Surfing Event!

Very excited to announce that I’ll be participating in a surfing event this Sunday June 2nd! No I’m not competing (ha after only one surf lesson!) but I’ll be onsite creating surf themed “flash sketches” and offering AER HEAD prints for donations. If you’re in Long Beach and want to check it out - should be a fun time! It’s run by the NY Eastern Surfing Association and is sponsored by all those companies with the logos on the graphic (look I’m there too! :D ) 10% of donations will go to NY ESA.

This is a prime example of creating your own opportunities as an artist (of any kind). I’m doing freelance social media marketing for others, and am coordinating some events for my clients, which got me thinking I should “level up” my own game in terms of marketing on and off line. So I googled around for any surf events going on and this one appeared. I emailed the organizer just to see if I could participate somehow and here we are! You just never know! It never hurts to ASK. The worst someone could say is “no.”

At this event, I’m hoping to get more people interested in my AER HEAD comic and Patreon. I’m also curious about the event vibe, as there is a scene at the end of AER HEAD #1 at a surf competition. Research! And also fun! One challenge will be to keep all my prints and paper free of sand and water droplets. Yay for Krystal Seal protectors! Also wrapping everything in plastic. Super pumped for this event! Oh and the site for NY ESA says there is another “craft-vendor” fair on the board walk, but I’m NOT part of that - I’ll be under a tent with the ESA team chilling on the beach!

ROCK LOBSTER!

The “flash sketches” will be of similar detail to this “ROCK LOBSTER” doodletune I did recently (so many people loved in on instagram - if you’re not already following me there I’m @mindyindy_art . I’ll be drawing simple sharpie sketches of animals surfing, and you’ll see more examples on all my social media this week.

SURF’S UP!

Made My First Patreon Goal: IT'S POSSIBLE!

I'm so happy to say I've surpassed my first Patreon goal of making $100/month and celebrated by taking my first surfing lesson!  This was important research for AER HEAD, the comic I'm creating, which features surfers.  See how I persevered through fear and how I'll apply my surfing experiences to my comic on https://www.patreon.com/mindyindy

Y'know, when I first started Patreon, I wondered if it could really be possible to make legit money from it because I'm not a famous YouTuber with thousands of fans (which is a large portion of their creators).  But I felt like I had to at least try it!  My Patreon has steadily grown, thanks to the support of family, friends, and fans!  YOU could start a Patreon too.  Anyone could, really.  There are so many categories of creative things people are doing on there.  Even if you have a regular 9-5 job and want to get motivated to do your side passion, I recommend Patreon.  You really have to plan it out well though and consistently post and reach out to people to start to see successful results though. 

Do you want to be a part of the Mindy Indy community on Patreon and get the behind-the-scenes scoop on how I'm creating AER HEAD, the story of a surfer who predicts the future in his dreams?  Just go to  https://www.patreon.com/mindyindy  and click the orange "become a patron" button.  Then select the reward tier you want and you'll be able to have access to posts according to your tier!  I'm particularly excited about the next set of "see the present" posts where I'll talk about how I'm directly applying what I learned from my surfing lesson to the comic.  

Rockaway Beach Studies

This weekend I went to Rockaway Beach in Queens, NY.  I heard it's a great surf beach, and wanted to sketch the waves and surfers for Aer Head references (besides just having awesome beach relaxation :)  The above sketch was done with Prismacolor markers.  I scanned it with my recycled scanner, but the colors weren't as vibrant.  I had to tweak it in Photoshop to get the bottom picture.  The top picture, just taken with my camera, is actually closer to the true colors.  So far, the scanner doesn't seem to be that great with colors (maybe that's why it was on the curb).  But for line art it's great.

When I think of surfing, I think of gigantic waves, and was a bit disappointed when all I saw was tiny waves.  Maybe it was the wrong time of day for big waves?  I still got to capture some surfing gestures.  It was hard because surfers move fast.  I mostly sketched the surf board's size in relation to people's bodies, because I had trouble with that size ratio when drawing Aer Head.  Also, a detail I noticed was that all the surfers have a cord attaching their board to their foot.

Surf's Up!

I've been drawing lots of the surfing poses lately.  When I get into a groove, I like to draw similar pages or subjects all at once.  I looked online for reference pictures.  And this is the first "full" page I've posted in quite some time.  I felt this page doesn't give anything away, so it's safe :)

I actually haven't surfed before, but I'd like to learn someday!   You may ask:  why would you make a comic about that, then?  Well, surfing is something the characters DO, but it's not the main focus of the comic.  It's like how I love to go to concerts and go jogging, but it's not part of my artistic work.  I want to make my characters well rounded.  What IS the main focus of the comic, you may ask?  There are many foci, but one is about learning how to discover your true abilities.