Creative Pursuits

I wanted to spread the word that my good buddy Alex is starting up a miniatures design company - The Forge of Ice. He doesn't have a website up for it yet, but you can check out this thread on the Excelsior Entertainment board for info and some sneak peeks of greens: Miniatures by Alex

Just so happens I'm also doing some design work for him - one company logo so far (which you can see on that thread), and I still owe him a couple of alternate logo designs. I'm also hoping to contribute some figure designs for him down the road. The models he's got in the works so far look really great.

NaNoWriMo

November is right around the corner, and with it comes the National Novel Writing Month. This will be the third year of participating for both Jenny and I, and hopefully this year will be somewhat more successful for me. I really have no idea what I'm going to write, and I'm thinking that might be a good thing.

The last two years I had "great ideas", which might actually make good novels, so I kinda sabotaged myself by overthinking them and getting bogged down in too much research and too little writing. This time I'm considering just coming up with a couple of main characters and then free writing and see what happens to them. Guess we'll see on November 1st.

24 Hour Comic Book Day

This is a yearly international event, started by cartoonist Scott McCloud, where artists (with more free time than sense) get together and attempt to write and draw a complete 24 page comic in 24 hours. It's crazy, really, but a great creative exercise.  I'm sure I'm not ready for it, especially since I haven't attempted any sequential work in ages, but what better way of kick-starting myself back into it, right?

This year the day is on October 18 (the Saturday after next). Here in Spokane, the 24HCBD will be sponsored by and held at Merlyns (a local comic and game store), and organized by Levi Skeen, a local comic book artist. If you're looking for more info, check out these links:

     The 24 Hour Comic Book Day Website
     The 24HCBD Spokane MySpace Page
     Merlyns' Store Website