The House Rules

Happy New Year! Every year I make resolutions, big and small. Even if they don't always stick, I think there's something to be said for trying. And, while the calendar rolling over to a new start is ultimately arbitrary, if it helps you start a new habit, does it matter?

One of the things I'm obsessed with is productivity and good work flow. I want to make it possible to do the most with the time I have. So, capturing my ideas, figuring out how to use Photoshop more effectively, things like that are all part of that.

Boundaries help with that. I think they're important to those of us who freelance. I think it's typical for freelancers who start off with a day job to work nights and weekends. But when you make the transition to full-time freelance, it's easy to allow your work to bleed over your entire life. And, while I love what I do with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns, it doesn't mean that it's all I want to do. I have a fiancee, a family and friends, books to read and movies to see and walks to take. I love being in the studio, but I want to make sure that I leave it, too.

So, I'm taking the opportunity of the New Year to post my schedule. It's important to manage expectations. How fast should you be expected to respond to an email? When is too early to call? So, here we go with my five house rules.

HOUSE RULES

1. I work from 9:00est-5:00est, Monday through Friday, not counting holidays. You can call (or text) me from 9:00est to 8:00pm est on those days.

I live in the East Coast Time Zone, but not all of my clients do. So, I start at 9:00, the classic time to start out here. I try to wrap up around 5:00pm. But I have a lot of West Coast clients. It's unreasonable to shut them off at 2:00pm their time. So I'll take calls up until 5:00pm on the West Coast.

Does this mean you can't call me at 10:30 on a Sunday night when you have a crisis? No, of course not. If you're a client and you're living a disaster, it's my job to make that go away. But not everything can be a crisis. If it is, we need to have a talk.

Same schedule for texts. With emails, I know that people send those when they think of it. You've got an idea on a Sunday night and want to get it to me when it's clear and you're on your computer. Great! I'll take a look at it Monday morning.

2. I try to return all work emails in 24 hours, phone messages the same day, text messages within a couple of hours, Monday through Friday.

Here's more expectation stuff. I'll occasionally get an email that reads "Please respond- URGENT!" I'll tell you right now, email is the worst way to get me an urgent message. I'm a one man operation, so there are times when I'm at a meeting, heading to one, running out to buy art supplies, whatever… I am not constantly looking at my email. Heck, in my more productive times, I turn it down to check every 15 minuyes, sometimes once an hour, just so I'm not interrupted while I'm in the middle of a huge project. I've always got my phone with me, but that doesn't mean I can always get to it either. Texting and driving is bad, and if you scheduled a meeting with me, you wouldn't want me to interrupt it to take some other client's call, so I won't do that to someone else.

And please, leave a message. If I don't pick up the phone, it doesn't mean I'm ignoring you. I could be on a call with someone else, my phone might be in a bad service area. Even if it's to say "I had a question but I need an answer now, so don't worry," then at least I know why you were trying to get a hold of me and if I should call you back.

3. I can't promise instant turnaround time.

I've got a forty-hour work week, and I try to book each of those hours. So, when I go to bed on Monday, I already know what I'm going to spend my Tuesday working on. So, if you call that Tuesday, even with something small that wouldn't take long, it doesn't mean I can do it. I have a client I work remotely for once a every couple of weeks, and during that day they've bought all my time. So I'm already booked solid. That can happen.

It's best to assume that it will take me three to five business days to turn something around. Now, if you call me a week ahead of time and let me know you'll have a project coming in hot but you won't have all the details or necessary materials until the day of, that's fine. (This is especially common with lettering, where you're waiting for art to be finished.) Then I know to block that time out for you.

And sometimes things happen, I know. An artist blows a deadline. You suddenly get an opportunity that you can't turn down and you need an ad for it. We'll take care of it. It may require some late nights on my part, it may require a rush fee on your part. The goal here is to make sure everything isn't a rush.

4. Deadlines. I don't miss them. Please make sure to tell me them.

When you've got a project, let me know when it's due. From my newspaper days, hearing "ASAP" drives me nuts. To me, that means I can do it As Soon As I get the projects done from people who could actually gave me a deadline. If you need it finished tomorrow, tell me that you need it tomorrow. There have been more than a few times when people have given me a task, I let them know I've received it and have it scheduled for tomorrow, and I get the response back later "Oh, we need that today." Tell me that to start and we won't lose time going back and forth that could be used to get the job done.

I've been working professionally for over fifteen years and I haven't missed any deadlines in that time. I've gotten pretty good at time management. And, if I can't make a deadline, I'll let you know that, too. I won't take more work than I can handle.

5. If you're a regular client, I will let you know my schedule.

It's not all about what you need to do. I have to do things in the client/artist relationship, too.

I do a lot of conventions. My brother got married on a Friday afternoon two weeks ago. I do career days at schools. There are lots of reasons that I'd be out of the office.

So, if you send me regular work, I'll be sure to email you and let you know when I'll be away at Comic-Con in San Diego. I've got lots of clients who aren't comic related, so they don't know the industry shuts down for that week in July. It's my job to make sure you know that so if you do have work, we can make sure it gets done.

I hope none of that sounds too harsh. I think it's good to get these things stated and in the open. I'm under no illusion that this will solve every issue, but it's a good place to start.

And, if you're a freelancer, I encourage you to think through these things yourself. When do you want to be available? How much do you want to work in a week?

Almost All My Table Commissions from 2013

I went through my photos from 2013 and pulled the images I have from commissions I did at my various artist alley tables. I'm sure it's not complete, but there's a good chunk of them here. Almost 100! I've also included the group shots of my Star Wars: Galactic Files II cards.

Almost All My Commissions from 2013

I've done a lot of commissions this year. Below are all the ones I had on my computer. This doesn't include things I drew at my artist alley tables. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to better capture those and make sure I can display them, too. These are ones that I worked on at my studio and either colored on computer or scanned the original before I sent it out. There are 55 pieces here. That's more than one a week!

2013 in Review

Let's see, I put out the last (for now, at least) issue of Love and Capes, and Mark and Abby finally had their baby. I wrote and drew the first issue of the first My Little Pony micro-series, which ushered me into the Ponyverse and has completely changed how I've done conventions. I lettered Taran Killiam and Marc Andreyko's Illegitmates, I wrote and drew some Gutters strips, lettered Jeremy Dale's Skyward, worked for First, Lone Star, drew some book covers, and continued my relationship with Learn It. And I did an insane number of conventions: WonderCon, Emerald City, Comicpalooza, Denver Comic-Con, HeroesCon, Comic-Con International, DragonCon, Wizard Ohio, Baltimore Comicon, Cincinnati Comic Expo, Fax Expo, Akron Comicon, C2E2, GeekGirlCon and New York! I did almost a dozen store signings, too. I wrote a couple more Pony stories which will see print in 2014, and I even wrote one more thing… but I'm not sharing that publicly until next year.

I drove across the country, made new friends in LA, walked around Vasquez Rocks, wrote in coffee houses on two coasts, saw a ton of Thrilling Adventure Hours, experienced the magic of Disneyland (including Club 33!), watched my not-Godson fight Darth Vader, took my Goddaughter to her first musical, and watched my brother Robert get married. I met a ton of fans and got to spend lots of time with my friends and family. Best of all, I got engaged to the lovely Amy Ratcliffe, who despite her obviously questionable taste in men, is a pretty amazing. I love her so much.

So 2013 was pretty amazing. Here's to an even better 2014, and I hope yours is fantastic, too!

(Photo by the talented Rachel McCauley)

Day 31: Fantastic Four #tzadvent

I wanted to do something special for the last one, so I knew I'd do color. More than one character seemed natural, too. The Fantastic Four seemed the perfect fit.

And this was hard. I drew and redrew this one over and over. The Thing was the toughest nut to crack, since I was going for that Kirby/Sinnot/Byrne look. Also I like the classic flaming Human Torch before computer color made things look different. I started following the book shortly after the Negative Zone changed their uniforms and I still think it's a strong look, so I did those costumes.

Ironically, I think I used every technique I picked up on this one. Custom rulers were used to ink Mr. Fantastic's stretching. There were multiple layers, lots of resizing, and a ton of brush work.

Thanks for being part of this project. I'm debating putting these together as a skecthbook, either digital or physical, for the 2013 season. Let me know what you think.

Day 30: Catwoman #tzadvent

I always liked the Seventies Catwoman uniform. It's not the semi-practical cat burglar outfit she currently wears, but this one is just more fun to draw, with the cape and the skirt and the flowing-ness.

I did tweak my settings on this one. I'm learning to modify the Cintiq as well as the Razer. I now can control the brush size from the pen buttons on Manga Studio, something I couldn't do before. And it's similar to how I change brush size in Photoshop. Maybe, in the New Year, I'll share the setup I did settle on. I always dig that process stuff.

Tomorrow is the last day of this Advent project. I may go off the board and pick something on my own, but I want to finish this thing in a big way. It's been fun. I've got an idea to keep it going in January, but I'm not positive I want to do that yet. What do you think?

Day 29: Bat-Mite #tzadvent

Oh, that wacky Silver Age. Everybody had a magical imp character. Batman was no exception. I went with his classic look, rather than his Filmation Great Gazoo look. That was a bit of drawing challenge, trying to do a stylized character in my style. I tweaked the eye shape in Photoshop, rather than Manga Studio. It was a decision I made after seeing the inks. I could have taken it back into MS, but it was just as easy to do it in Photoshop. And while the purpose of this experience is to learn Manga Studio, I also want to make sure I can do touch ups in Photoshop. It's all about getting faster so I can make more cool things.

Tomorrow, another Bat-character.

Day 28: She-Hulk #tzadvent

If it's a Saturday, it must be color time. And what better color this Christmas season than green and She-Hulk. On this, I mostly focused on the feathering strokes used on hair. I wanted to get something that looked as natural as working with traditional brush and ink. I think it came out pretty well.

I have two tones for my shadow layers. I have a brown I use for daytime scenes, and a blue that I use for nighttime scenes. Most of the color pieces I've done have been the default brown, but here I used the blue. I think it plays well with the green skin tones.

To my mind, She-Hulk's best uniform was when she was with the Fantastic Four.

The current one didn't really speak to me, as it looks mostly like a swimsuit without much character, though the colors are good. But the costume she wears on Agents of SMASH with a biker short cut I think suits the character well. I just picked a purple closer to her current comic book incarnation.

Day 27: The Lone Ranger #tzadvent

No, I haven't seen the new film, so don't ask. I might catch it on cable or Netflix. But I'm a fan from way back. I used to get the radio shows from the library, and I watched a couple of the shows and the Filmation cartoon. And I knew all the lore, from where he got the silver bullets to what made the holes in his mask to who his descendant was.

And I loved how Clayton Moore never showed his face in the show. I borrowed a little of that when I created Ben, the mysterious leader of the Benefactor Agency in my Raider series. I never let him show his face unmasked either.

Nothing bold or new in my process here. I am turning the screen a little bit more, zooming in and out a little more, so that I can make the most comfortable and smoothest stroke possible. When you ink on board, you're spinning the paper all the time. I'm still finding that level of comfort when drawing digitally.

Day 26: The Golden Age Flash #TZadvent

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Mine was pretty fantastic, even while fighting a cold.

Today's art is the Golden Age Flash. I always thought he was cool, and his costume was awesome. Though how that helmet stayed on his head at super-speed, I'll never know.

I started messing around with some of the ruler tools to do the running effect. Those things are going to be insanely helpful as things go forward.

Just five more of these to go. Who will be next?