Monthly Archives: March 2016

New Posting Day

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Hi there Merfolk, I’ve decided to change my posting day to Fridays, for a number of reasons. The main one is that I always seem to be putting the finishing touches on a page , scanning, and scheduling for posting on the weekend, and my weekends are often very full — I’m a musician as well, and that’s when the gigs happen! My weekdays, on the other hand, are when I do my artwork, and I’m trying to establish a rhythm (and a bit of separation) between my two jobs.

Since this is a holiday weekend (at least here in Canada) I’m going to take this opportunity to make the swap. I’ll have the next page ready for your enjoyment next weekend, wherein we learn more about these young denizens of the deep.

In other news:

The Kraken Komiks Cephalopods anthology is compiled, laid out, and at the printers waiting proofing — we’ll be seeing the physical results on Wednesday. The artwork looks great — I’m really impressed with the quality and the variety of ways people can interpret a theme. In lieu of a regular Monday page, here’s another whole page from my story — Root gets to wrestle an octopus! This is actually a kind of prequel to the thread that is beginning in the main story, though it took place years before — Root is a young woman here.

Root&Kraken F5

Root Redwing meets her match in “Root Redwing and the Thieves of Kettle Bay”, a short story in the new Kraken Komiks anthology “Cephalopods”!

If you’d like to see some more samples from it (I showed one in my last post), here’s the Kraken Komiks facebook album with samples of everyone’s artwork! If you’d like to order one, head over to my own Facebook Page, and send me a message. I’m basing how many I order on pre-orders. Once we have the physical book in hand, we’ll be able to weigh it and figure out the postage to various locations.

Also, I’ll have a table at a couple of conventions in April-May: CCAF in Victoria, BC, and VanCAF in Vancouver BC, and I’ll have copies of all my comics, as well as the next physical book of Mermaid Music, and Cephalopods. More about that soon!

Now, back to the deeps — I’ll see you on Friday with the next new Mermaid Music post!

Spring Forward—Ack! I Tripped!

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Hi folks, there will be a slight delay in this week’s Mermaid Music — I’ll be posting tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of today. All kinds of things have been happening here — new projects, new neighbours, tons of events— and, well, I’ve burned through my buffer again. Never fear, however; we’ll be back on track with a proper Monday post next week.

The most exciting project with relevance to this comic is that I’ve just completed an eight-page story about Root Redwing in her younger days for an anthology by Kraken Komiks, a group of comics creators that I hang out with here in Victoria, BC. Here’s a panel with an actual MERMAID to make up for you having to wait until tomorrow for the next instalment!

Root encounters a young mermaid and her pet octopus! Like dogs, octopuses should be well trained.

Root encounters a young mermaid and her pet octopus! Like dogs, octopuses should be well trained.

It was drawn in ink, with brush-pen, somewhat larger then I usually work, then coloured digitally in greyscale with Photoshop (which took way longer than watercolour, by the way — but I’ve been doing watercolour for about a million years and digital only a couple). I learned a lot doing it though, as I did a lot of experimenting to get it to look the way I had envisioned it. I’ve worked very little in greyscale, either digitally or traditionally; it’s always been straight black-and-white or full colour for me. This was harder than either!

If you’re interested in what else I’ve been up to the last month or so, head on over to my main blog, Karen Gillmore Art! I’ll post more about the upcoming anthology soon; the theme is cephalopods, and it will be in print around the middle of April! I’m also planning to have a new print issue of Mermaid Music out by Mid-May, so stay tuned.

UPDATE: Well, the new page is posted, and technically, it’s still Monday (it’s 11:35pm). Hope it was worth the wait!