JazzLizard

PreTL;DR: Been busy/caught up in life/being an adult stuff, you're all still getting your commissions.

So, the past couple months have been complete and utter insanity for me. This has been the busiest convention and halloween order season so far at my shop, and I've been swamped with orders. Good for the bank account, not good for my personal life/relaxation time/anything other than work. I've had very little time for myself or to draw, and have been crap at getting back to people about their pieces. That's entirely on me, and I apologize for that. Everyone who's waiting for artwork from me will get it within a month or so, plus a little something extra. (I'll send you all notes)

Expect new art from me soon too, things are starting to cool down on my end, with orders wrapping up and more free time becoming available.

I thank you all for understanding, and promise to do better in the future. Being an "adult" is hard sometimes.

So, I've been really busy with my Etsy shop. I work full time, Monday-Friday, 7 to 4ish then go to my shop almost every night till 7-9pm. I don't terribly mind it, because I'm building cool things and making money, but I don't really get to draw much anymore. I still do, but going from sketch to finished piece is tricky atm. Expect plenty of work from me in the future, but not in huge quantities.

Some of the things I've been printing/making for my Etsy shop:

A "functional" version of my Vash the Stampede revolver.


3D printed the head for one of my Marshall Lee guitar props.


How about a fancy airplane?


3D printed "brass" knuckles so your kid stops getting bullied at preschool?

And a teaser of something I sketched up last weekend:


However, this summer I'm planning on getting a webcomic started, based in a new fantasy universe I created over this past winter. It's going to be called "Crown" and will tell the story of Thall, a man who was born a slave, and became a god. It will follow him as he changes the world around him, and his friends, enemies and companions along the way. It'll be broken into chapters, each following a different character.

Thall was born effectively a slave, working with his father and countless other slaves to mine out a dead volcano while his mother worked in the farms near the mountain that were fertilized with the ash they were excavating. Bad stuff happens, Thall eventually finds something powerful, and becomes unimaginably powerful.

Etna is a young sorceress-thief and skilled archer, who uses her magic to steal both gold and information from people.

Ketania is a 200 year old necromancer who had been Thall's pretege for ages, but is slowly losing her humanity to the dark powers she's courting.

Bardsnake is exactly that. A bard, who pissed off Thall and was turned into a snake.

The story is going to include plenty of my art that you're used to, it'll have mermaids, bird-people, people-birds, dragons, Skyrim references, body-swapping, gratuitous gore and nudity, a woman breaking a mans neck with her thighs, and Bardnsake.

Feel free to ask any questions, I'll keep you all updated as the comic comes together. The story is already written, but I'm not going to give anything big away.

So over the last week, I've been futzing around with my printer quite a bit. Installing custom firmware, printing models and getting to know the machine. I'll be picking a name for it tonight, but have been working with one of my college friends on using Daz3D to turn some of my artwork and ideas into .obj files, to then convert into .stl files to print. He's going to share his library of content and models with me and show me how to make my own, since I'm mostly familiar with Sketchup and CAD, when it comes to sculpting in 3D. See below for some of my initial prints.

Also, if I was going to start printing some of my characters and models, where would you like me to start? I know I want to print a Hikki and a Xain, and definitely some of my more exotic characters.
 

My setup:


Some examples of my 3D prints so far:
A heavy Star Destroyer I whipped up in sketchup.


A Star Destroyer, bracelet and microfusion cell from Thingiverse. You can clearly see the scafolding on the bracelet when it was still on the print bed. That's so the printer can build an object that would otherwise have no support; it can't print in thin air, after all!

An acetone vapor bath will smooth this out nicely, once I get it all set up.


And last but not least, I call this "Jazzlizard's Venus".

So, on Sunday I ordered my 3D printer, a DaVinci Model 1, and it arrived on Wednesday! I've got it up and running and have printed a few things so far, (printing a 3 inch long Star Destroyer, at the moment) and will begin the process of turning some of my larger, more ridiculous spaceships and robots into 3D printable files. However, I plan on naming my printer, and doing some side-panel art for it. I like the idea of it having the name of a creation goddess, since this thing can print practically anything.



So here's the contest.
Come up with the coolest name & a brief description of character for my printer, (as judged by myself and my girlfriend) and not only will I use it for it's side-panel art, but will do a full-color, shaded drawing of whatever you want as reward. Unless someone comes up with something absolutely awesome before then, this contest will run til the weekend of the 30th.

Get to it!

I'm moving at the beginning of August, and need some extra cash for rent (since I'm moving both my apartment and workshop) so I'm having a bit of a "friends of Jazzlizard" sale on my Etsy shop. My shop is located here: www.etsy.com/shop/Bencrafts

Enter the coupon code "bananaface" while buying anything from my shop and get 10% off of your whole order. I can also offer free shipping to anyone in Massachusetts on most of my items, although the guitars are still going to need it. I'm open to custom items of all kinds, I'm currently working on Pyramid Head's sword, a working version of one of my guitars, and have made a number of other custom items in the past such as the Scout's Shotgun and bat from TF2, a serrated space-pirate katana, personalized engraved wooden swords and the shield from Okami.

I know this is a shameless plug and all, but I need the cash, and my props are worth it, (I have a 100% customer satisfaction rate after 119 orders) and you want to buy swords from me.

Do it.