favorite pencil. I love that the sharp lead-holder retracts when you click the clip on the side. It has a sturdy metal grip, with rubber knurls, and a thin barrel. I also appreciate that it has an indicator to show you what lead hardness you have loaded into the pen. I didn’t know there was such a thing, and that is one of the main reasons I bought this pen. It runs $15, which is high for a pencil, but I found this one on sale for a few dollars less. I HIGHLY recommend it if you like drafting-type mechanical pencils. Here is a much more in-depth review. It was Dave’s review that spurred me to buy the pencil.

Graphgear 1000 PG1015

So, in a nutshell, I am happy with every product I bought from Jetpens. You use a pen or pencil every day – you may as well find some you really enjoy!

And, continuing from my last post, here is a run-down on the pens I bought. When they arrived they came like this: A Platinum Preppy (in violet), spare ink for it (in violet and green). A Sailor Recruit (blue) with spare ink, and a pencil case.

These pens are both a joy to write with, and, considering the difference in price, I am surprised how much I like them both. (The Platinum Preppy is $3.50 while the Sailor Recruit is $15.)

The Sailor Recruit feels better in my hand, because I really like slim pens and pencils. But the Platinum Preppy is not uncomfortable. I was afraid it might leak, but it didn’t. Neither have leaked at all; not in shipping, and not while being used and hauled around in my purse. I would never have been so worried about leaking, if every fountain pen I had tried in the past was as good as these two are!

Sailor Recruit

Platinum Preppy

Testing the Ink

I have a friend with a webcomic! I mentioned her in this post when I talked about webcomics. But I am mentioning her again! Her webcomic is called Radio Isopod and it has submarines, sea creatures, radioactivity, steampunk, and mad science. What more could you possibly ask for? Oh maybe a podcast! Well she has that too. She also has a webcomic for The Secret Lair, which also contains a lot of mad science and supervillainy and a podcast, yet is connected to a group of local friends I get to hang out with and play games. See a theme? Hmm.

And I am going to do a guest bit on the Radio Isopod podcast – I’ll toss you a link when I get one. But I didn’t even get that far yet. Because I wanted to draw a little bit of art for Natalie, who even sent me an awesome Steampunk Christmas card (procrastiate much, Rach?) so I am posting it here.

Also I went over all of my original pencil work using my graphics tablet, and this is about the first time I have ever not despised doing it. This is a step forward!

DJ Trousdale is a fellow Christian I met on deviantART. Check out his comic here: http://djtrousdale.com/hexfactorial

Sticky (or at least that’s the nickname I know him by) has a Morrowind-based comic here: http://www.skaarj.com/comic/ That was a fun game. I didn’t finish the expansions – I keep meaning to.

I just met Samantha on Ustream last week, as she worked her way through the “24 Hour Comics Day” Challenge.  I have a big soft spot in my heart for overweight red-haired magic users (you in the peanut-gallery, shush) so I fell in love with her comic: http://www.witchytech.com/lifesawitch

Urban Fey is written by a mother-daughter team! I know Windy (aka. Kim) from JB’s comic’s forum, and also deviantART – what a tangled web 2.0 we weave. I was also in their Guild Wars guild. Go Team Mystic Sheep! Anyway they have a novel take on the court of the Fey: http://www.urbanfey.net/ AND are in the process of working on some more comics too! See what’s coming: http://www.mysticsheepstudios.com/pages/comics.html

I know Natalie from watching her illustrate other podcasts, and from deviantART. She has a webcomic of mad science and underwater adventures: http://radioisopod.com She also has a podcast! I did a guest mad science bit on it, once. Natalie has webcomics over here too: http://thesecretlair.com but if I told you about The Secret Lair, well, they wouldn’t invite me back. (I have an honorary title and that’s all I can say.)

Got a comic yourself?
Tell me about it!