Kelci D Crawford

Dear Readers,

It’s been a while since I updated. I should get back to doing so on a regular basis, or else it’ll never happen. Perhaps I’ll go back to updating everyday, as much of a pain in the butt as it is sometimes.

In other news, with the graphic novel project going along nicely, I’m just now realizing all the other stuff I sort of forgot about: like the comic I’m collaborating with my friend Chloe on, or the book review I need to write due next week, or the mini-comic I should finish scripting, and the the collaboration I’m working on with another friend…

Yeah….I’ll be catching up on those soon.

In my defense, my graphic novel has been absorbing all of my free time. It is GLORIOUS, with political intrigue, existential questions, and cross-dressing, but sometimes other things can suffer for it. I’ll be working out how to accomplish all of these things over the next day or two.

In the meantime, here is some art to show that I haven’t been dickin’ around…badly:

This is a character design for a friend’s character, Nick. He’s a human with cyborg parts in a world of other cyrborg-y humans. He loves to pick fights with others to better himself, at least that’s the impression I got from him. He also doesn’t mind his cyborg parts, unlike his comrades, who like to get life-like synthetic skin to cover up their body parts if they can afford it.

I didn’t add any shading to the piece because I wanted his gray-color scheme to be evident. Simple and clean is what I was going for.

Nick is copyrighted to my friend Casey Vernon. The design is mine, so don’t be stealin’ him. He’s expensive, and you don’t have the money to get him the cybernetic updates that he wants, anyway. Sorry, but it’s the truth.

I’ll be writing again soon, but don’t forget to be awesome!

Sincerely,
Kelci

Dear Lovely Audience,


I am now free and available for Commissions, if any of you lovely readers would like to own some art drawn by me! Details are now under the “Commissions” page of this website. Isn’t that awesome that now I have one of those?

In other news, I don’t have much other news. I’m still working on the Graphic Novel Project (now on its 56th page! Woot!) and generally working on improving my art all the freaking time like I always am.

I seriously love working as a caricature artist at an amusement park because all the people I work with always inspire me to get better and try new things in my comics.

Also I’ll be sending some mini-comics to Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago because I’ve always wanted to try a hand at selling my comics at a bookstore. And Quimby’s is awesome because they let you sell your own self-published stuff, which is great! I’m hoping I can get more people interested in my stuff, but I’m doing this more as an experiment: to see if I get new readers, see how the process of consigning my work at a bookstore is like, etc.

I’ll be updating the “Illustrations” section of this site soon because I recently finished a few more of those and I like showing off.

I’m also considering experimenting in other art forms, like puppetry and video blogging and music-making. I have a ukelele and a tiger puppet already. I should do something with those.

Thanks for reading me changing topics frequently, and as always, Don’t Forget to Be Awesome!

Sincerely,
Kelci

As I’m typing this, my little town of Sandusky, Ohio is expecting President Barack Obama to come in and give a speech during his political campaign. People are already lined up outside my apartment, and the street just outside of my building is closed to traffic to allow him to pass.

That being said, I’m not getting involved in this. At all.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m a Democrat, and liberally-minded, but I also try to be more moderate in some ways. I should be going out there to support him because (I admit with no shame) I love our President.

I just hate American politics. Let me tell you why:

I hate that it divides people into two fractions with no consolable differences. I hate that one side perceives itself as right and the other is perceived as Satanically wrong. Even I sometimes see “the other side” as horrifically worse than “my side”. I’m trying to not think like that, but with the way politics has been the last ten years, I have no reason to like the political scene or be optimistic that it will change.

It makes me angry in my heart of hearts to see people at this rally for Barack Obama holding signs that say, “Jobs Not Welfare Creates the Middle Class.” I just want to beat them with a stick and remind them that the President did not do this. We as an American people screwed ourselves over. We elected these officials to screw us, and we screw each other over all the time. No one helps anyone. If we as a people took the time to take care of each other, even for five minutes a day, peoples’ lives would be better.

In fact, take away the political signs from the people outside my street, and I can’t tell who’s Democrat or Republican. So why would we assign labels to ourselves and cause so much grief?

I don’t get it. Politics is weird. And creepy. Just like this guy said:

So I’m going to stick to the actual reality and keep making art, and vote for Obama in November. From what I’ve seen these past four years, I want him back in office over that weirdo Mitt Romney. I’m just choosing the lesser of two evils here.

So the Graphic Novel Month project I’m embarking on tomorrow…you’d think I planned ahead for it, right? I mean, last year, I did. Character bios, sketches, rough outline, everything.

This year, I’m (sort of) not doing that. Based on last year’s experience, I know I’m going to ditch most of it out the window. So instead, I have just a sketch of the main cast of characters:

Taken with my camera, so forgive the crappy quality!

Left to right, they are: Jamie, the girl disguising herself as a man for the army; Daniel and Thomas, her friends who keep her identity hidden; Odinon, the young man who can transform into a dragon; and Lokis, the young man chosen to help his village dragon find a replacement to protect their home.

I have no idea what will happen in the story. I’m just going to let the characters plot out their own path and see what happens. It worked last time. Besides, this is the rough draft, so it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Graphic Novel Month was something that was cooked up by my twitter pal don_macdonald and myself around this time last year. We originally came up with the idea because there was no real equivalent of National Novel Writing Month for comic artists, and we wanted to change that. The original challenge was to make a 125-page graphic novel script in 30 days, and we even came up with a logo for it to try and make it a national thing.

I think, eventually, it was only he and I doing this. To make it more difficult on myself, I upped the page count to 220 in 30 days. It was crazy, but it would fill up one of those mini sketchbooks that fits inside of purses and things, which was what I used in the challenge. To my utter shock and joy, I finished all 220 pages of it!

This July I’m recreating the challenge:

Graphic Novel Month. 200 pages in 30 days. No excuses if I fail.

I’m doing this again because there had been a wonderful idea that I’ve been wanting to write in graphic novel form for over two years now, but I have never gotten to actually sit down and start the rough draft. I’m going to take the leap and see how much story I can make with 200 pages. No holds barred. No more pre-planning, because I keep scrapping all of my pre-planning over and over again. I’m just going to grab this idea and RUN WITH IT, and see what comes from it.

You all should get in on this, too, because Graphic Novel Month is a WONDERFUL exercise in what Chris Baty called “Exuberant Imperfection,” because let’s face it: this thing I’m working on is the rough draft of a novel. The first draft. And the first draft is always sh*t. But that’s ok: it just gives you more of a chance to let crazy ideas fly. That’s what I intend to do!

Good luck to all of those who want to join me in this challenge, and Don’t Forget to Be Awesome!