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| I don't know let's wear some jewelry | Jan 31, 2017 10:10 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:If you like this comic, please consider supporting it through my Patreon campaign! ^_^ Even just $1 a month from you—it's easy and automatic—makes a big difference to me! ... Anyhoo, here's a sketch I got to send to a reader for their support (people contributing $10 or more a month get original art from me each and every month! Just try to find a better bargain than that on Patreon ^_^): D :
Thank youuuuuuu!!
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| A brief pause for this commercial message | Jan 30, 2017 9:54 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:As a youngster I was told that my country was "the land of the free and the home of the brave," "with liberty and justice for all," the country that asks the world to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"—and that's the country in which I'll always believe! : )
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| The new face of space sanity? : o | Jan 28, 2017 1:57 AM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I didn't know what to do with myself for a while late this afternoon after @Vierdz (artist for the webcomic Overworld) pointed out to me that the newfangled @Alt_NASA Twitter account (such is the time in which we live) is using a familiar face in their header image:
Yep, that's cool space gaze of Selenis from episode 26, page 8. : ooo ... 8-oooo
Anyway I thought that was pretty cool. ^_^)_^
~~~~~~~~~
Today's bonus A* trivia!:
Remember, if anything's bothering you, you can just tell it to Sweeney.
(Oh and by the way you can always hit me up on Twitter @smbhax. : )
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| Satur-rating | Jan 26, 2017 11:37 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:This blue moonlit room effect I settled on a few pages back is sort of trickier than I'd counted on. : P And really I think I'm starting to feel that pages work better when I avoid large areas of fully saturated color. So! More stuff to work on. : )
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| A* art archive auction avalanche! | Jan 25, 2017 11:06 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Back to Wednesday sales from the A* art archive! This week's sale, now up for auction on eBay at a special sale price, is the original watercolor painting behind episode 29, page 35, in which our heroine was alerted to something amiss in a high mountain pass by small rocks suddenly falling just beside her:
Was it an avalanche...or something even more bizarre? : o Find out...by skipping back to episode 29! : D Anyway thanks for looking at my art, you can keep up on my daily and weekly and other art sales by following my eBay profile.
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| Who says a sourdough can't learn from comics? | Jan 25, 2017 2:31 AM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I'm still working away at my little project of reading through all the comics in Marvel's online "Marvel Unlimited" service chronologically, starting at their beginning in 1939—with Marvel Comics #1!—up through oh 1990 or so. They've got about 4,500 comics online between those date ranges, so this will keep me busy for a while, especially considering that usually I manage to flit through just one or two a day, tops. But I'm up to May, 1963! 323 comics down! : D Of course they also scan more old issues into their archives every week, so I guess some weeks I actually lose ground in terms of how many comics are left to get through in this quest.
Anyway I bothered you with that boring story because in the comics from the '40s, I was noticing that characters, instead of saying "what's going on here" when they came across an odd situation—which happens frequently in these comics, you know—would say what Vincent says in today's A* comic: "What goes on here?"—or some variant, like "What goes?" or "What goes on?" or maybe "what transpires here?" or, well, other permutations I can't remember right now, but definitely NOT "what's going on here," as we modern, upright-walking humans of today would put it.
And then as I progressed in my reading through their comics of the '40s and into the '50s, it was interesting to see how the phrase gradually did start to inch its way toward the modern version, until by the late '50s or so I stopped noticing the difference, which I think means someone must have hit upon "what's going on here" by then.
And that's how modern speech came to be. ]_]
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| In which I trip into a big uncanny valley | Jan 24, 2017 12:21 AM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Well things work in funny ways sometimes. You may remember how, when we first saw Selenis in this little black '20s-era dress at the beginning of this party scene a few weeks ago, I linked to a small photo of a young woman from that time in a similar dress—at least, the anonymous image I found through a Google image search had *seemed* of about that time—which had helped inspire Selenis' costume.
Now, I've been catching bits of episodes of the 1960s Western TV show The Big Valley on MeTV once in a while at the gym (something to tread mills by, you know), and its opening credits end with a special call out to the dignified, white-haired matriarch of the show's central family, the Barkleys, saying "And Starring MISS BARBARA STANWYCK..."
So eventually I got to wondering about the actress who was getting that special billing, and looking her up on Wikipedia one day when I got home last week, what did I find when scrolling down the page but a much higher quality version of that very same 1920s photo of a young woman in a small, shimmering black dress! And Wikipedia says it's public domain so I can post it here : ) :
It was Barbara Stanwyck! That I had unknowingly posted a photo of! Forty years before "The Big Valley"! Photographed by Alfred Cheney Johnston, famed for his photos of Ziegfeld girls, in about 1924, the future "MISS BARBARA STANWYCK," star of Hollywood, eventual stateswoman of The Big Valley's wealthy Barkley clan, was here still a relative unknown, a year into her three-year stint in the Ziegfeld Follies "theatrical revue."
So that was a nice little mystery to solve more or less accidentally and through tremendous coincidence, if you believe in such things. : )
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| My last Xmas bird painting auction ends soon! | Jan 21, 2017 7:28 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Just under four hours left as I write this in the auction for the last of my little (8" x 8") Christmas watercolor birdie paintings, going soon right here on eBay! It looks like this:
Fly little birdie (it's a Pacific wren, specifically), fly!
You can check out all my original art auctions—loads of A* watercolors! : D— by visiting my eBay profile. Thanks for looking! : )
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| A tiny gun | Jan 20, 2017 1:22 AM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Selenis' little pistol is based on the FN Baby Browning, designed in 1927 and still manufactured today.
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| A little birdie to bid on | Jan 19, 2017 3:04 AM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Today having been Wednesday, I ought to be picking a favorite painting made for an A* page of episodes gone by and putting it up for sale on eBay at a special low price—and thank you *very much* to the folks who've been bidding on all of them so far!—but I spent entirely too much time twiddling away on today's A* page, and I need to get to bed ASAP so I can get back up and start to work on the next day's page, which is already gonna be behind schedule. ; ) Yeah yeah, the daily grind, boo-hoo! : D So anyway I don't have a new archive auction for you today, but I *do* have, among the auctions for the newest A* paintings from the latest week of new pages, a little painting of a bird that I made on Christmas day:
That auction wraps up on Saturday! And if that one doesn't do it for you, do check out the original A* artwork I'm selling through my eBay profile—bidding starts at just $12.99 for these watercolor paintings. : )
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| Shiny floors are a must | Jan 17, 2017 10:30 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I super-duper appreciate everyone who's helping me out through Patreon! Here's an ink sketch I got to send to one reader as their monthly reward for supporting my Patreon campaign:
That is totally *not* a Star Wars "droid" down there, and Selenis is totally not walking around on the Death Star. Nope. Nope.
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| I was just double-checking the collar, really | Jan 16, 2017 11:34 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:When I was googling around for some more costume reference photos today I came across this photo of 19-year-old Charlie Chaplin looking like quite the polished young gentleman in 1910 in a three-piece suit and bow tie—although, perhaps significantly, the elegantly slender tie is polka dotted. Still, a very different look than the straight-tie-wearing "Little Tramp" persona that he came up with four years later, and with which he would achieve worldwide fame.
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| My last Christmas Pacific wren painting! | Jan 14, 2017 11:29 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's the last of my four Christmas Day paintings of Pacific wrens—this 8" x 8" watercolor is now up for auction on eBay:
It's been cold here lately. : oo
The auction lasts for a week, thanks for checking it out! (You can also see the A* watercolors I have up for sale through my eBay profile.)
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| More wildlife art upcoming! | Jan 13, 2017 2:20 AM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:S'late! I'm gonna have my last little Christmas birdie painting to show and put up for auction this weekend, sooo that'll be in my next blog article, which will be better than this one. : D
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| Robo-dragon art auction from the A* archive! | Jan 11, 2017 11:18 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:It's another archive art sale Wednesday! This week I've pulled out the original watercolor painting I made for episode 29, page 64, aka that time Selenis threw a tiny explosive arrowhead at the head of a huge robo-dragon in the desert. It's got adventure-mode Selenis—with a cape! A giant (robot) dragon! A castle looming in the distance! And just about the darkest purple I've ever painted! It's all up for auction now right here on eBay!
Thanks to everyone who's been buying my art lately! ^_^ You can follow my eBay profile if you want to keep an eye out for my art sales. : )
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| Let's play dress up! | Jan 11, 2017 4:30 AM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Hoo boy, I spent way too long making this page. : P I got to draw another tuxedo though, that ain't a bad thing.
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| I should just caption Google images | Jan 09, 2017 11:52 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:In putting together Selenis and Vincent's costumes for this scene, I got inspiration from a bunch of images I Googled up, particularly these:
- For Selenis' little black dress
- For Selenis' bobbed hair (well okay it's a wig : P)
- For Vincent's mask (possibly not period accurate)
- For Selenis' mask (not period accurate : PP)
- For Selenis' decorative hair thingy
- For Vincent's tux
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| My 1st wildlife art auction ends in 4 hours! | Jan 07, 2017 5:29 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:My first wildlife painting auction ends in a little over four hours! You could pick yourself up this little 8" x 8" watercolor I painted on Christmas Day of a Pacific wren:
Ends today so don't delay if you're into it. : )
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| I painted this birdie & its auction ends Sat. | Jan 05, 2017 11:00 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's a big view of the little birdie I'm selling in an 8" x 8" watercolor painting in this auction on eBay:
It's a Pacific wren! As you can see, they are adorable. This one's auction ends Saturday, thanks for checking it out! : D
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| Dreams--for sale! | Jan 04, 2017 10:51 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I've got a special, super sale-priced auction up now for the original watercolor painting behind a spiffy page from last episode—page 85, where Selenis was trying to get the troublesome subject of her escort mission to go to sleep; I called this painting "Sweet Dreams":
All that restful, deep blue—and it could be yours! At least, if you bid on it before the auction ends, seven days from now. Thanks everyone who's been bidding on my art! Oh and if you want to stay up on my eBay art sales, you can follow my eBay profile.
~~~~~~~~
The funky giant castle house thing in *today's* A* page was inspired by the house that started Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast neighborhood when it was completed in 1885: the Palmer Mansion (more history and views of interior & exterior (I especially used the last one) here); I guess I kinda took the original Early Romanesque / Norman Gothic look to 11, but ya know, they don't call this comic "Supermassive" for nothin'!
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| All those fingers | Jan 03, 2017 11:59 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I found a photo that was handy reference for how to hold a little cup. ^_^
Fresh scene coming up! ~~~
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| Even tinier picture of a tiny painting | Jan 02, 2017 11:09 PM PST | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I'm auctioning a little birdie painting on eBay that I painted on Christmas Day : ) :
At 8" x 8", it might just be perfect for that section of wall that you can't quite fit one of my wide A* page paintings into. ^_^
Auction ends Saturday!
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