Tag: little fears

Leaf it out

LittleFears14 Comments

Leaf it out

“Do you know,” said Botanica, “I only drink tea on days that end with a y.”

Know the feeling, Botanica…

So here’s a thing. I have never made then sold an illustration as is. I always import it, touch it up, get it onto a shirt or art print. I have never just drawn something and sold it. I reckon it’s because I have no confidence in my own art. The nagging question, what do I do if I make something and nobody buys it? It’s a crippler.

So today I’ve put on my big girl panties… Or boxer shorts… We’ll go with boxer shorts… And drawn two Botanicas on 240 gsm, acid-free acrylic textured card, with the express intent, to sell them as is. She weighs in at a size of 7 inches tall by 5 inches across. Pens included in images for size reference only. They do not come with the illustration. Neither does the grass or leaves on the ground for that matter. She does come with free first class shipping within one business day so will arrive on your doorstep in a speedy fashion.

 

I’ve done some digging about for hand-drawn art and I don’t know if it’s artists selling themselves short but everything to buy is either a print or suspiciously cheap. So I’ve had to value them at what I feel they are worth. Man, that’s a hard price to come up with.

If you’d like to purchase either of them, you can head over to my Etsy store at the link below. Yeees, I know, fees, but they aren’t as much as sellers hyped them to be and it gives a little protection to both the buyer and the seller.

www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LittleFears

Products used links.

Faber-Castell PITT artist pens – Black
Faber-Castell PITT artist pens – Chromium Green

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare | Threadless

Cave Monster

LittleFears40 Comments

As I still don’t know what’s happening with my home so I’ve posted the last of my stuff, including the printer scanner, to Scotland and I have a backpack’s worth of stuff to keep me going in London until move day. Whenever that is. Urgh. That’s gonna make earning hard. In the meantime, potato cam will be put to use for my non-story doodles.

I drew Yuffie,  the Little Fears resident necromancer this morning. Then Lucy. Then the cave monster. Then just sorta kept doodling. A couple of Spiders, Sprites, Spectre, Copper and my recent two dinosaurs. I’m not sure the Fears should go near the cave.

There are two reasons for this image expanding out like this. First, I want to see how my Fears can work as one-off ink drawings. What can I do with a full sheet of paper that isn’t just a singular character? I drew across the ways on an A5 pad so this is still only around six inches across at most.

Second, I usually only draw with sepia, black and Indian red. I grabbed a cobalt turquoise for Yuffie this morning and chromium green because I like green. I’m not sure how well the expanded colour range works. I think I should have gone for darker shades. I’d say the five colours in this image work together, but it borders ADHD considering the minimal visual themes I usually put across. A smattering of green or blue may work in the future, but Yuffies garb is pushing it a bit.

Bonus sketches while I do a wee catch up on #AnimalAlphabets current dinosaur run.

Products used links.

Faber-Castell PITT artist pens – Sepia
Faber-Castell PITT artist pens – Black
Faber-Castell PITT artist pens – Indian Red
Faber-Castell PITT artist pens – Cobalt Turquoise
Faber-Castell PITT artist pens – Chromium Green
Daler Rowney Eco Fine Grain A5

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare | Threadless

Minted Wings

LittleFears10 Comments

Playing with colours for #Colour_Collective. The colour is a super light mint green. Using that against a black background looks awful, so we got creative with a colour wheel. I drew this character for a horror story, Tapdancers Dilemma. I think she still looks fearful in purple with minty wings.

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Big shout out to my first $10 patron, Warren from IWrite.

I give a shout out to all new patrons in my weekend posts. A perk for patrons who pledge $10 or more is a shoutout every weekend. So you’ll be seeing Warren, every week, right here. Thank you, Warren.

If you’d like to buy me a coffee or support me on Patreon, click the links below, and help me, help you, wake with a groan, wince and cry of anguish. Cheers!

Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/littlefears
Patreon: patreon.com/littlefears

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare | Threadless

June

LittleFears21 Comments

June brings new things and exciting projects!

Society 6

I’ve voiced my issues with the quality of Society6 T-shirts before. The main reason I went to Threadless for my shirts. However, their ancillary stuff is pretty good. Their phone cases are durable and the laptop sleeves are well padded. So I have moved a little to the left and opened a Society6 store. I’ll keep the shirts on Threadless only though as I feel the quality is far superior. You can visit both stores at the links below.

Society6: society6.com/littlefears
Threadless: littlefears.threadless.com

Ann-William

My good friends at Ann-William loved the title of an old post of mine, Villains and Birdsong. So much so, they’re writing a story about it. You can read a snippet HERE, and with a bit of luck, the complete story will be published this year and may eventually be turned into a novel. Nice. Also, they have just released a new book, Krissy’s Notebook, available now on Amazon.

Check them out at https://ann-william.com/

It arrived – Collaboration

I’ve mentioned a few times I’m trying to get back to collaborating with people after the last few collabs collapsed, but it looks like this one may actually happen. Decided to pull in two people I knew well and narrow down a collab to a phrase. “It arrived.” My partners in crime for this collaboration are Layne and Forrest. If all goes well, we shall be publishing a piece of art or fiction next Sunday to the theme of “it arrived.”

Layne: chewing-on-glass.com
Forrest: forresting365.com

Collaboration Observation

A lot of us blog, write and doodle because it’s what we love doing. But it’s nice to have our creations seen by others on the internet. Getting seen is something a lot of us struggle with. So my suggestion to folk this week who want to be seen is to ignore those articles like, “10 great things you must be doing on social media today”. Instead, grab 2-3 mates in the blogging or social media world. Get together and do a small collaboration.

Pick a theme, like ‘it arrived’ and each of you writes a post on that topic. Beauty blogger? Pick a brand of make-up that you all have and each of you can incorporate it into a look. Lifestyle blogger? Pick a tea brand, Instagram your cups and link to each other. Consider a 3-way interview, run it on Discord and invite people to join.

When you publish your posts, @ each other in your tweets, Instagrams and Facefungi.

I’d wager most of you would benefit more from getting together with fellow humans than reading another “top 10 social media trends” posts.

A helpful link, I wrote a huge post on collaborations a while back. You can read it here: littlefears.co.uk/2017/11/13/blog-collaborations/

Cups of tea

And just a wee note, that if you love what I do and want to support the Little Fears, you can buy us a cuppa on ko-fi or pledge as little as $1 through Patreon. It’ll help me, help you, wake each morning with a groan and cry of pain as you read my woeful puns.

I’m not really selling the benefits there am I?…

Little Fears on Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/littlefears
Little Fears on Patreon: patreon.com/littlefears

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare | Threadless

 

Bugged Head

LittleFears11 Comments

For this weeks colour collective, I really wanted to use my orange bug. It didn’t work in my portrait format though. So we get creative! I double up on his legs so they look like little tentacles and gave him a standing body. A little unnerving, but my bright orange bug works well as a head…

A quick shout out to my friend Rose, over at Magpie at Midnight, who has just signed up to support my over on Patreon.

patreon little fears

If you love the Little Fears and you have a few pennies to buy me a coffee, you can hit the buttons below to sponsor me on Patreon or tip me on Ko-Fi. Donations are currently going towards paying off Yuffies bail after she was arrested for raising the dead and making them dance to 80s pop songs.

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Kindle | Skillshare | Threadless

Preparing Fears

LittleFears37 Comments

There is still no #Colour_Collective so a wee update on what’s to come over the next few months on the Fears website.

The preamble, I’m still in the process of selling my home with no end date in sight. Post sale, I’ll have 2-3 months of rented accommodation, or I’ll be at the missus family home. Not a suitable working environment and both will have, at best, my phones 3g internet with Scottish hills reception. A lot of my plans are on hold until I get the new house and some control over my creative setting.

Two things I want to release before I move. First, my next Skillshare course. How to turn a doodle into high-resolution digital graphics. No scanners required and the technique uses free software. I’ll offer the class free of charge for one week then set it to premium. A handy course for anyone that doodles that’d like a new social media avatar, blog banner or an interest in Threadless and Society 6. I use this method to make my book covers, art prints and Threadless tees.

Skillshare Premium gets you access to the entire website for as little as $0.99, not just my lessons. It just means I get a few pennies from students.

The second thing I’d love to get released is the next book, Grey Moon. Currently waiting on Amazon for that. Not sure when I’m going to get the first copy of the book, and I need a week or two to check it over a hundred times before release.

You may have also noticed a minor drop in posting frequency. I’m currently spending as much time as I can on building a library of videos on my laptop so I don’t need to do them in the 2-3 months where I will have no privacy. At one per day, I need between 90 and 120 videos to fully cover me for three months. For anyone who has ever done video creation, you know how much time that takes.

Semi-related, after this week’s YouTube announcement, I am not entirely keen on uploading to YouTube long term. I may need to take a leaf out of Miles & Crawford’s book and start uploading to audio/podcast sites like Podbean and Soundcloud. I would have never had a chance of YouTube monetisation myself. My videos are too short to get views counted correctly. It’s not just WordPress that can’t do stats right. But after all the drama of Logan the week before, YouTube responded by stepping on the small YouTuber while raising up the big’uns like Logan. I always felt YouTube represented an idea that anyone could have a go. Everyone can still have a go, but YouTube will make it hard for you unless you make it big. Not an ideology I like.

ComicsExplained has a trending video on why he’s looking at Patreon and other options. I, unfortunately, do not read comics anymore, except for the odd webcomic. Certainly nothing mainstream. But what he says about YouTubes decision reflects how I feel about the situation.

The last thing in this update is my schedule for the next three months and beyond.

Until I have my new house, possibly three months away, I’ll be dropping to one story per day and one blog post per week. I hope to keep roughly on this schedule.

Monday – Capricorn horror story
Tuesday – Grey Moon story
Wednesday – Grey Moon story
Thursday – Grey Moon story
Friday – January story, with new video
Saturday – Little Fears, Big Update
Sunday – Spiders story, with new video

Once I have moved, I can return to the busier schedule with my posts returning to the same level as the last few months. Seven new stories. Three old stories with new videos. One big update. One art/work in progress post. One long-form story. One blog on blogging or creativity. All of that, every week. Soooo many puns and punchlines!

Thank you very much, everyone, for sticking with me. You’re an awesome rabble of groaning, pun-loving and horror laughing oddballs. 

Little Fears, Big Update: Minnie

LittleFears12 Comments

A short and sweet update this week.

  1. Minnie
  2. Walker
  3. Patreon

Minnie

The lead Fear of this weeks update. Awwww, the littlest of little fears. A teensy fear for this weeks #Colour_Collective.

Walker

The creature I showed off earlier this week. She’s now on a tee over on my Threadless store and she’s available from $12.95.

Semi-related, I’ll be sharing my experience selling tees on Threadless for Monday’s process blog post. If you have any questions about Threadless, let me know, and I’ll get them on the Monday blog.

patreon little fears

Head on over to Patreon and pledge $10 or more a month and not only will you help with Hydra’s feed bill, but you will also get that weekly shout out with a link back to your site. https://www.patreon.com/littlefears

A cheers and shout out to my new Patron, Derrick Ferguson of The Ferguson Theater. 

Little Fears, Big Update; Road Walker

LittleFears16 Comments

Little Fears, Big Update; Road Walker

In this weeks update!

  1. Road Walker
  2. Yuffie & Hydra
  3. Seeking Hydra
  4. A Yuffie Collaboration
  5. Patreon

Road Walker

Ahhh, look at him. A lovely fella. Road Walker for this weeks #Colour_Collective on Twitter. His image has appeared in two stories, but he’s never been named. Always represented as an incredibly tall and in both images has been seen on the road to the afterlife. Has anyone got a groovy name for him?

Yuffie & Hydra

I adore Yuffie and Hydra. They now have their own Tee on the Little Fears Threadless store.

Linky: https://littlefears.threadless.com/

Their relationship will be explored a touch over the next month and have a focus in my next book, Seeking Hydra.

Seeking Hydra

Speaking of, that looks like a book cover to me. My fourth book in the Little Fears Presents series. It’s coming! Want to check out my first three books? Click the links below.

USA Editions: http://amzn.to/2frKA6e
UK Editions: http://amzn.to/2zTH64S

A Yuffie Collaboration

Hey, there’s a thing. My first proper Little Fears collaboration. This week I shall be collaborating in a series of tales about Yuffie. Writing stories with me will be Mel Gutier from Fiction in my Head, Anthony Renfo from One Writer Ranting and Layne from Chewing on Glass. We hope to post this Wednesday, have a nosey at their blogs, give them a follow and keep an eye out!

Patreon

patreon little fears

Have you noticed my weekly update posts have had links to my new patrons? Do you want a shout out at the bottom of my weekly update posts? Head on over to Patreon and pledge $10 or more a month and not only will you help with Hydra’s feed bill, but you will also get that weekly shout out with a link back to your site. Hit me up on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/littlefears