A Day Late, An Artist Short

Sorry today’s post is a day late. I didn’t get back into town until Sunday evening after spending the weekend at the Dallas Comic Convention in Las Colinas. I had a good time, spent less money that I took with me (which is an amazing feat for me), and got some really great sketches and commissions from local artists (I’ll post them later this week). I came back completely exhausted and had to drag myself to work yesterday morning, and it wasn’t until about 10 am that I realized I was still holding a dirty diaper in my left hand and my deodorant stick in my right (which probably explained why half of me smelled like poo all day).

     I had been waiting to attend this con for months, and now that I’m back, I find that I’m still waiting. I went into the weekend hoping to make connections with an artist or two, begin haggling on a contract, and set in motion what would be the beginning of the final steps for producing my strategy board game. The game has been “ready” to move forward for a few months now, but there’s not a whole lot I can do with it without art… specifically art for the 150 cards used in the game. The board design I can handle, but my two years of art school grant me little more ability than that. And I have to say… it’s completely frustrating. I am not an artist. Every now and again I like to paint or do a bit of sketching, but it’s completely amateur stuff. Basically, I could paint you a dragon and a passerby might stop and say that they love the color and the brush strokes, but they’ll think it’s a chair or a flying monkey or Ted Nugent.

     This weekend I was supposed to meet with a couple of locals, but that apparently fell through. They’ve asked when I’ll be in town next, but it’s not a trip I’m able to make all that often. I also found it really difficult to push myself on the artists that we at the con. Most of them were incredibly busy with waitlists for sketches and upcoming projects, and the others – while great – didn’t have styles that meshed well with my world. I still plan on following up with a few of them, but who knows what will come of it.

     At this point, I think my only option might be kickstarter.com. You see, artists cost money. My “real” job in higher education doesn’t pay in money, though… it pays in happy feelings of helping other people achieve their dreams of making money. While those happy feelings are great, “they don’t put art on the card,” as my third cousin used to say (he still says it sometimes). This is certainly one of those moments when I have to decide if something is worth pushing for, and if so, push as hard as I can. So if you see me stuck beneath a pile of rubble born of broken dreams, feel free to lend a hand or a rudimentary lever of some sort.