Tea & Automatons

Greetings friends!  I apologize for my long absence.  Frankly my health has been poor and in turn my motivation has as well.  I’m sure most of you have pretty much forgotten me.  My bad.

Well, I think it might be time to let go.  Zazzle, one of my stores has been randomly deleting my products due to lack of interest.  So, I want to give you one last chance to buy special things for your loved one from all my stores for this season.  I may or may not delete my shops in January, but I probably won’t be capable of making any new art for a while.  Anyway below are the links to many things you may enjoy.

You can find my stickers here: Redbubble

Steampunk T-shirts, greeting cards and lots more: Steamporium

My whimsical menagerie wares are here: Artvixn

And you can get my books and coloring books here: Blurb

 

In the interest of helping with your online holiday shopping, I thought I’d repost the links to my shops for you.  Your patronage is much appreciated and you will be helping out an artist.

My books on Blurb.  I currently have four books on Blurb including my two new coloring books.  http://www.blurb.com/user/artvixn

Steamporium – This is my shop for Steampunk and Victorian themed items, such as mousepads, bumper stickers and t-shirts.  http://www.zazzle.com/steamporium – Use the code CYBERMONSAVE for 30% off everything, also 70% off magnets, & 50% off greeting cards!

My Furry Art – You can find my whimsical menagerie here.  Magnets, greeting cards and lots more.  http://www.zazzle.com/artvixn – Use the code CYBERMONSAVE for 30% off everything, also 70% off magnets, & 50% off greeting cards!

My stickers – I sell stickers on Redbubble currently. They have a wonderful cut out method that I love.  Many sizes as well.  http://www.redbubble.com/people/artvixn  Use the code CYBERMON for 20% off!

I hope that you will check out some of my merchandise!  I wish you a joyous winter season no matter what you choose to celebrate!

If so you are in luck, I just released my first coloring book!  I had so much fun designing it.  This one is costume themed but the next one will be steampunk!

You can buy it here: http://www.blurb.com/b/7063227-costume-menagerie-coloring-book

 

And if you order by May 6th, use code MYBOOKSALE25 to get 25% off!

I am terrible at self promotion, but at this time of year I really do need to let my fans know that I have things for sale.  Lots of great gift ideas and every sale helps me continue doing what I love.

You can find my stickers here: Redbubble

Steampunk T-shirts, greeting cards and lots more: Steamporium

My whimsical menagerie wares are here: Artvixn

And you can get my books here: Blurb

I am bad at self promotion.  I admit it.  So, here is a bit of self promotion.  I have a store on Zazzle called Steamporium with lots of fun things for Steampunk and Victorian enthusiasts.  Magnets, Mousepads, t-shirts and even bumper stickers.  I have had a booth at Emerald City Comic Con for the past five years and will be at Jet City Comic Con in October selling my wares.  I just did my first steampunk convention as a merchant at GEARcon in Portland.  I am happy to say my work was quite well received.  Here are my newest bumper sticker designs from the last show.  You can still get them at Steamporium.  I invite you to check out Steamporium, and join my page on Facebook to keep up with all the new designs!

I’d like to remind you that it is incredibly irresponsible to repost pictures of art that you love without crediting the artist? What do you do for a living? Do you do it for free or would you like it to be valued? Well, artists work hard and need recognition. Every time you post without attribution, that piece of art is going to be reposted again and again without credit. You can be the hero that helps that artist get a following. It’s really the least you can do.  You can help. If you like their work, take a few moments to find their name and maybe their website. They might have lots more great art to show you.

It didn’t have credit when you found it, so that’s okay right? Wrong. Just because you don’t know who created it does not mean it’s free to use. The internet is full of theft. Don’t be complicit in that theft.

Here’ one way you can help. Right click on the image. Copy url. Go to Tineye.com. It’s a reverse image search. Put in the address. It may take a little time to find the artists name and website, but with a little persistence it can usually be done. If you can, go back to your uncredited source and give them the name of the artist. It can be your random act of kindness for the day!  If you can’t find the artist’s name, then either ask for help when you post it, or maybe just refrain from posting.

As an artist, I can’t tell you how much this means to me.  Artists?  Please put your watermark or name and web address on everything so we don’t have this problem?  It isn’t always enough but it’s a start.

Thanks for reading.  Feel free to pass this info on.

 

If you are intrigued by steampunk and you live in the Pacific Northwest, you should join the Facebook group: NorthWest SteamPunk events.  I moderate it and try to include any relevant event in the area.  It’s a great place to keep your steampunk calendar up to date.

Click here!

For 62 years now, we’ve been having “The Miss Universe Pageant” with only Earthlings.  Does that make any sense?  Time to open it up to the rest of the Universe.  I made a quick example to show what that might look like.

I apologize if I left out your favorite species, but I was working quickly with found images.    There are quite a few beauties I’d love to have added.  Maybe next time?  I also envision this having a lot less humanistic aliens.

What should I do next?  With no convention to devote 80 hours a week to, I am finding myself rudderless.   I thought I’d pick up my art career, but I am finding that things have changed too much.  I was bumped from the furry convention that I thought would always be my staple.  The main stream market only seems to want the familiar; Batman or Harley Quinn etc. , so those of us that don’t want to do other people’s characters are not all that popular.  Comic cons have all become media circuses that leave us, small artists with no audience.  Thousands of people shuffling past my table, who look, shrug and continue on their way to meet *insert name of star here*.

I have some writing projects that I could do, but without a specific end goal in mind, I can’t seem to find the motivation.   I will try to do some of that for myself, but I don’t see it as a vocation.

They say “do what you love”.  Dressing up in costume is not a job skill and I am getting to old for it these days.  No, I am not saying you can’t look great at any age, but let’s face it.  No one really wants to see less than perfect people.  Fact of life.  And again, it is most definitely not a vocation.

So I thought about what I enjoy doing the most and digital collage seems to be the ticket.  I’ve done a lot of it in the past eight years, but I am entirely self taught, so there are thousands of people who can do it and do it better.  And I haven’t a clue where the market might be.    Also, being self taught and not very technically ept, I always run into problems, so I can’t really work for someone else, even if I wanted to.

I find myself feeling irrelevant, adrift and lost.  So probably TMI, but there you go.

To close out the year, I give you one last set of vintage cards celebrating the new year.