I feel like this month is going to bring a lot of changes to the work I’m doing with Starcrossed and in webcomics in general. I have been watching, to great success, the efforts of other artists implementing personal creative projects, yet not losing sight of the goal of anyone who loves comics and cartoons as much as we do – to make a living from it.

As with any new project, finding the time and motivation can be challenging. Especially when you’re self employed. The economical approach is to utilize something you’re doing anyway. Not every day, but most days before I sit down to work on an illustration for a client, I do a warm up sketch. It’s usually just a digital doodle of nothing in particular. The odd time it turns into something more, like this drawing of a puking dragon recently featured on TheSponge.ca.

Why not focus and use that time a bit more constructively? You never know where it’s going to end up. That drawing is three years old.

Another accessible solution to the problem is to work with someone. So, starting next week I am going to be teaming up with a good friend of mine, Paton Francis over at cardboardtreehouse.com. Rather than just tossing our one off warm up drawings to the wind, we are going to chose a theme – or a series of themes – and post our warm up drawings on our respective blogs. Right now we’re looking at posting once a week, probably on Thursday or Friday. We know we’re not inventing the wheel here, but the spirit is to be fun and free and creative without having to worry about what to draw. Part of the fun of course will be seeing what the other has come up with.

For my part I certainly intend to offer the original drawings up for sale. Prints as well if there is a demand. Obviously there are still some details to work out but I’m excited about the project, if for nothing else, the chance to get to work with Paton a bit more.