Paper 'n' Pixels

I am J.C.T. Holmes and this is where my artwork goes on Tumblr. I draw the webcomic Spookydate. I draw cute things occasionally, I guess.

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this is a very good toad

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Last year, I was commissioned by Magfest to put together a flyer for a local music event. It was neat getting to do a piece for an event that I love and it was cool coming up with a sharp design for them too. This design went through a lot of layouts and iterations until it got to one that worked. Maybe I’ll share some of those alternate takes at some point too.

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Gotta Believe! // Gotta Move On!

Get these designs as t-shirts over on Teepublic!

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This was my Famicase entry for 2017 and my fifth year displaying in the gallery! Again, fitting with my usual theme of games about cute girls. I feel like this gallery always ebbs in flows in terms of how much attention it gets from Western audiences, but I’ll always love the sorta culture that crops up around how Japan romanticizes the Famicom over how we do it with the NES in America. Those guys really know how to collect retro games, lemme tell ya.

(The top cart is the one featured in the gallery, the bottom is an alternate pink cartridge I considered but didn’t end up using)

“Ever wish you could try that embarassing first date again? Madeline might be able to help! Thanks to a specialized time travel device, Madeline travels through time to help others fall in love... again! But will she ever find her own love in time?“

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Happy 5th anniversary, Game Grumps!

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blue plate special. its late.

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party animals

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posing for holiday cards

[mendedarrow]

The first of potentially many quick tips on design and illustration tools using #mendedtips. The example above uses an unfinished poster Hope you enjoy. More of my work can found at www.mendedarrow.com. Intuitive Typographic Grid Design grids are often presented as structured, but they can also be intuitive. Take note of the way pieces of type and images relate to each other to achieve visual harmony within a composition.

This is most useful for any 2d design work that is intended to somewhat stand alone. Ex: book cover, poster, postcard, etc.

It may take some time before you feel confident in your decisions. Working digitally makes this less of a problem since you can try multiple solutions without permanently changing your composition. It also helps to use guides. Even something slightly misaligned can cause dissonance. Optical Alignment To follow up using an intuitive grid, keep in mind that type doesn’t align perfectly across a straight line. As seen above, the triangular shaped letters may go slightly below what most would consider the bottom of a capital or base line. They also may go slightly above capitals or the cap line. Curved shaped capitols and lower case letters also move slightly above or below these lines. This is because our eye visually perceives them as aligned only if they are arranged in this manner.

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Solid art tips from a good friend of mine! Check em out!

[laughingbear]

I’m here with @sonic9jct at SUPER SMASH CON in Virginia!! Come check us out and see our cool stuff!!

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Today's the last day we'll be at smash con! Come say hi and talk to me about rhythm games and pizza!

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Have you heard the news? I'm going to be at a table at Super Smash Con in northern VA and these keychains will be making their grand debut! Come look for me at my table with my buddy @laughingbear! Ask me about pizza and cartoons!

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hey i remember seeing your art and you at bits n pixels!! it was over a month ago but i was freaking out when i saw your splatoon print in the store hahahaha. i really enjoy your work, i love your cartoony art style!! i gotta stop by again soon :-}}}

Aw thank you! Fun fact, not only do I sell my art there but I also work at that store. Next time you're by there, stop and say hello, you just might catch me. (Ant day Steven Universe or Seinfeld is on the store tv I can guarantee that I am also there)Glad to hear you enjoyed my work and thank you so much for reaching out to me. I love hearing from my fans~

[cloakanddaggercomic]

Hey guys! It’s your pal, JC, here. Some of y’all might know me from some of previous comics like Spookydate and Sanpozeit, but I’m here today to present you with my latest comic project, Cloak & Dagger.

This is actually a book you can buy now as a real fleshen book on Amazon.com or digital on my Gumroad. For those of you who aren’t picking up the book, you can read it here on tumblr as I upload a page every Tuesday and Thursday (also on Tapastic if you’re into that sort of thing).

Cloak & Dagger is a fantasy comedy adventure I’ve spent most of the year putting together– it’s a tale of a young adventurer, Wren, as she tries to get a head start on her first ever real quest. Of course there’s tons of trials and mishaps along the way, but hey, that’s what an adventure is all about right?

Thanks for reading the comic and I hope y’all enjoy it.

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I’m going to start putting up pages from my newest comic, Cloak & Dagger on tumblr. Go read it there if you want, but don’t forget you can buy the whole book now either on amazon or digitally on gumroad!

Okay cool bye!

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My design for this year’s My Famicase gallery, held annually by Meteor Club! I kinda struggled with coming up with a design for this one and actually originally planned on doing something much much different than what I ultimately went with. Go check out this cart and the rest of the other awesome designs on the official website!

I’ve also included a couple of the rough sketches that ultimately became the final design. I definitely enjoy doing pencils more than putting the final product together, but it’s all fun in the end.

[zacgormania]

Hot Dogs

Most ideas aren’t that good. They’re not precious flowers sprung from divine inspiration, and unless you’re extremely lucky—or perhaps extremely unlucky—your life is probably not a rich, thrilling tale for the ages, an endless fount of inspiration from which to draw your stories.

If you’re anything like me, or the vast majority of other creators I know, your ideas are more like hot dogs. They’re made by taking a bunch of meaty bits from other things that you love and mashing them all up into a sort of paste which is squeezed through a tube to form what looks like an autonomous idea. A hot dog. How you dress that hot dog up, how you cook it and prepare it, that comes with practice—and undoubtedly some hot dogs are better than others, but let’s not kid ourselves—at the end of the day, most of us, save for the rare, once-in-a-generation geniuses, are making hot dogs.

Keep reading

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NEW BOOKS COMING TO TCAF AND BEYOND!

Hey guys! If y’all don’t already know, I’m going to be tabling at the Toronto Comics Art Festival on May 14 & 15 with SECRET SHOP! If you live in Toronto or you’re just making the trip up to Canada to see all the comic insanity (and try one of those new donut cones) stop by our table to grab my three new books plus a bunch of other rad new stuff from my other friends.

My three books will be debuting exclusively at the show and will be available for purchase when I return at both my online store and Velocity Comics in Richmond, VA.

The books available will be as follows--

CLOAK & DAGGER: A FANTASY ADVENTURE 86 PAGES, FULL COLOR $20 USD / $25 CAD

Wren is a young novice adventurer, ready to make a name for herself in the history books of fantasy legend! The only problem is... she has no idea where to even get started! Cloak & Dagger tells the tale of Wren’s first misadventure as she journeys deep into a mystical forest to find a mysterious fabled weapon. Along the way she encounters delinquent monsters, pompous rival adventurers, and turnips worth a solid investment. Along the way, Wren learns what it takes to make a true hero, and it might not be what all the stories always tell you it is.

SPOOKYDATE SUPERBOOK 14 PAGES, FULL COLOR $12 USD / $15 CAD

The first two chapters of the webcomic Spookydate have been collected in one convenient full color book! In the first story, a group of young friends make the discovery of a lifetime one fateful summer afternoon-- Mo, a real live ghost girl! And the good news is, she wants to be friends... much to the chagrin of Stacy who fears that everything they do this summer will now be just about Mo. In the second chapter, the gang goes on a journey to learn more about Mo’s origins, only to be caught in the middle of fast food development. The race is now on to see if a loophole can be found to circumvent the plans of a rich country chicken mogul.

SANPOZEIT 24 PAGES, B&W $10 USD / $12 CAD

The collected pages from my year long comic diary, Sanpozeit, originally published on an online blog. Explored in the comics are the many facets of my day to day life as well as my many thoughts, joys, fears, celebrations, and day to day observations through the lens of a cartoon avatar.

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So yeah! If you’re gonna be at TCAF, please say hi and consider picking up one of my books! I’ve been working hard on these all year and I’m ready to share my work with the world! Supplies will be limited so be sure to stop by my table and grab a book before they’re all gone!

[kcggggg]

Gunshow [as] ids

Last we saw, THIS IS FINE had reached the heavens and made everyone love again. Then Adult Swim wanted us to make more! Here are six of them they just uploaded to their youtube channel!

Keep reading

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These are fantastic.