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Nap Time

I try to regularly draw things...Wait, let me start over.

Part of my daily routine, when I'm not just too crazy busy is doing warm up drawings and paintings. That's where the Watercolor Wednesday paintings are often made, as well as where I manage to get work done a little bit at a time on ongoing projects. It's also where I'm able to experiment with new ideas, techniques and materials.

Crow quills aren't really new to me, but honestly I don't use them that often. I thought I'd get them out the other day and play with them a bit. I've got a big project coming up that I'd like to use them for. I love the thick to thin that they naturally give line weights, and I have the feeling that as I use them more, I'll grow to love them a little bit.

This fox warrior is the result of me working out some ideas for another comic project that I'd like to do. The story outline is coming along nicely, and I'm excited to share more of it a bit at a time.

The Alex Keaton/Michael Keaton connundrum.

Some time last year, I started doing Watercolor Warm Up paintings as I got ready to work for the day, and then posting them on Watercolor Wednesdays. I got the original idea from David Peterson, and it’s such a great way to start the day, experiment, and create new content.

When April was born, she was totally bald. In fact, she didn't really have much hair until well after she was one. Ophelia on the other hand was born with a full head of hair. I did this illustration initially for the About section of this website, and she looks very different from the character I'm using in the comic right now...I think I'm going to go ahead and start drawing her more like this.

A common element in a lot of character drawings are rubber duckies. They might be on a shirt, as a pattern on wall paper or decals on the pool, or a toy. I don't know exactly why, I think I just like the iconic look of them, and they're fun to draw. :) This illustration is available in the online shop HERE.

There was a time when we watched Toy Story every day. The movie was one of the first to truly capture April's imagination. That's the power of excellent character design and great story telling. As time went on, she got all the toys. Woody and Jessie were constant companions. This illustration is available in the online shop HERE.

You can check out an album of all the Watercolor Wednesdays over on our Facebook page. Thanks for stopping by and spending some time with us!

Who's Your Keaton?

It's actually kind of amazing to me after looking him up on IMDB just how few movies Michael Keaton has been in. Favorites of course are ones like Beetlejuice, Batman, and Toy Story 3, but films like Gung Ho, and Night Shift will always hold a place in my heart.

Right now, Olive's favorite is his voice role as the title character in Porco Rosso from Studio Ghibli. I think it's so funny the movies that she get's really into, because they're very different than what you would expect a two or three-year-old girl to want to watch over and over. The last one she was like this with was Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. Both movies, while being essentially all ages appropriate, deal with a lot of complex themes. Things like this support my feelings that even though kids will accept any brightly colored piece of plastic we hand them, they really appreciate things that are well designed.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

You know that old joke about kids on Christmas morning only wanting to play with the boxes? I'm not saying it's exactly true, but it pretty much is. There are a lot of different styles of teachers out there, and we've been blessed to know many fantastic ones over the years. This is a near perfect example of the kind of open ended play that we try to champion whenever we get the chance. Give the kids some materials, provide a framework in the form of a story or discussion of interests, let the kids work through to their own personal, logical conclusion. The results were often very cool and exciting.

A few weeks ago, the girls made play doh, and it turned out terribly wrong. Chemistry is amazing. It became a fantastic sensory experience though, as both of the kids wanted to play in the resulting goop, squishing and stretching and pulling and plopping it. Serious fun for about an hour.

Three Year Olds

Today's strip is finally up, only 12 hours late! Go Team!

One of the things that made the transition from working to being a stay-at-home dad and freelancer is that we kept Abby in preschool a couple days a week for the first couple of months. It gave me and Olive time to get to know each other, and to establish a routine. We also got started on some long term projects during that time. It was amazing to me that the house could actually function without someone there every day to do cleaning and maintenance. Work was also slow at first too, which made it possible to get things done and to figure out how to live on a budget. More on that later though.

My friend Tommy from Top Hat Sasquatch posted this photo on Instagram of some Muppet drawings I did for him. They look pretty great in frames. I'm hoping to do a lot more little drawings of the things I love this year as part of the Watercolor Warm Ups I've been doing. If you'd like to follow along, I post the paintings on Instagram as I work on them each day, or on our website as a Watercolor Wednesday feature in our blog and shop.

I Can Watch Whatever I Want

I watched a lot of movies that first couple of months during naps and feeding times. This was before they were big enough to have an opinion about what we watched, of course. These days I end up watching a lot of My Little Pony. In other news, we've discovered a station that has a lot of musicals on it on Pandora, including Disney and Broadway...So I've been listening to a lot of songs from Frozen and Tangled, and Wicked. They're really good. We saw Frozen over the Christmas break, and enjoyed it a lot. For a lot of people of my generation, I think Disney got a bad reputation during the 90's. There were just so many straight to video movies, and even the theatrical releases were only so-so. It's been great to see so many quality films coming out of the studio, and also to realize that they've been doing some fantastic things for several years now. Not just in animation either, the recent Marvel movies, Narnia, and John Carter were all incredible, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they have planned for Star Wars.

Happy Birthday Amy!

It was Amy's birthday today, so I spent time with the family, made a cake, wrapped presents...my parent's came in for a visit, and there was a Girl Scout meeting. I'm telling you all this because 1. It's awesome that it's my wife's birthday, and 2. I didn't get an actual strip done today. I know, right?! Priorities! Ha-ha-ha!

In other news, the sequel to the ENnie award winning game Hobomancer came out today. Check out the all new Hobomancer's companion for new rules, stories, and some interior and cover art by me. We're all really proud and excited about this book, and have been looking forward to sharing it with you all.

Baby Burritos

My mom "hates" it when I pretend like I'm freaking out because I "forgot" to do whatever it is that she's reminding me to do. Something that I've been noticing lately is that often a strip rewrites itself a little bit while I'm drawing it. It's kind of liberating to know that my notes and thumbnails aren't set in stone and the work can still evolve past the idea.

Speaking of Baby Burritos, that's what we call Mrs. Handmade's swaddling blankets. They're the first thing she made for our online shop, when we realized that the ones we brought home from the hospital were terribly small, and the ones at the store weren't much better. Our daughters were what allowed me to start staying at home, to save on day care costs, but those blankets were what set us on a sustainable path. I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, though.

It's Great Being My Own Boss

It really is great. It's funny now though, looking back at it how easy it was at first because I could mostly concentrate on the kids. I can hardly believe how lucky I am to have been able to do some of the things that I have over the last three and a half years, and how slowly we were able to start. BIG thank you to every one who helped us on the way.

This past Friday, I participated in the First Friday event at the Saint Louis Science Center and was interviewed for this little promo video from it. I talk a little bit about Handmade Family, and a little bit about the Zombie Panic board game. Pretty cool, huh?


F3: Board Games January 2014 from F3-First Friday Flicks on Vimeo.

First Day At My New Job.

The first strip of the new year and the last strip of the first story. That first day of not going to work was a little awkward. I remember feeling like I did in high school and was home sick. Like anyone who saw me was thinking "why aren't you at school?" It took awhile for that feeling to wear off.

Happy New Year! I've been seeing a lot of posts telling 2013 to not let the door hit it on the way out...the year was definitely tiring, but pretty fantastic around here at the same time. I'm looking forward to seeing how the new year treats us though. I made a short list of goals for the year. They seem kind of general, but I feel like they pin point some things that I really need to work on, and something that I just need to remember to try to continue doing.

Goals for 2014
1.More quality work time
2.More quality play time
3.Garden
4.Be awesome

If you're in the Saint Louis area, I'll be at the Saint Louis Science Center on Friday night for their First Friday event. It's super game night so stop by, say hi, and maybe play a game.

Morning kind of sneaks past, doesn't it?

Last strip of 2013! Thanks for sticking with us over this crazy year as I tried desperately to keep up with family, shows, work, deadlines, more work, and comics. I succeeded in varying degrees, but mostly it was pretty much a train wreck, as I forgot things, over extended myself, and ultimately spent the last month kind of sick and hoping for it all to end, so I could start over in the new year. ha-ha-ha-ha!

We had a great break with Mrs Handmade on winter break from teaching the Saint Louis Kindergarteners all the things, visiting family and cleaning out the studio. We also had a couple of simply beautiful warm days here in Saint Louis this past weekend, so we got some yard work done and took a trip to the City Museum.

2014 is shaping up to be an exciting year for us, and I'm really looking forward to it. One of the biggest changes is the new website which is mostly complete now. Check it out over at www.LifeWithGirls.com. In addition to the comic, we have an online store, the blog, lots of great artwork and we're working on some really cool extras like downloadable goodies, tutorials and demo videos.

You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter for show announcements, coupons, and specials in the sidebar of the website or under the Email signup tab on our Facebook fan page.

One Two Three...Not It!

Babies seem to have a sixth sense that tells them whey you're taking a breather. Remember the days when you could just sit on the couch for hours at a time? Ha-ha-ha! After a while though, the whole family gets into a sort of rhythm that's pretty much only disturbed on special occasions...Like when the kitchen is torn apart and rebuilt.

Just two more strips until the end of this first story arc. Talk about timing, right? If all goes as planned, we'll be starting off the new year with the second episode of Life With Girls, season one. Pretty exciting stuff!

Saying Goodbye to Grammie

It's always amazing how fast a weekend goes by, especially when you're busy. No matter how much you get done, it's never as much as you'd wanted or meant to. Weekends where family is visiting and helping with projects are even more so, as we try to cram as much into the visit as we can.

Christmas is next week, and we're looking forward to a bit of a break. I'm not sure yet if I'll be posting any strips, because the schedule is pretty full and wacky, but I'll definitely get something up for you. In the mean time, shipping is still free in the online store, and we're updating with new items most days. Thanks for looking!

The Hole in the Wall

This seems to be the fate of every DIY home project. Start on something you think will be fairly straightforward, and discover that whoever was there before you left a complicated present. This is the beginning of an ongoing storyline that just goes on forever it seems.

There's definitely an element of teaching yourself stuff in the DIY community though. It's like we never left school, and that's one of the things that I love about my job. It always feels like I'm learning something new. Speaking of learning new things, have you seen the Webcomics Handbook by Brad Guigar yet? It's really fantastic, and covers a lot of ground that's useful to comicers, crafters, and small business people. And it's great to see that we're not alone out here working for ourselves. There are so many other people sorking and striving to be better at what they do. It seems like there's always something to do, and lately for me that something has been working on my lettering. Slowly but surely, it's getting better.

Don't forget that through Christmas, you can get FREE SHIPPING from my online shop. That's almost as good as seeing me at a show, or stopping into Fusion in Chesterfield Mall.

Guest Comic By James Hornesby

Today, I'm taking a little break and doing a guest post by my friend James Hornesby from Botched Spot, the pro-wrestling webcomic! He was my table mate at Wizard World Saint Louis, and is also a regular artist for Hex Games. This is his comic of me at conventions hassling passers by.

Most of my comic time this week was taken up working on the new website and client work. I've been scrabbling to get the shop up and running before the new year so that I can close my etsy shop as their new policies take effect. We talked it over, and feel like they just represent too much of a shift from the local, sustainable, handmade model that we value. If we're going to be forced to compete with factories anyway, than we want to do it from our own site, and not pay etsy for the privilege of the fight. So where does that put us? The shop is about a third complete, and I have some things to tweak on the back end. All of our urls now point there, so if you want to see some really great handmade gifts, games, accessories and illustrations check us out at www.LifeWithGirls.com or www.HandmadeFamily.com

How To Remove a Tile Back Splash

Sometimes, jobs are easier than you expected them to be. Sometimes they are harder. Sometimes they are just...different. One of the joys and curses of buying a home is discovering what was done to it before you got there, and every job that you do often creates two more.

I stumbled across this trailer today, from the folks who made Coraline, and Paranorman. There's another one of behind the scenes footage on their site. I LOVE seeing miniatures and models behind the scenes, and it always makes me itchy to make little figures and models of my own. Speaking of little figures, I made a whole bunch of Peg People for the shop a couple of weeks ago, including this one that I think looks a lot like Luke Wilson.

He'll be at Fusion this weekend, and if you sign up for my mailing list either on the Life With Girls website, or on the Life With Girls facebook page, you can get a coupon for ten percent off Handmade Family products which is good through December.

Kids Can Be Terrible Helpers

It's a lot of work, training willing helpers. We always let them help when we're cooking or doing projects, but kind of hate it when they do.

If you're looking for a cool gift for the holidays (or birthday, or whatever)we have super hero capes, baby blankets, games, and original art, as well as the Life With Girls Fairy Tale book and Calendar in stock in our online store at HandmadeFamily.com. Not only that, but we have a special going on right now through Christmas. Free shipping on your entire order with offer code SAINTNICK.

We're also giving away a calendar on both the Life With Girls and the Handmade Family facebook pages. Check it out if you like free stuff! 

Ready To Work, Ready To Play

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful this year, like a fantastic community of crafters filled with wonderful people for the girls to look up to. Food on the table, and work for our hands to do. I'm thankful for my family every day, even when they try to make me work when I want to play.

I really wanted to do three strips a week with the new story lines, but apparently my work load is going to make that impossible, so I'm going to settle for a two strip a week schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'll try to get some extras out there too in the blog to fill in some of the gaps between strips, as well as starting Watercolor Wednesdays as soon as I get the shop on the new site in order.

Speaking of shops, the Life With Girls Fairy Tale calendar is available in out Handmade Family store at http://www.handmadefamily.com, along with a ton of other cool things from super hero capes, to baby blankets, games, comics, prints and original art. We're offering free shipping through Christmas with offer code SAINTNICK.

Coming home from work to playtime

You know how sometimes you get home and just want to sit and stare off into space for a bit? There are always people who are excited to see you, when there are little people in the house. It's kind of like in "Cheers" when Norm walks into the bar, except there isn't a beer, and there's usually something that needs to be done. That first moment though, in between the sigh of what's ahead of you, and having to move forward, when you're the only person in the world that matters to them, is sort of magical.

Just a reminder, sometime in the month of December, the LifeWithGirls.com address will start redirecting there. I'm really excited about this change, and hope you all like it too. If you'd like to get a jump on the change, you can check it out at www.LifeWithGirls.net

ALSO, the Life With Girls Fairy Tales calendar is now available in our web store along with a lot of other cool artwork, games, pins and books. www.handmadefamily.com