So Rainfurrest has this sketchbook they want the GOHs to draw things in. I found about this on like the last day of the 2014 con; it ended up sitting in my bag for a half a year before I took it out and started doing a piece I intended to do in marker. But then I realized I hate doing physical media. And then my mother died and things like this went way down the list of priorities.

Now it is the week before the con, and they want it back so they can give it to this year’s GOH. So I said “fuck it” and took my rough into Illustrator, did a couple reference photos for the character, and knocked it out in a couple of hours because that’s easier for me than faffing around with real media. Then I printed it out and glued it into the book.

I am sure all the subsequent GOHs will hate me for raising the bar like this.

And for your amusement, here are some things I tweeted during this process:

“Oh yeah maybe I should finish this thing in the RF guest of honor book sometime.”

Reference selfies. Taken using a Gorillapod phone tripod to hold my phone to one of the uprights of my desk, with one of their magnetic tripod lights beneath me pointing up to get the uplighting I wanted. I use a now-unavailable timed selfie program called SnappyCam, but I’m sure you can find one. I highly recommend a setup like this; it makes tough poses several orders of magnitude easier, especially with a tight deadline like “oh shit I just got back from SPX and Rainfurrest wants the sketchbook back before their con starts Thursday”.

Pretty much the best-looking misprint I’ve ever generated. My printer ran out of every color except Photo Black while I was printing the pitches last week, and I had to run out to get some more liquid gold ink.

(And also, yeah, hi PNW furry art friends who may be future Rainfurrest GOHs, they’re going to haul out this tome and ask you to draw something in it, please don’t feel obligated to bust out full color digital stuff unless, like me, you find it easier than hassling with real media…)