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  #1 Sketch, Morning Serial show, magic markerMar 22, 2012 11:08 AM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:The first brave A* reader to pony up $30 for an original sketch of A*'s femme très fatale now has the drawing in their hands (yay Priority Mail!), so I can show you a small photo of it, taken just before I signed it and mailed it off on Monday:
 
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It actually came out pretty well! :o I was almost tempted to keep it for myself, but then I would have had to draw another one to mail out, and...that was too much work. ;) So bon voyage, it has found a happy home with its new owner. Thank you very much, #1 sketch-owning reader! :D
 
Hey you could get one yourself! It wouldn't be quite the same as that one, since each one will be an original piece of art, but it will be something along those lines--by which I mean, it will have Selenis in it. :D Anyway you can get more info and even put in an order if you want over on the Sketches page, which is also always available from the "store" page linked from the site's top menu.
 
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On the last day of last year, I told you guys about a poll for which webcomics should appear in an upcoming exhibition at the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery here in Seattle. Well the votes were tallied and the exhibit has been up since the beginning of the month; I'd kind of forgotten about it (I am quite scatterbrained that way), but actually the exhibit's curator emailed me out of the blue on the opening day and invited me to come check it out. =o She was very nice about it AND mentioned that my readers put in a good many votes for A* (:o Thanks everyone! :D), so I figured I should be a good sport and go check out the exhibit, even if my little comic was outvoted by the likes of the xkcd and Penny Arcade juggernauts of the world.
 
So on the next available Thursday, when they're open late ('til 9 pm), I found my way up a spiral staircase and into the fancy Henry lobby, where the exhibit has its own room off to the side--and if you're a cheapskate you don't even have to sweat about whether or not to pay the Henry's *suggested* entry fee, since the exhibit is before the ticket desk--but of course if you have time and maybe a little spare change available, you might as well check out the museum's other stuff while you're there.
 
Anyway, Morning Serial--for that is the name of the exhibit--beckons. Actually it hits you as soon as you enter the Henry, with a looping video of Penny Arcade being drawn in Photoshop showing on a big TV screen right inside the museum's main entrance. Sort of weird but hey, it gets your attention.
 
But the meat of the exhibit is in that spacious room across the lobby from the entrance, for there you'll find webcomics displayed on big fancy monitors: most of them are highlighted in videos and slideshows running on very large, vertically oriented widescreen televisions mounted on the walls, accompanied by well-informed and surprisingly interesting commentary painted in bold lettering on the wall itself; comics receiving this deluxe museum-grade treatment include selections and custom animations from the likes Rice Boy, Dreden Codak, and Templar, AZ, to name a few. And there are even a few interactive terminals set up where you can play around with several Flashy webcomics with highly engaging, unusual interfaces.
 
And off to the side there's a reading area where you can peruse the printed collections of some of these webcomics.
 
It *does* sound silly to leave your house to go look at limited versions of comics you can read in their entirety on the web from the comfort of your own computer, but I was really surprised by how well done and thought-provoking the exhibit is when you see it in person. And, you know, I think getting webcomics in museums should definitely be encouraged. :D
 
You can find a full list of included artists and comics at the exhibit's web site, morningserial.org. If you poke around the funky layout there you'll also find info on related activities taking place around the city throughout the spring and summer--the exhibit itself runs through June 30th--including a panel discussion with the artists behind the aforementioned comics coming right up here on the 29th of March, the eve of Seattle's Emerald City Comic Con. Clever!
 
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Well I'm not in any of that fancy stuff--thanks for the votes, though! :D--but I have plenty of fun curating my own shows right here on this site! Here's another view of the ever-changing inking process--marker work:
 
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I noticed in re-examining yesterday's page that the areas I went over several times with the PITT "big brush" marker came out this almost magical really, really dark velvety black. So I did some more of that on this page--lots of layered "big brush" work. Good thing it's a nice big wet marker! :D I think it might be doing something funny to my watercolor brush, though--after doing some washes over marker areas, the brush bristles were sort of...sticking together more than usual. Maybe they picked up some kind of sealant from the waterproof marker ink? It wasn't too bad--actually helping hold the brush point together, but also making the brush resist springing back upright after being bent to one side from use. Hm. Well... I'm sure it'll be fine. >_>
 
Oh yeah also I picked up a pair of tweezers to use for plucking loose fibers off the tip of the PITT calligraphy marker, 'cause I noticed a few poking out from it yesterday after the first day's energetic use, and they were fuzzing the edges of its lines slightly. It took a little practice, but the tweezers ended up working great for cleaning up the marker tip, and it was back to being nice and clean and sharp again. And it seems to be shedding less now, so maybe it's mostly just a first-use thing, when you're drawing with the brand new tip for the first time and the very sharp corners are getting their first taste of friction. It's actually nice that it *does* loosen up in this stray fiber way, because the other "brush" markers I've used recently, with softer tips, just sort of turn all spongy, and there isn't much way to restore them.
 
 
 
 
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