As I’ve been figuring out what I want my zine to look like, I’ve asked myself, “What is a Frankiezine?” I’ve written down a few answers: I want it to be a way of getting my artwork “out there.” I want to advertise my website, blog and other merch. Spark joy when someone reads it. Be able to sell them at a lower price point than my t-shirts & prints. Today I thought about creating a dedicated zine illustrating all of those things. Something I can show people when they stop by my booth at events. Something that answers the question, “What is a Frankiezine?”
One of the reasons for making a zine is to sell merch. I’ll need at least one page dedicated to my t-shirts, prints & stickers. Tonight I was trying to come up with a cool layout based on the alien/space theme. It’s not quite there yet.
I dumped all the sketchbook drawings of me and space alien stuff onto my computer and sorted them into two folders. Over 600 pictures I took with my phone. I’m dreading all the scanning I’ll have to do.
I’m still working on how to to make an alien themed zine. One of the ideas I was to have a ufo fly by different planets and seeing the creatures that inhabit them. I figure Earth qualifies so I made a rough sketch of what that page might look like.
It took me a couple hours this afternoon to go through all 55 of my homemade sketchbooks looking for selfies and alien drawings. When I was done I had over 200 new pictures on my phone, in addition to the 400 pics taken from my store-bought sketchbooks. I wasn’t expecting there to be this many images before I started digging. Scanning is going to take ffforrrevvverrr!
I don’t remember which idea came first, making a zine or making my own sketchbooks. Back in August of 2018 I bought a long reach stapler and starting binding sheets of printer paper and folding them in half to make cheap mini sketchbooks. I haven’t made a zine yet but I’ve been using these homemade sketchbooks over three and a half years now. I was always too precious with my store bought sketchbooks and didn’t draw in them enough. With these cheap homemade books it’s easier for me to draw in and write stuff down. I’ve got 55 of these books and counting. I’ll be pulling sketches from these books to make zines, which was part of the original intent. Tonight I went through them all and marked the dates they were drawn in. Next I’ll go through them again looking for drawings of aliens and myself. Those are the two subjects I want to make my first couple zines from.
Today, while resting on a bench during my hike, I came up with a possible layout for a zine based on all the alien characters I’ve drawn over the years. It’s sorta like a rogues gallery of the different species and environments. 👽
So far, I’ve gone through 19 or 20 of my oldest sketchbooks looking for drawings of aliens & selfies. The goal is to eventually make a couple zines from old and new drawings.
I’m still figuring out how to craft my first zine. I’ve got a couple ideas, aliens & me. Tonight I flipped through 9, out of 38, of my sketchbooks, starting with the oldest, looking for drawings of extra terrestrials & myself. When I finish going through all the books I’ll try to compile everything into two zines.
Today I went through my hoard of old sketches & drawings and sorted them out. I hope between all the loose leaf stuff, and my old sketchbooks, I have enough to compile a few zines. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to go about making them.
Tonight I went through a tub full of my old sketchbook and labeled them with the years I drew in them. My oldest sketchbook was from my senior year in high school. 1999. I’m planning on scanning old drawings and using them in zines.
I’ve had zines on the brain lately. I sketched this a few days ago and did a little inking on the iPad tonight using Procreate. It’s my first time inking with this app. I’ve been using Adobe Fresco for their vector brush up until now.
I bought a $250 flatbed scanner today. The plan is to scan a bunch of drawings from my sketchbooks and make zines. I’ve been wanting to make a zine for a while and I got a bunch of drawings and sketches I’ve hoarded over the years, many of which I’ve never shown to anyone. I figure a zine is a good way of distributing my art for relatively cheap.
Originally I thought about making zines from my Inktober drawings but recently I changed my mind and now I want to make books. Small hardcover books similar to Edward Gorey's. Black ink/print on white uncoated paper. Today I started researching how to get hardcover books printed and pricing. I would really like to get these made so I'm looking for a good vendor to make help make it happen.
Since all I do is complain about how long it takes to create new things, I thought I'd talk about the Inktober zine I've been working on. I've taken pictures of all the Inktober drawings I did in 2017, processed them and laid them out so they're ready to print. Now I need to come up with art for the front cover and few other pages. Here's what I've done so far. I'm not crazy about any of them. I hope I can knock this out soon because I still have to do Inktober 2018.
Holy crap! I've been working all day on making zines of my Inktober drawings from the last two years. I procrastinated and, as always, it's taking way longer than anticipated. I wanted to have a few available for the Sofa Street Mrkt Friday night but that's not going to happen. I took pictures of all the drawings with my phone and processed them using Gimp on my laptop. I then brought them into Illustrator to lay them out and resize them. All this after making a mockup zine by stapling papers and writing notes & page numbers on them. I have all the images for 2017 finishes I just need to design a cover and a few inside pages before I can say it's done. I had to stop working on the zine so I could draw my Inktober drawing for Day 3 and write a blog post before bed.
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Frankie Mcfly's
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