What Year Is It?

Before it gets to be February, I thought I had better post last year's holiday card. Below are some concept scribbles and process shots of the holiday card I illustrated last year. As always, it is absolutely free to subscribe to our yearly holiday card. Just private message me your address on Facebook and you'll be added to the list. Hope you are having a great New Year!

scribble.

scribble.

scribble.

scribble.

scribble.

Finally nailed a drawing I liked.

Inking.

Process shot:coloring the pineapple.

Finally painted.

Final card. Text and snowflakes courtesy of photoshop.

B-b-b-Bonus! While I have you here, I just wanted to let you know that I will be tabling again this year at Chicago Zine Fest. Hopefully I'll have No Pants part 3 done by then. But more on that later. Mark you calendars May 19, 2018.

Lastly, for more consistent art posts and news follow me on instgram @Saturn2169 and twitter also @Saturn2169.

Sketchy Magee Dump

Oh, hey. Haven't seen you in a while. Welcome back for another Sketchy Magee sketchbook sketch dump. I've been a bit busy this year... which is a good thing! Since graduating college it generally takes me a little over a year on average to fill up my regular sketchbooks. This one took a little over seven months. I still don't draw everyday, like I should, but I've been doing a lot better and feel like I've been getting a lot better. So below are some pictures I took from my sketchbook to show off some of the work I've been doing. Enjoy!

These are some character sketches from "Air Aunties" the short comic I illustrated for the Ladies Night Anthology "Sisters".

Here are a couple other sketches from various projects I worked on over the past year.

I spent a lot of time at the beach this summer, so there were quite a few beach sketches.

I've been a fan of r/RedditGetsDrawn for a while. Whenever I don't know what to draw or need to do some warm up sketches I generally turn to that subreddit. Below are some of those sketches. Some of which I posted, some I did not. These are all drawings of user submitted photos.

Doodled quite a few of my favorite characters.

And of course here are few other miscellaneous sketches that I enjoy.

Not sure what is going on here...

ughhh... You're gonna have to ask John about this.

C'mon now, you know I wasn't gonna leave you hanging without some embarrassing self portraits.

Me marveling at the magnificence of my boobs in this bridesmaid's dress.

And one of my favorites from the Rogers Park Wine Stroll.

Wow. Wasn't that great. We all had fun today. Wait, what's that? You wanna know how you can have a little piece of Andrea art. Well, you're in luck. I'm getting ready to send out this year's holiday card and you can have one for free! That's right, just private message me your address on Facebook and you will be added to the Zidek Family holiday card list. This is my ninth year designing holiday cards to send out to friends and family and now is as good of a time as ever to add your name to the list! 

What's that? You wanna know how you can get a hold of one of my comics. You're in luck with that as well, because I have BONUS NEWS!!!



B-B-B-BONUS!
This year I tabled at two conventions, got comics published in two anthologies and finished my second issue of No Pants Revolution "No Pants 2: The Revolution Continues". So how am I gonna ruin that perfect even number of two? I'm tabling at one more convention before the year is out. Say what? Come see me on December 16th at Pocket Con at the Chicago Cultural Center! I'll be selling copies of "Mito and Me", "No Pants Revolution" 1 and 2, as well as the Ladies Night Anthology "Sisters" and the Northside Comic Artists anthology "Misadventure" which feature comics drawn by me. I will also be selling stickers and original artwork. So if you're in the Chicago area, come check me out. This event is family friendly and will also feature goodie bags and events that are child friendly. Click on image for more information.

A Couple of Cool Chicks

A few months ago I was at the discount store Tuesday Morning and I found reams of different colored cardstock of various sizes. Each pack had over a hundred sheets and varied in price between $2-$6. I spent about $20 in total. The weight has been good for pen, marker and colored pencil. I've been inspired to do a ton of these little illustrations: some fanart, some original stuff. Here are just a couple of cool chicks I decided to draw. 

Carrie Kelley (Robin), Marceline The Vampire Queen and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl)

Getting Ready For My First Comic Convention: MoCCA Fest 2014

MoCCA Fest 2014 starts tomorrow and it will be an historic event as it will be the first ever comic convention that I table in. Okay, it's not as great as all that, but I am super excited. It will be the first time I am able to show off all my comics art to a large audience. I've got two books I put together just for MoCCA. The first is a "kid's" comic called Mito and Me about a young panda whose imaginary friend teaches him about the amazingness that is comic books. The second is No Pants Revolution a collection of journal comics mostly from 2012 when I took a stab at drawing daily journal comics.

Here they are in all their glory!

Cover of Mito and Me #1

Mito and Me was an idea I came up with in December. It originally started out as a story about a grown woman whose only friend was an imaginary stuffed panda. And as deliciously sad as that all sounds, I decided the story might be a little funnier and ultimately more interesting if I made it about a nerdy boy panda that has a snarky grown woman as an imaginary friend. Time will tell I suppose.

Behind the scenes look at the inking of one of the pages inspired by Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns.

Materials used:

300 series Strathmore bristol board with smooth surface

Carmine red Col-Erase pencil and eraser for the original art

Windsor and Newton black ink with the spider on the front, trusty nib for the lines, size one synthetic brush to fill in the blacks, and a handful of microns for lettering and small details.

Cover of No Pants Revolution

You may have noticed that the cover for No Pants Revolution is extremely similar to this illustration I did back in 2012. I felt like this image and phrase really captured the essence of my book as well as my whole state of mind in 2012, so I did a quick redesign for the cover.

I had over six months of daily journal comics to sift through and needless to say not everything made it through into the book. Below are a few gems that ended up on the cutting room floor.

This one about my obsession with blueberries (wonder how that didn't make it).

Any comic where I dance (that shit's just embarrassing).

I actually kinda like this one.

There's only so many drunk comics I can add before it starts to look like I have a problem.

So tomorrow and Sunday, if you're in NYC come see me and Garibaldi at table E18!

So What Have I Been Up To?

The thank you cards are in the mail and I am now officially done with everything wedding. The past two months have been quite busy and fun. Unfortunately I didn't take the time to update my blog and I apologize. So to answer the title question. Wedding stuff mostly.

So, a month ago yesterday, my husband and I had our "wedding ceremony/reception". I wrote that with quotations, because we have technically been married for two years, but we just now had our ceremony. A lot of planning and work over the past year went into the whole shebang-a-bang. 

Here is a picture from when we originally got married in Chicago on August 29, 2011.

The event was held in the loft space at Kitchen Chicago. It's a beautiful space, but brought about some challenges: planning the whole thing from NYC and doing all of the planning, decorating, etc ourselves. So there was a lot of DIY that went into the planning of this wedding.

Kitchen Chicago

I designed the invitations...

...and these cool labels for the favors.

I dyed doilies.

I spray painted an easel.

I put together a collage

We made the candle holders and table dealies with the names of Chicago neighborhoods and NYC boroughs.

We had to set everything up ourselves the day of. Here's what the table settings looked like. Garrett Popcorn ftw!

On top of all this, I also designed and my mom sewed my dress for the wedding! I got a hand crafted one of a kind dress made with love. It was awesome. Thanks mom!

Here is the original drawing I made for my mom to make the pattern out of.

Here is the final dress (front).

You can sort of see the back in this picture.

Lastly I want to thank all of the vendors who made this night awesome! We started it out with heartfelt vows officiated by Erika Sowell of Sowell Mates, We had some great music courtesy of DJ Donnie. Delicious, delicious food from La Villa Restaurant in Chicago. And maybe most importantly, we had some amazing pictures taken courtesy of our good buddy Dave Gall.

Awesome photo by David Joesph Gall.

Check out Dave's website. If you like what you see give him a call or like his facebook page.

Anyways, enough of all that stuff. Here are a few other things I've been up to.

After missing the last two months, I finally got the chance to catch back up with the people at The House of Twelve for another NYC Comics Jam. Here is a link to some pictures that Darryl Ayo Brathwaite posted of the event: http://darrylayo.tumblr.com/post/65745935438/house-of-twelve-nycity-comic-jam-first-friday.
Here's a couple panels I drew.

I drew this last panel of dad tossing his son to exile on Staten Island.

I drew the third panel on here of the ant submitting to the furious noogies of some stranger.

Oh, and another thing. I just finished working on an illustration for my aunt to put on her business cards for her jewelry making business (Just so you know, she made my awesome earrings for the wedding. Go ahead, scroll back up and take a look. They were pretty nice!). Here are some pics of the process.

Original sketch of her character.

Final sketch of the image of her and her cat.

Inked version.

Colored in Photoshop.

Alright. That's it for now.

TL;DR: I got married and stuff.