More Mermaids and Dragons.

Just popping in with a note to say that I did a SECOND PRINT RUN of both Memory Mermaid and Memory Dragon. They are in my Etsy store right now!

BEN'S FUNNY ETSY SHOPPE

Summer of Mermaids Art Sale

Hey friends!

For those of you who have a train to catch, here's a short version of this post: I’m having a summer art sale. There are things up in my Etsy shop. The link is right here:

BEN'S ETSY SHOP

And so we find ourselves in the middle of another Summer. Here’s a long-overdue, kind of rambling post.

As I type this it’s late afternoon and I’m in my Very Secret & Very Quiet Writing Hideaway. There is a Summer Thunderstorm brewing outside. It’s lovely.

Sitting next two me, here in my Very Secret & Very Quiet Writing Hideaway, is my new-used 10 speed bicycle. It has fenders! It has a rack on the back! It was a gift from my friend-and-mechnic, Justin! I'm planning to strap an old milk crate to the rack so that I can cart various sundries back and forth from my VS&VQWH. Here’s my new-used bike:

(thanks Justin!)

And here’s me in my VS&VQWH:

Clever readers will have guessed (correctly) that I put the timer on my iPod and staged a photo to makes me look like a Serious Writer. That’s part of my plan. You see, if everyone thinks I’m a Serious Writer then I will definitely get these projects I’m working on done. That’s how being a Serious Writer works. (I think.)

Anyway, I will have a lot more to say about my VS&VQWH in an upcoming post. There’s some exciting stuff on the horizon. But for now let’s move on to the mermaids. And for that, we’ll have to travel back to May…

In May I was traveling through Macedonia as part of the U.S. Speaker Abroad Program. I was talking about visual storytelling at schools and universities. I was visiting “American Corners” in different towns and being driven hither and yon by the American Embassy. And I was sneaking out at odd hours to explore the old Turkish Market in Skopje. Here are a few pictures from Macedonia:

All the while I was aware that mermaids were cropping up all across the internet as part of a cleverly-titled art challenge called “Mermay” The challenge, simply, is to draw a mermaid each day in May (I think these monthly challenges got their start with Jake Parker’s “Inktober”). I saw the mermaids and I thought “no way am I doing that.”

But then of course I drew a couple mermaids on a tablecloth and I was off to the races.

I wasn’t able to do a full month’s worth of Mers, but I ended up with a good fifteen. Here are a few of my favorites:

I had a blast drawing these, and posting them over on Instagram. It took me some time to figure out what to do with them, but I finally had them printed as a set of Memory Cards, like my Memory Dragon set from a few years ago.

Memory Mermaid is available over on my Etsy Shop as part of my wee Summer Art Sale. There are also a few prints and some original pages from Mighty Jack.

And now the rain has come and a cool breeze is blowing through the VS&VQWH and I have a story to write.

See you soon.

Cookies and Cards

The Memory Dragon orders, one and all, have shipped! Everyone should receive their cards within the next couple of days (except for you international orders. Arrival time on those is a mystery to me).

Anna's hand-sewn bags, with their gold lining and dragon-scale patterned exteriors, looked very fine and the cards printed beautifully this time around thanks to National Media Services in Front Royal. I will definitely be producing some more items with their help in the future. Posters, perhaps? Maybe a poster of the image below? (you can click on the image below to biggerize):

And here, for everyone interested in process, is a little gif showing how this image developed from a rough pencil sketch to the final colored piece:

Finally, look what I found online the other day!:

A bakery in Austin, Texas, Curious Confections, was asked to make custom Zita the Spacegirl sugar cookies and they look awesome! Thanks Google alerts!

Snowy Days, Podcasts and Watercolors

Note: This is the LAST CALL for the Memory Dragon game! I’m going to close down the shop late tomorrow or early Friday and start putting together the orders so that I can get them out in time for Christmas. So if you were hoping to nab a copy you can still CLICK HERE TO ORDER.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog post:

The Hatke Family has been snowed in to our little farmhouse since Sunday. The girls have enjoyed days of snowmen and sledding and snowball fights (and hot chocolate and movies). I’ve enjoyed those things too, and I’ve also taken the opportunity to catch up on some freelance work and commissions. Here are some ink-and-watercolor seed packet designs I worked on for a friend:

And here is a Christmas card design another friend commissioned. This one was fun to put together:

Finally, yesterday I had the opportunity to have a fun Skype conversation with the fantastic Jerzy Drozd for his Comics Are Great podcast. We talked about writing heroes, depicting the guileless good guy, the recent Superman movie and much more. Here’s a link to the show:

COMICS ARE GREAT EPISODE 92.

The Return of Memory Dragon

Memory Dragon is back! I’m reprinting the game this year at an excellent independent local print shop and selling it here for a limited time for the approaching Christmas Season.

Each Memory dragon game comes with 48 cards: 2 copies each of the 15 dragon cards, 5 wizard cards, the princess card and the three symbol cards, flame, star and heart. The cards come in a beautiful, wizardly hand-sewn bag made by Anna. Note: Bags this year will be different than those shown above.

The set is good for all kinds of made up games, but it definitely makes a fun and challenging version of the traditional memory matching game. The way we play is to make wizard matches worth double, since there are fewer of them. The princess, since there is only one princess match, is worth triple or more.

Memory Dragon Card sets are $25 plus shipping. Orders will be closed by Friday the 13th.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT MY LITTLE ONLINE STORE.