Category: Blog Posts

The First Book Signing

Phew! The h’orderves have been devoured and the bottles of wine re-corked. The first book signing is done!

See more pics at my Facebook album!

Many thanks to Artworks on the Square for hosting this release party. We had a great turnout of about 40 or so people! I’m happy to report there were few crises involved, outside of baking a last minute tray of pigs in blanket an hour before setup and temporarily losing the key to the cash box.

There was also an incident with an escaped flying mattress, but it was not involved with this particular event.

All in all, pre-book signing jitters were unfounded and I had such a blast talking to so many like minds and old friends.  I can only hope the next one (which will be minus the party favors) will still be as successful!

It’s still so surreal to think my book is finally out there.  I had to go to the book store and confirm it was there sitting on the shelf awaiting the hands of another artist.

I cannot wait to see just how far this inspiration can spread!

If you end up buying my book, feel free to let me know how you enjoyed it, what else you’d like to learn, and of course, to share your wonderful creations with me! You can add photos to my Fan photos on Facebook here.

Hope to catch you all at the next signing!

Things I Learned:

  • 2 small platters of catered food do not feed 40 people. Lesson learned! Note also that pigs in blanket cost half as much and make twice as much as the precooked stuff if you make them yourself. Yummy! Recipe linkage. Also, petit flours are always the first desserts to go.
  • Offer combo deals. It’s ridiculous to think my calendar costs more than my book because of it’s low run, custom printed nature. So, those who bought the book got a $5 discount on the $25 calendar. (Thanks for the suggestion, Vicki!)
  • Cardigans make me feel smart!  They seem to be proper authorial attire and are quite comfortable.
  • Found a great source for bookmarks!  They were approved, printed, and shipped within 2 days of ordering with someone calling me on the phone to inform me of their progress at each step! Thanks so much to ladyprinting.com! I was able to get a small amount of 2×7 bookmarks without a setup fee, like most of the other places I looked at.
  • Found an equally awesome source for tassels (eBay seller: Purpledoug1959) and vinyl bookmark sleeves (www.clearbags.com)
  • People really loved the free bookmarks! Going to keep handing these at conventions and other signings (minus the vinyl sleeves and tassels).  They’re much less expensive than my grand plans to make custom leather bookmarks to give out.  People love items they can use and having my website at the bottom means they’ll have a constant reminder of where to find me at.
  • Last (but not least!), with any signing, I am there to sell something I believe in! I know my product is awesome, that I’m sharing something worthwhile, regardless of the amount of people who show up!  Advice to live by from my darling bosom friend, Hayley E. Lavik.

Interview at EMG Magazine

There’s a pretty extensive interview with me over at EMG Magazine right now. You should go check it out!

Angela Sasser is a very talented artist. This innate talent is not all; she is a very hard worker and has studied the business of being an artist. These qualities make her unique, since it is not very easy to find a fantasy artist that has such an extensive academic background as Angela’s. To top it all, she is incredibly friendly! Please, join me in this interview to know more about this wonderful person!

Angela, you have had a very intense and interesting education regarding art. Can you please tell our readers about it? How has it helped you so far as an artist?

Where to begin? I spent a long time trying to decide what I wanted to do with myself when I was younger. I always knew that I wanted to be involved in illustration and storytelling, but as a young dreamer, I was discouraged from pursuing it as a profession because it was seen as a fools errand and a profession that wouldnt allow me to put food on the table…

(Read on at EMG Magazine’s Artist Spotlight)

Upcoming Appearance: Artworks on the Square

Just a quick reminder that Artworks on the Square here in Fayetteville, GA, will be hosting several events for my book this month!  There’s the solo exhibition reception this Friday, a book signing party next weekend, and a color pencil demonstration the weekend after that.  You can read more details on these events here.

In more book news, all of the pre-orders, minus a few that need sketches, have been mailed out!  The book itself is now in stores (Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, Borders, etc.) so keep an eye out! (Though if you order from me, your book would come with a shiny print and autograph!). 

My recorded video demo on painting watercolor skintones is also available on artistsnetwork.tv and is a nice complement to the book’s demos.  At only $16.99, it’s pretty affordable and even cheaper if you’re a subscriber over there!

Things are coming together quite nicely at the start of this new year! Now I better dash off and get things ready for this Friday! I’m so excited to meet some of my local artists.

Hope to see you then!

Back to Formula

As we say goodbye to 2010, I have to be honest and say that this year ended with a fizzle.

Sales were down, conventions were slow, and I hit the biggest burnout of my professional career thus far around mid-year. I lost my urge to draw and escaped to the loving arms of leather crafting (which proved surprisingly lucrative and therapeutic).  I started to think I’d never be able to keep up with competition.  I had so much to learn and a to-do list that never seemed to shrink.  The Muse seemed to have flown the coop permanently.

And that is when I realized something.  I’m the boss here, not the Muse!  I show up for work every day and the Muse generally mosies in after coffee and emails.  The hardest part for me lately is showing up for work, sitting down at the art desk, and at least attempting to get those ideas down on paper, regardless of any intended success or failure.  This, I realize, is the state of being an artist for a living.  Uninspired or not, it is time to work!  You must preserve a state of blind optimism that the inspiration will come and that you are a professional, whether the so-called Muse flies in that that day or not.  Your art, whatever market you target, will equal returns of some sort and a feeling of satisfaction that makes the job worthwhile.

(I imagine the real problem would be if the inspiration or satisfaction in my work never comes. Then it might be time to consider other career paths.)

And so I have decided to take this year back to formula.  I started this business of art with the firm belief that I had something I wanted to share with the world, that what I wanted to share was worth noting.  What I have here is fantastic!  Fabulous!  Phenomenal!  Awe-inspiring, and, yes, maybe even worth paying for!

In this new year, I endeavor to do the following:

  • Keep whittling down the art to-do list, even if it never shrinks.
  • Explore digital media without fear of ‘sucking big time’!
  • Don’t shy away from ambitious projects just because they won’t make money NOW.
  • Start charging what I’m worth for the time put into my masks! Apparently I charge too little…
  • Return to nature!  It always gets me inspired, even if it’s just sitting on our dock meditating for awhile.
  • Go to the museum more.  We have a membership and I barely use it.
  • Read more. My visual and mental vocabulary need expanding!
  • Join my local art society and stop being such an introvert! (Or worrying that my work won’t fit in) 

What do you plan to do in this new year?  Who’s the boss in your studio, you or the Muse?

How many of you thought of Spider-Man when you saw the post title?

Angelic Visions – Book Trailer Release!

In today’s competitive market, it seems one just can’t sit on a corner going ‘Hey YOU, buy my stuff!”. No sir-ree.  Nowadays, it’s all about instant gratification, shortening attention spans, and pretty pictures!

Well I’m here to provide you all of that! May I present to you the book trailer for Angelic Visions! (After this, it’ll just be boring ‘this is how I made it’ stuff, so go watch, WATCH IT NOW!) Marketing experts say I have to have one and I’m inclined to agree!

 
It feels good to arrive at this point, as if all my hard work in promoting the book has culminated in this shiny musical moving box.  Gone are the days when we would have relied on the power of printed adverts and mailings to get the most word-of-mouth going for our products!  Now it’s all YouTube and FB and their wildly viral power over the populace!  Or at least, this is what I’m expecting after this video (I shall be watching the trickle-down effect of this video like a hawk!)
I’ve gotta say that making my own trailer took less time than I thought (not counting the time I spent pondering on what elements make a good book trailer and watching over a dozen to get an idea of what I wanted to do).

And here is random list of things I learned while working on this project!:

  • Do not use famous celebrities because that just screams “I got this from Google images”
  • Do not go longer than 2 minutes or your audience will get bored (unless you have a very good reason to go on because it’s just SO riveting!)
  •  There are barely any book trailers out there for art instruction books (minus books on quilting. There are SO many book trailers that have to do with quilting, oddly.) This means WE NEED TO MAKE MORE!  Fill that niche!  Interactive illustration is definitely catching on these days.
  • A professionally shot book trailer (with actors, music, etc.) apparently goes for $20k!  Maybe once I’m a hit, I’ll consider this full package service…maybe.
As for my own trailer’s creative development, I spent about a day pondering on how best to put words to images, what images to use, and what music would go best, which culminated in the creation of this super high tech storyboard scribbled in my art pad!
I SWEAR this wasn’t written by a chicken.
Translation – the stick figures are hints of which art I thought might work best with the arrows representing which way I wanted the camera to pan across the art.  In the making, the trailer didn’t really deviate from what I had here. Short, sweet, and to the point!

Picking the music was the easy part. I knew I wanted something unobtrusive that didn’t compete with the artwork, but still interesting enough to hold a viewer’s attention.  I also knew I wanted something in the vein of Gregorian Chant, which fits angelic themes so perfectly! Luckily, I had just the song in mind from my previous dabblings in video editing, where I stumbled upon the royalty free music site of Kevin MacLeod!  He offers his music free of charge in exchange for publicity and an optional donation.

After that, it really was a matter of looking at online tutorials on my video editing software (a program called PowerDirector which came with my camcorder) and playing around with it till it looked right.  I’d already fashioned a video earlier (Song of Exile Walkthrough) to help get my feet wet with learning the ropes.
And so, a trailer is born!  I may do a few more small video promos, but for now, this one is the Humdinger, the Mothership, my newborn Frankenstein!
I do hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think!

The Snowflake Lady – Part 3 – Coloring and Final Touches

The last process post for the Snowflake Lady talked about choosing stock reference, line art, and sketch transferring. Now, it’s time to get to the fun part – coloring!

Color test for Lady Snowflake

Most of the time I like to start off with a color test which is made very quickly in several layers in Photoshop. I like to keep the background, important parts of the figure, and important wardrobe details on their own layers so I can tweak the colors individually till I’m satisfied.

A tip to arrive at color schemes you might never have thought of is to flatten your image and play with the Hue slider under the Adjustments>Hue/Saturation menu in Photoshop.  This option lets you change the colors in your image without messing around with your shading or line integrity.

I don’t do a color test for EVERY image I paint, however! Sometimes it’s fun to let the colors develop organically. Other times, I’ve spent so long inking or sketching the image that I’m afraid to mess it up, so I do all the prep I can before touching it.

With nerves steeled, painting begins!  She was a very tough customer because all the blues were fighting for dominance.  The original idea to make the inner window pane an antique gold failed horribly and just didn’t gel with the rest of the image. I ended up having to layer various blues to make the window colors harmonize with the rest of the image.  I also used the wrong shade of yellow for the starbursts in the stained glass, which still stand out awkwardly to me.

Just goes to show you that sometimes pictures don’t work out the way we want, no matter how much planning is involved!  At the very least, watercolors are forgiving in that their translucency allows you to lift color and layer till you can get your colors talking  nicely to one another, even if the first color put down is just butt ugly.  I ended up pushing the pale yellows as a way to make the figure pop out more and to unify the overall colors more than originally planned in the color test. I used white gel pen and silver leafing to add the final touches of snowflakes and shine in the window tracing and throughout the image.

For a more detailed step-by-step  of my painting process, I refer you to my upcoming book, Angelic Visions!  Meanwhile, enjoy the finished Lady Snowflake:

| Greeting Cards | Post Cards | Prints |

Convention Report – Atlanta Comic Con

Returning from Atlanta Comic Con this past weekend with an odd mix of disappointment and happiness.

Sporting new vertical signage thanks to Graphic Signs Atlanta!

First off, I just want to say what a joy it was to meet David Mack and Joseph Michael Linsner (again), and now Billy Tucci, who I had no idea would be in attendance!  I picked up a bag he dropped and gave it back to him without even knowing who he was.  For those who don’t know him, Tucci is the author and artist of a comic from the 90’s called Shi, a tale of a half-Japanese, half-American woman out for revenge against the Yakuza lord who killed her father and brother. (Funny how half of my inspirational artists/writers tell tales about women out for revenge)

It was great to yack with some of my favorite comic book creators about what drove them to create their stories and what point in their life they felt that they were ready to tell them.  It was very insightful and inspiring to know that most of them really didn’t know what they were going to write about till they were in their 20’s. Maybe I’m not so far behind after all?

Meeting them was a double edged sword. I found myself surprisingly in tears Saturday night for a reason I couldn’t identify till later.  Realizing how far you still have to go can be traumatic when you’ve not had a lot of sleep, have been on a crazed underpaid work schedule, and meet so many great folks who are ‘there’ already that it makes you feel so incredibly behind in your life.  Even the ‘there’ness is an illusion, I realize. These guys worked hard to realize their creative vision and they are STILL working hard to keep doing what they love!

And so, like many of the cons up until this point this year, I took a financial hit, but learned so much from the folks in attendance.  I can only hope future cons will be a better balance of profits AND advice!  Right now, there’s a definite imbalance between the two.

As for the convention itself, I won’t be going back next year, not as a vendor (unless I have the extra money lounging around).  It was meant to be a 3 day con, but was changed to a 2 day con without notice to the vendors, or at least I did not receive any.  The contact for the artist alley changed several times and I did not receive word back on many of the questions I asked that were forwarded around to the new contacts.  Setup was fairly easy, but I felt like the management could’ve done a better job of keeping us informed.  I found most of the info I needed eventually, but had to dig through a busy complicated FAQ to find it.

The audience also did not seem very interested in what I had to sell (the Angelic Visions book, prints, masks, etc).  I got the distinct feeling that many of them were young artists there to meet and greet with their favorite creators and movie stars and not necessarily to buy things from other not-so-famous artists, something I wish I’d thought of before deciding to drop $200 on a table fee.

A gift sketch from
Joseph M. Linsner

On the plus side, I received a wonderful sketch from Joe in appreciation for the mask I gifted him at DragonCon. It was a great feeling to know he’s mounted it in his room and finds inspiration from it on a daily basis.  Also wonderful was yacking to David about gender and author identity and to Billy about how he prefers writing to drawing (something I thought I’d never hear such a talented artist say! It shined new light on my own illustrator versus writer predicament).

All in all, this con didn’t lack for amazing people to meet, which is why if I come next year, it will most likely be as a con-goer instead of as an artist.

For the usual photostream of interesting costumes and such, check out my Atlanta Comic Con album on Facebook!

The Snowflake Lady – Part 2 – Preliminary Sketches

In the last process post, I covered the basic planning sketches for The Snowflake Lady. With thumbnails and the basic gist of the image figured out, it was time to start getting detailed!

I started out by browsing my collection of stock images and seeing if there were any poses that could work for what I had in mind. I like to use photo references when they’re available to help add a level of realism that I still find difficult to draw directly out of my head.  Eventually, I narrowed my choices down to the following three poses, which all conjure the image of a graceful lady reaching for a snowflake.  I quickly dropped out the background on these images using Photoshop’s Magic Eraser tool, then overlayed them on top of my window layout:

Pose 1 courtesy of Nanfe-stock. Poses 2 & 3 courtesy
of Almudena-Stock.

Pose 1 added a level of movement to the composition with her outstretched arm, tilted head, and swirling dress.  The other two poses were both lovely, but somewhat static, in comparison.  After consulting with a few friends for a second opinion, I finally went with pose 1.

Next came a preliminary sketch done in digital blue! Which I like to use since it’s easier to transfer tell where you’ve drawn over when you are transferring the image using graphite transfer paper (or the ‘poor man’s transfer paper’, which is rubbing charcoal on the back of the image and then bearing down hard as you trace the lines on the front side).  I refined the details in this blue sketch phase, though you’ll notice I left some things generic, like the poinsettia, because it’s easier to refine specifics like that after you’re done transferring.

 

The stained glass window was actually designed first without the figure in front so I could get a better sense of how I wanted the patterns to look and flow.  Doing this digitally meant I could hide and unhide the figure to see how the stained glass lined up in the composition, making it easier to adjust as needed.  I also could easily copy and paste sections of the window to make it perfectly geometric instead of drawing it all by hand.  The stained glass utilizes a simple starry night theme.

Next, she was transferred to 11×14 in. illustration board where she received a good deal of refinement in pen (Copic Multiliner SP pen with a 0.1 mm and .003 mm tips).  I had to tape two 8.5×11 in. print outs together in order to cover the whole 11×14 in. piece of board.  I made a few mistakes in the stained glass while I was inking because I trusted my hands instead of using a circle template.  Too much coffee & green tea do not steady hands make!  Compass and circle templates are your friend.  I have a circular drawing ruler that’s especially useful for this purpose!

REVIEW: Tangled

This Thanksgiving, I got to see Tangled, Disney’s latest computer animated feature and a movie I had been keeping an eye on since early concept art appeared a couple years back.  I’ve always had a soft spot for the tale of the girl with the long hair, having been a girl with hair past her waist up until very recent years!  I’ve done my own rendition in comic strip format which is a far cry from this vibrantly colored movie!  I was a-flutter with excitement (and a little trepidation) at the prospect of Disney adapting this tale for the big screen.

Would Disney keep true to the compelling images of lost innocence that the original tale had, or would they sanitize it the way they’re famous for?  With happy endings and villainous deaths in off camera silhouettes?  The short answer is YES (to the sanitizing), but that is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it either! Read on for my rambly thoughts on the matter…

The Synopsis:  In a medievalesque kingdom far far away, a king and queen rejoice in the coming birth of their child, but their joy is ruined when the queen falls ill.  To cure her, they employ a potion made from the magic of a flower imbued with the healing properties of the sun.  The queen is restored to health and gives birth to a baby girl whose hair has the same power as the flower that saved her mother.  However, Mother Gothel, who had been greedily hoarding the flower’s power, finds out the child has the same abilities and spirits her away to a tower, where she uses the child’s magic hair to keep herself young.

Of course, when Rapunzel comes of age, she’s no longer happy staying in the tower and wishes to leave so she can find out what the strange lights are she views from her window once a year.  The opportunity to escape arrives in the form of Flynn Ryder, a thief who takes refuge in her tower after a heist.

The Good:  Early concept art leaks talked about how this movie was meant to emulate the tone and atmosphere of The Swing, a painting by French rococo artist, Jean-Honoré Fragonard.  This movie definitely delivers in that respect! From luscious green valleys, waterfalls, and countless flowers growing in every nook, Tangled never ceases to amaze with its charming stylization, true to its original intent of emulating the palette of lush oils.  The character animation and settings are a testament to the continued progress of computer animation with the many various ways Rapunzel utilizes her hair for daily tasks.  Gone are the days when hair looked like a texture map plastered around a character’s head with cow spit.

Looks aside, Flynn Ryder proved, as I knew he would, to be the other most enjoyable aspect of this movie for me. Voiced by Zachary Levi of Chuck fame, I felt Disney’s come yet another progressive step away from the flat and perfectly noble Princes of films past.  Then again, I have known biases towards the thiefy rogue types.  His delightful sarcasm versus Rapunzel’s naive, but sassy wit made for interesting quipping throughout.

I was also pleased to see Mother Gothel depicted true to form as a controlling, overbearing mother, and not the old hag of most depictions (for the most part). She sported a rather sexy red velvet dress and dark locks (not unlike my own depiction of Gothel, to my amusement).

But that is where things go south, for this fan.

The Bad:  I commend Disney for really trying to do something different with Prince type characters, but like the Princess and the Frog, I still felt like things moved too fast.  Suddenly Flynn and Rapunzel are singing in a boat together about how they have new meaning in life? After only knowing each other for a few days?  For a thief who had been extremely vain and smug until that point in the movie, this was a hard pill to swallow.  Just like Prince Naveen who goes from womanizing layabout to dedicated husband, it felt rushed and contrived.  The second half of the movie offers no surprises, twists, or even dialog that I hadn’t heard a thousand times before in a thousand other movies.

But no, Angela, this is Disney! They’re supposed to fall in love! Sorry, but I just cannot accept ‘this is Disney’ as an excuse for pushing characters together and fastening them with the cement glue of ‘contrived plot points’ for a happy ending.  Beauty & The Beast, which remains ever my favorite Disney movie, gradually drew The Beast and Belle together only after experiencing the worst of each other’s personalities.  Even Aladdin and Jasmine had their bumps because of her reputation as a cheeky shrew and Aladdin’s deception about his Princehood.  Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Beauty & The Beast – these Disney movies were memorable because they gave us more tension, more development, and less candy-coating.  Characters lied, deceived, and did things they shouldn’t because they were afraid, unsure, or rebellious.  There’s a touch of that in Tangled, but I don’t think it was pushed enough. (Not to mention the musical scores for these movies are still leagues beyond Tangled, which was mediocre at best.)

My other beef – a den full of bad guys who suddenly all ‘have a dream’ and become their bestest of friends.  This happened at the end of Shrek 3. Suddenly every villain EVAR was secretly a nice guy with a secretly good and beneficial hobby who would end up being your ally for life because you shared a dream with them!  I really don’t like this pattern in kids movies. Not only does it candy coat moral expectations in life, but it really just tosses older fans like me out of the story and into sugary kiddie ridiculousness.

Should we have to dumb everything down just for kids to learn a lesson about Goodness? Wouldn’t they learn a lesson more effectively if the heroes had some real and dangerous hardships to overcome?  I look to other movies (like Guardians of G’Hoole and Coraline) for an example of how putting our heroes in real danger can help them discover their own strengths in a way that drowning the story in the viscous honey of Pure Goodness can’t.

I suppose I’m being too harsh on this movie, considering it was made to please a younger audience (despite a PG rating, buh?). It WAS enjoyable and the sort of film you can take kids of all ages too.  I just hope that in the future Disney returns to the types of daring characters that made their greatest movies great in the first place.

I, for one, am highly looking forward to Brave (formerly The Bear and the Bow) which promises a more meaningful tale about a defiant Scottish princess who unwittingly releases woe on her parents’ kingdom and must suffer the consequences of her actions.  Now that sounds like a story (and a main character) I can sink my teeth into!

The Snowflake Lady – Part 1 – Brainstorming

Lately I’ve been working hard to beat my own procrastination for this year’s Christmas card for my family, friends, and fans. Seems I always get them out late because I always bite off more than I can chew! This year is no different with an image I’m temporarily calling ‘the Snowflake Lady’ (because, well, she’s surrounded by snowflakes and has a very snowy theme? Original, I am not.)

Brainstorming for her began with pondering on just what in particular about the last Christmas cards people liked the most.  Holiday Nouveau (my 2nd Christmas image) has been pegged as the crowd favorite, even after several years of images.  The contrast of crisp lines to soft watercolor and her Mucha-inspired pose, which leaves little white space for us to lag on, stood out to me as things which made her more successful than the others.

And so, a sketch was born!  I wanted to escape the usual green and red themes,but keep the soft stained glass look of past designs that made them so popular.  Snowflake lady emerged from the desire to conjure the delight of silver ribbons, deep wintry nights, and quiet snowfalls.  She would be more elegant than warm, an embodiment of snowy silence and the introspection of the season. (Notice her long sleeves and boot gear! I wanted a winter lady who actually looked like she was dressed halfway appropriate for the weather)

Preliminary thumbnail with fashion sketches.  

Nothing says holidays like fur trim, silver ribbons, heavy velvet, and snowflake tiaras! The full thumbnail came first so I could figure out the movement of her overall pose. The fashion sketches came next to help clarify the details of her outfit from the fuzzy mess of the thumbnail. All done on a single page of my travel 6×9 in. sketchbook in ballpoint pen with no erasing.  Working in pen keeps me from adding too much detail and taking too much time on what is meant to be a very rough idea splurge.