My wife and I went backpacking over the past week. What was supposed to be 3 days and 2 nights, and hike of about 6 miles a day, quickly got changed. We were told the trail was good for beginners but the first part was a bit challenging. Well, the first part was more than a bit challenging. Though we could’ve kept on keeping on if it wasn’t for the mosquitoes. Our timing was not good with rain over the past few weeks, and temperatures in the mid to upper 80s as we arrived, it was perfect mosquito time. I think it’s that time of year anyway, but there was a good amount of mud and a few marshy areas. Once we passed the first marsh spot it was like we crossed into the filming of some B movie titled “Killer Mosquitoes”. As we woke the second day, and the mosquitoes weren’t letting up(even with massive amounts of OFF), we decided to call it off and chalk it up to a learning experience. We had a decent time with all things considered, but we’ll certainly research the bug populations and trends before our next trip. And yes, I’ll pack in such a way not to have so many things hanging off my pack like an idiot:)

My wife and I are going backpacking in a couple weeks and I had the bright idea to go buy a small travel set of watercolors and a small watercolor paper pad. I was excited and being years since I’ve used watercolors I had to try them out. So I picked a panel from a mini-comic I’m putting together to try out the paints.

Last weekend was the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo here in Columbus Ohio. It was a pretty good time for my first comic convention. I met a lot of other creators who were all very nice and talented and far too numerous to list here. Sales were OK, I made the money for the table back, not taking into consideration what the printing costs were. That just means I’ll have books to sell at Origins and GenCon this summer. Attendance was decent on the first day, but the second day seemed to be mostly other exhibitors walking around checking everybody out. Who knows if it was the economy, the new location this year, or the weather. I didn’t take many pictures. The one above was right after I finished setting up my table and the doors hadn’t opened to the public yet. Mike Kitchen was one of my neighbors and is shuffling through some of his Spy Guy books.

Here’s the finished piece I did for the ArtOrder Discover a Muse Challenge. I’ll probably spend more time on it when I have some. There are things I want to do like de-saturating the background a bit, adding some more details, and so on. The model is Veronika Kotlajic and she provided all the participants with a stack of reference photos for the challenge, which was very inspiring. The deadline is June 1, so if you have the time and the drive jump in.

There’s a new challenge over at ArtOrder that’s sure to get a lot of artists entering. I’ve started messing around with it. Decided to go with something sci-fi since I’ve been reading Alastair Reynold’s novel lately. Thankfully the deadline is June 1 so there’s plenty of time to play with this. I’ve been wanting to do an acrylic painting for a while and while I won’t finish this piece traditionally, I may render out the values in acrylic washes.