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Hello friends and fans… and trolls apparently.
After a long hiatus used to get Laura and I out to Austin (where I am not currently f***ing myself thank you!) Fortress is finally back up. Hope to keep a steady schedule once again, but we’re still getting settled, so we’ll see how that goes. Thank you to everyone who has been waiting for our return, hope to keep you all entertained from a new location.
IMPORTANT NEWS!!!
My wife Laura is auditioning for a very important career, please read carefully.
Go to Laura’s audition page http://www.iwearyourshirt.com/hiring/laura-martin/ Watch her video audition for IWearYourShirt, vote five stars if you like it, the more stars she receives the higher her rating will be. After you rate her video be sure to share it on your Twitter and Facebook. Share and share often, every view helps her out. The new Shirt Crew will be picked in early December so we have a lot of people to get this out to in the mean time. This isn’t a contest, this is a career opportunity, so please if you don’t like the video, don’t be a jerk and give it one star, just don’t help after you view, there have been some people already messing with a few of the audition videos hers included.
Every bit helps, and we would both greatly appreciate it.
And remember, when you want to be an anonymous jerk on the internet, make sure the person you’re trolling can’t track your IP address. ;)
See you Thursday!
-Zach
Contrary to the title of this post, my wife and I are having a great time here.
The comic will be back up starting in Oct. and I have many art jobs lined up all around the city. Re-Constructed my other site and updated some info, getting out there and showing off my stuff, seeing what is getting returned with feedback. Work is already starting to seep in towards me, it’s a lot of hard work to put yourself out there with no lifeline, take the plunge on a leap of faith, but we’re already being rewarded.
We couldn’t have done this without our great friends here in Austin, and our great and supportive friends back in Farmington. Without the positive voices and supportive friends, we may have still tried to do this, but it would have been much harder.
There are so many great opportunities out here for Laura and me. Laura may have found something she’s always wanted, and was so close to back in F-Town. I have another art ally out here, and maybe we’ll get to push each other forward artistically. So many art shows, so many concerts, so many jobs, it’s wonderful out here and I encourage all of you to visit this awesome place once in your life, it’s a town like no other. I used to think I missed Los Angeles, but this place seems more like home to me in just two weeks time.
So much fun and I’m awesomely grateful for all of you who have supported us through all the crap and horrors and helped us get out while we still could. Like I’ve said before we’ll always have a door open to you!
More to come!
-zach
And no, I’m not actually calling it “Project X”. It’s just the working title until I have enough solid to debut safely. But here’s what I can tell you about it:
In my senior year of high school the only “Advanced Placement” I forced myself to take was art. As part of our final project we were told that over the year we would be working on one large portfolio that would be reviewed at the end of the year. We were told to pick a study and a theme and every piece we worked on for the year had to fit into those two categories.
Being a long time fan of comics, I decided that my theme would be comic illustration, and my obvious study would be the human for and the exaggeration there of.
I made a generic hero character whom I would just call “Hero”. My instructor loved some early sketches I was doing but recommended that I try taking some pictures of models in the poses I wanted, so I could better match and then distort as necessary. As friends are in high school and beyond finding a model for the main character was a long and fruitless task. I was wasting too much time finding friend who could help me, so I decided that I would just have to set the timer on the camera and pose for the main character myself.
After my theater friends saw what I was doing I managed to get a handful of other models to pose and draw.
I had about 15 original pieces by the time I sent my portfolio off, including a poster size piece of three of the originals that still hangs in my mom’s house.
You’ll be happy to know that I passed the AP Portfolio Review. I was not happy to find out that on the 1-5 scale [1 being the highest] I got a 4. The 1-5 equivalent of a D-. But screw it, at least I passed. Fine Art judges don’t typically like the pop-art and illustration crowd. Very divided the art world is.
The next fall I went to college and was getting my degree in Creative Art and Technology. I quickly found however, that a number of my art classes had assignments perfect for what I was already doing, and that I would be the only one doing comic illustration in any of these classes, so what I would be doing would be different (that’s important to an 18 year old after all). So I kept drawing my friends and I as superheroes in a comic world that in my head existed, but on paper only existed in short spurts of required assignments or birthday cards.
I’m 25 now. I’m married. I’ve been comic-ing our friends for several years and telling the story of why for just as many. The year I met Laura I gave her a full comic cover of herself for Christmas. I’ve even gotten to the point where I try to write the personality traits into my notes and let the friend pick the power they have and the colors they would wear. It’s fun for them and me.
Laura’s gotten a little fed up with me not drawing my characters the past year though. She told me she thought I should actually write a script for a first issue, draw it up, edit it and send it to IMAGE COMICS as a submission, just to see if it gets picked up. So. I’ve now written the first issue, halfway done with the second, and have the layouts done for issue one.
The comic will feature Laura and my “likenesses” as the heroes and cover all sorts of ground between being superheroes, to being newlyweds, to moving to a new place. Everything that is going on in our personal lives in one way or another… except the being superheroes part that is.
…”Austin, TX. Tomorrow I will be in you.”
Not entirely true, we leave for Texas tomorrow, but we won’t actually get there till Thursday.
I can’t believe I’m actually moving. Once we set a date for this it came up fast and as prepared as I am I still have the moving jitters. There are some friends I will miss out here, and I will miss my mom very much. But Farmington, NM has nothing to offer Laura or me. There’s not enough time to waste our younger years on a town that closes at 9pm. We want to get out and do things and we’re both very much night-owls.
To all of you who have been there for us and great friends, our door will always be open to you should you want to visit. You’ve been great kiddos, but it’s time to mosey. Don’t stop being the wonderful, smart, fun, witty, caring people you are. Stay in touch.
Mom, thank you for all you’ve done for us. We can’t truly thank you enough. But this will have to do I suppose. Thank you. We will miss you very much and please visit as often as you like.
To all of the rest of you. The let-downs, the free loaders, the back stabbers. Have a long life in Farmington. Seriously. You’ve earned it.
I’m ready for the next chapter of my life to begin. And here we go…
-zach
So, I’ve got almost nothing done all day, but I haven’t done anything to distract myself properly either.
I didn’t get any clean up or packing done to get ready for the big move next week. However… I didn’t get anything done on the creative front either. Shit, it’s 4:06 in the afternoon as I write this. Just a lazy, grey cloud kind of day.
I really feel like I should get something done or be creative in some way, by why? Why should I? I know there a lot to get done to get ready to go, but I do my best work last minute, so why do anything till Monday? Because that’s a shitty attitude to have, that’s why. Although I am aggressive, opinionated, and mouthy; I don’t need to add “shitty” to my list of personal qualifiers.
I was thinking of drawing, but then I’d have to clean off the table. Like I already said, just don’t have it in me to day to do anything but look at pictures. Something that requires nothing of me. I can gape slack jawed at pictures of toys and art all day without thought. But, actually, I’m bored with that too.
WHAT THE F***!
It’s not just me, everyone in the house is just blah today.
Just one of those days I guess.
Anyway…this is the blog. Sorry.
Here’s something you get to see from older renditions of the project I’m currently working on:
copyright Zach Martin 2003-2011
