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  A* art sale! The Airlock IncidentMay 31, 2017 8:45 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Wednesday art sale! Today's piece from the archives is the original ink wash illustration made for episode 17, page 94, where, in video footage, a knife-wielding Selenis is seen charging at two astronauts in an airlock—this was the first strike in her infiltration of Earth's Revival's secret moon base! It is also one of the very last ink wash pages I ever did! The 17" x 7.5" illustration is up for auction for the next week on eBay, starting at a special low price, right here.
 
The auction listing has hi-res images, but here's a preview with tiny ones:
 
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Thanks for checking it out! You can find all my A* art auction sales listed in my eBay profile.
 
 
 
 
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  I made a silly eBay button!May 30, 2017 8:18 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Over the long weekend I made myself a generic eBay link button, finally filling in the vacant 12th spot in my little arrangement of link buttons on the about page. I hadn't done an eBay one before because they're unusually fussy about any unauthorized use of their logo—so I finally figured, well then, I just won't use their logo, and they'll have to deal with an ugly, generic thing being used to represent them! : P Anyway here it is; clicking it will take you straight to my eBay profile, from whence you can see all the cool A* original artwork I have for sale there! : D
 
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One such thing is an auction ending tomorrow for this cool ink illustration made for A* page 18:44—it's Selenis and the Major arriving in the Voort Cloud:
 
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And of course the latest week's worth of new watercolor pages are for sale there too! Go generic eBay button!
 
 
 
 
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  A* needs YOU! : DMay 27, 2017 6:38 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Lots of readers are making this comic possible by supporting it for as little as $1 a month through my Patreon campaign, and it makes a huge difference! Here's a sketch I got to send to a reader for their support:
 
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Thank you all very much! : D A* wouldn't be happening without you!
 
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I'm off for Memorial Day on Monday. Back with a new page on Tuesday! : )
 
 
 
 
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  Rocket Lab launch; Juno probes JupiterMay 25, 2017 8:41 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Mini space news round-up! A couple recent articles of interest from the BBC:
 
New Zealand space launch is first from a private site - Commercial space venture Rocket Lab is launching 17m (56ft)-long rockets from a private launch facility in New Zealand; unlike other companies such as SpaceX and its big 70m, $62 million Falcon cargo rockets, Rocket Lab is focusing on small, relatively inexpensive ($5 million) rockets that can get tiny new "cubesat" and things into orbit for a fraction of the price ($77,000 for a cubesat ride). Today's test flight of their "Electron" rocket reached space, but didn't quite achieve orbit as was intended, for a reason yet to be determined.
 
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image by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles (source)
 
Juno peers below Jupiter's clouds - A stunning, "enhanced color" image of sea-blue whorls of hurricanes at Jupiter's south pole (enlarged version from NASA above^) leads off this article about what NASA's Juno probe has been up to since it reached the giant planet on July 4th of last year. One team member describes the atmospheric phenomena at the pole thusly: "Think of a bunch of hurricanes, every one the size of the Earth, all packed so close together that each hurricane touches the other."
 
 
 
 
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  Original A* ink art sale: "The Voort Cloud"!May 24, 2017 10:49 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Wednesday A* art sale! This week's auction, starting at a special sale price right here on eBay, is for the original 16" x 6.75" ink illustration made for A* page 18:44, the dramatic panel showing Selenis and the Major's ship arriving in the seething cauldron of charged particles known as "The Voort Cloud":
 
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I made the textured outlines of the cloud "bubbles" with a dried sea sponge dipped in ink. Thanks for checking it out (there are higher-res images in the auction listing)! You can see all my other A* original art auctions through my eBay profile. For instance, the art for each new A* page is on sale there for a week, starting just before the comic page itself appears on this site. : )
 
 
 
 
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  Don't look so sad, there's always Patreon!May 23, 2017 8:41 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Here's a sketch I got to send to a reader for supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign : ) :
 
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The support I get from readers through Patreon is a huge factor in making it possible for me to keep A* going! A supermassive thanks to everyone who's helping me out there. : D
 
 
 
 
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  Let's paintMay 22, 2017 9:44 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:I made it back, huzzah! And we're almost at the end of this little chase. : )
 
 
 
 
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  (Updated) No Friday page this week! : ooMay 18, 2017 10:38 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:I thought I was gonna hafta take tomorrow off, but it looks like I won't after all! Uh but that means I guess I should get to bed. Anyway, there will be another page this week, yay!
 
EDIT 5/19 7:30 AM: Oops! Schedules have shifted in my out-of-town friend meet-up yet again, and it looks like I *will* have to take the day off. : o So, no Friday(/Saturday) page this week! Sorry for the late notice! Back with a new page on Monday!
 
 
 
 
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  Wednesday art sale! Ink wash bio domes!May 17, 2017 10:31 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Wednesday art sale! We've gone through the oldest ink wash stuff, from episode 13, where I was doing the pages in an oversized 17"x11" format, so now I'm free to roam through the art archives of the later ink episodes, where I gradually worked down to smaller formats more fitting to the actual aspect ratio of the A* pages you see online—so less wasted margin space to confuse me as I tried to lay out the page. : o Today I bring you a pure old timey sci-fi page, namely the 17" x 7.5" ink wash illustration I made for episode 17, page 9, which is up for auction right here for the next week at a special low price—starting at $14.99, vs the $50 it would normally cost directly through my site.
 
The auction listing has hi-res images, but here are tiny preview ones to entice you:
 
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Episode 13 had Selenis trying to pry advanced cloning technology out of an archive held in a gigantic tree in a large greenhouse complex by the organization called "Earth's Revival." This is the page where we first see their famed "Bioarchive," from the outside.
 
This page was made during the phase (which lasted about until Selenis got to the moon of that planet, later in the episode) where I eschewed doing pencil layouts, instead just going right into the ink work from scratch! : o And I had this big thick crazy Japanese half synthetic, half horse-hair brush I would lay it on with. It was fun! ^_^ I have no idea how I managed to get the domes of the Bioarchive that nice and round just going freehand like that. : ooo
 
You can catch this and all my other A* art sales (including each new page's original watercolor art as they come out!) by following my eBay profile. : )
 
 
 
 
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  Last big A* ink wash auction ends tomorrow!May 16, 2017 9:09 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Just a reminder that the my last big A* ink wash auction ends tomorrow! The bidding starts at just $19.99 on "Solstice," this big 11" x 17" fantasy illustration of Selenis laying a cosmic chill on a planet! : o :
 
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Thanks for checking it out! : D
 
 
 
 
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  To womb it may concernMay 15, 2017 8:52 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:If you were gonna grow a clone baby of yourself, you might do it using a simple arrangement of a plastic bag containing warm water and salts, in which the fetus will grow, with a gas exchange machine and nutrient drip connected through the bag via its umbilical cord, the pumping provided by the fetus' heart. Pretty slick! That's what a team at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia came up with and used successfully to grow baby lambs according to this BBC article, anyhow.
 
 
 
 
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  Shoulders are important in the futureMay 13, 2017 5:08 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:A sketch for a reader who's supporting the comic through my Patreon campaign : D :
 
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Thank youuu! ^v^
 
 
 
 
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  Rotring Rapid-Eraser B20 review!May 11, 2017 10:02 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Recently I noticed my site getting a little traffic from a German pen enthusiast web forum, and I found that one of their members had linked to my first big Supermassive Eraser Round-up from a discussion thread about erasers (in German). And the post below that one mentioned an eraser I'd never heard of before; furthermore, it was one by Rotring, German manufacturer of fine artist's pens and pencils (my favorite is their 0.8 mm Tikky Graphic Drawing Pen), so now I just had to check it out.
 
Well I finally got around to needing more of my go-to erasers, the Kokuyo Campus B/HB Student Eraser, and I threw one of these new-to-me erasers, the Rotring Rapid-Eraser B20, into the order so I could check it out. It arrived and I gave it a rub!
 
Here it is in its stylish wrapping, below a Kokuyo:
 
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And here's how it fared (on the right) vs a Kokuyo at erasing my Mitsubishi Hi-Uni H pencil lead from the 300 lb hot press Arches Bright White Watercolor Paper I use for A* pages:
 
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Unfortunately, the B20 wasn't as good as the Campus B/HB at cleaning the paper; it also left a lot of little eraser shreds everywhere, instead of just a few big ones like the Campus B/HB does. You'll notice the B20's eraser mark is wider, too—the B20 eraser itself isn't wider than the Campus eraser, but it is softer, so when you're pressing down hard to erase tough marks, it spreads out quite a bit, which is not what you would want for precision work; this makes it harder to hold and handle, too. And it somehow feels greasy to the touch, even though it isn't (I don't thi-ink...)! : o Creepy!
 
 
 
 
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  Art sale! Last big ink piece, "Solstice"May 10, 2017 10:16 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Wednesday original art archive sale! This week it's the very last big 11" x 17" ink piece that I'm going to feature, and I specifically saved this one for last because it's a special, vertically oriented illustration that's spent most of its time since I made it one weekend in 2012 in a big frame, shuttling between various art shows in which we've displayed it here in Seattle. But now you, fabulous you, can pick it up, unframed, starting at a very low price (okay at $19.99, slightly more than my usual, but certain trusted associates of mine refused to let me risk selling it for less) for the next week on eBay.
 
The auction listing there has hi-res pics but here are some tiny previews; it is called "Solstice":
 
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Aside from being a pretty far-out A* illustration, this was two specific things: a test of the spangly new 150 lb Canson Illustration Paper I had just acquired (I considered the test successful, and went on to use that paper for all the rest of the A* ink pages, starting midway through episode 15; in particular, the treated surface of the paper gave a neat sort of cosmically rippled texture to some of the background "outer space" ink wash areas), and an entry in a ComicFury art challenge: the theme was "seasons," so here you have a tightly clad Selenis as some sort of planet-shrouding embodiment of Winter (it was Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012 when I posted it, so if I did it over the weekend as I said in that blog entry, I guess I did it on Saturday, December 31st 2011 or Sunday, January 1st 2012—anyway, winter was evidently firmly on my mind ; D).
 
Again, this is the last of the big ink pieces I'm going to put up, and hm I think also the last of the non-A*-comic-page illustrations I have left to feature from the archive, too, unless I suppose I come across a cache of some somewhere that I've forgotten about (there's one smaller sketchbook ink piece in particular I'm now sort of wondering if I still have somewhere, I guess). Anyway I hope you enjoy it, and I hope it finds a home with one of you. : )
 
 
 
 
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  All the modern conveniencesMay 09, 2017 10:25 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Well, gotta go engage in that time-honored tradition of updating my credit card information at all my online merchants after someone got hacked and my credit card company sent me a new one. : P
 
 
 
 
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  Where'd all these characters come fromMay 08, 2017 10:14 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Only one more panel packed with four faces to draw now, whew! = p
 
 
 
 
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  Rah rah!May 06, 2017 6:30 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Here's a sketch I sent to a reader for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign : D:
 
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Thank you very much! It's helping me keep bringing out new A* pages each day. ^_^
 
 
 
 
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  Better than two? Also lipsMay 04, 2017 10:56 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Three hours with a pencil today and I still couldn't manage more than one eye per face. -_; Although that *is* still three eyes, which is probably slightly above average for me. : D
 
Anyway in the painting phase (only and hour and a half! : ) I did manage to try one thing I've been wanting to since I sort of muddled onto it in the last re-paint of page 23, namely that it seems to go better if I paint the lips in first with a light-ish color, then go in and put a darker shade just under the top and bottom lip. Probably shouldn't have taken years to work that one out! ^_^
 
 
 
 
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  Bodyguard for sale! Big, classic A* artMay 03, 2017 11:43 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Wednesday original art archive auction sale! : D This is the *last* big 17"x11" ink wash piece from the first A* episode I did using traditional methods—episode 13, page 157 to be exact—that I'm going to put up for auction; it is up on eBay right now for a week, starting at a low sale price. : )
 
It's also one of the best likenesses I think I've ever managed—and this is one I did way back in 2011. : o o :
 
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There are higher resolution images in the auction listing. : D And if you'd like to stay up on these original art sales of mine, you can follow my eBay profile.
 
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At the time I made the page, I even happened to take a photo midway through the inking: I did the black areas, adding water to some in the background to sort of gradient them a bit, and after this it would be going in with prepared gray washes to model the figures:
 
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So going dark to light, which is the opposite of how you sort of mostly have to do watercolors like I'm working with now. I do like how I only outlined select parts of the bodyguard figure in black, though, leaving other edges open for a sort of metal shiny effect—and edges on Selenis were left open to be defined by the gray hallway gradients. I need to remember that when I feel rushed and want to just outline all the pencil lines real fast. : P (Also trying to manage my time better so I have *more* time at the drawing table and don't have to feel rushed! Doing better at that over these past few weeks, still room for improvement though. : D)
 
 
 
 
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  So dimMay 02, 2017 10:27 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:I think I was exactly wrong yesterday—looks like I might need *more* light on my drawing table, not less. x_x We'll try that tomorrow. : P
 
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Spent two hours on the phone with UPS today, trying to rescue my resupply of A* art shipping boxes from the computerized limbo into which it was cast thanks to their web app giving me a delivery option that was—for reasons still not clear to the humans there—not valid actually for the package. What's kind of funny is:
 
a) There's no option given in their computerized customer service line to talk to a human. But it's there—you just have to get mad enough finally to growl "give me an operator" and it says oh okay you could talk to an agent, but first how about I repeat the same options you tried and found useless before, and you grit your teeth through that and then growl "get me an agent" and then it finally transfers you to a live person and there isn't even that much of a wait since they're so good at not letting you know about that option in the first place.
 
b) The people you do eventually get to talk to seem to have no recourse to any human-powered solution ("Human shall not speak to human"): if it isn't solvable through their software (and for the most part they're just using the same, triple-redundancy web interface on their site that you are), then, um, well, it should clear up soon. "Just keep refreshing the page."
 
c) The last human (I think) was maybe so lonely he was stuck in a loop:
 
Agent: So we have two departments here: Customer Service [which I had talked to at length two transfers ago] is more on the package level; I just go through the My Choice interface [ie the same web page I was trying to use at home and which was giving an error message they couldn't do anything about].
 
Me: Okay?
 
...
 
Agent: Your phone was cutting out again.
 
Me: No, no I can hear you.
 
Agent: Oh, okay.
 
...
 
Me: Soooo it sounds like we have no options here.
 
Agent: Well we have two departments here...
 
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Maybe he isn't permitted to tell a customer that he can't help them, which left him no way to end the call. :"P
 
So unless the jammed delivery instruction clears up overnight (I was told it should clear up after a half hour, an hour, then two hours—fortunately I was able to disprove all those since I was stuck in repetitive fruitless discussions for so long), my only hope is the human factor, namely that the actual delivery driver gets fed up and just drops the thing at one of the two locations the computer now thinks it should not go to.
 
(Following that hopeful logic, once they move to delivery drones I'll just be totally hosed. : P)
 
 
 
 
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  So brightMay 01, 2017 10:51 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Worked on the lighting for my drawing table today—gotta make it comfy for the peepers! I had too many lumens. O_O Finally realized I was subconsciously squinting to keep some of the light out. : P
 
 
 
 
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