February Wrap-up - and how not to record a Hangout video

Well, the second part of that title is easy. How not to record a Hangout video: Accidentally choose "Hangout" instead of "Hangout on Air." For some reason, I've found the Hangout apps notoriously difficult to navigate. I have some sort of strange block in that area. Anyhow, my apologies - I shared the link and we started well before I realized that I'd never clicked "On Air," (or go live, or whatever it's called) because it didn't exist.

So, here's a synopsis of what we discussed on the video, which is essentially a wrap-up of the month of February and a look forward to what's coming next.

• Gina Harwood Book Three

•  I know I've let slip the working title for this book, which is "Into Dreams," but while I'm 90% sure this will be the final title, I continue to mostly refer to it as GH3 for ease of reference. It's sitting at a hefty 425 pages at the moment with about 100 pages of rough story to get through, but have no fear. I will be making my best efforts to edit it down as far as I possibly can - I know it will be larger than the previous two, but I'm hoping to distill it down to around 400 pages for the final. February saw a massive jump on the page total, though our house was down with the plague for two weeks, so the first draft should be finished up around mid-March.
• I'm not yet to the point where I feel comfortable providing a solid release date, but my estimation looking at the current state is late April to early May for the first proofs. I'll be releasing it to my beta readers for feedback following the first major edit, which I'm hoping to have complete by the end of March.

• GoCache News

• Will has written up a 6 card expansion that will be released at GeoWoodstock. We're super excited about this and will make it available to our online customers briefly, but it will be a limited release that won't be reprinted after this year's GW, so watch for it and be ready to place your order! In addition, we're expecting to have a special bonus card for those of you at GeoWoodstock that will be a giveaway with purchase, so if you've been on the fence about attending the largest geocaching festival in the world, get off the fence! It's going to be an awesome weekend!
• In addition, one of my art goals for 2015 was to do some model shoots for painting reference, which dovetailed nicely with my goal to have four geocaching pinup paintings ready by GeoWoodstock. I'm ecstatic to say that I had my first shoot yesterday with a lovely 19-year-old woman named Kylee - she was inexperienced, but patient and had a great feel for her angles and limbs, so a lot of the shots turned out really well. The camera loved her and so did I, and I'd love to work with her again in the future. I'm excited to get started on those pinups soon!

• Other Assorted News

• Convention season starts in earnest in March, and we're busily getting prepared for this year's shows. Besides the table placement having to be rethought to showcase GoCache and our new comics (news on that in a moment), I'm also working on completing several new fan art prints for our returning convention customers. Already completed are "Four" (Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor), and "Xena, Warrior Princess" (which is self-explanatory). I'm likely to complete "Seven" (Sylvester McCoy as the seventh Doctor) this week, and I believe I have Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones (played by the fabulous Peter Dinklage) slated next.
• We're changing the format of our existing comics slightly, and will be releasing a 2015 anthology comic that will collect several of our stories together and present them alongside new material. This is best for everyone - not only will you be able to follow all of our in-house stories in one place (our licensed titles will continue to be their own separate books), but it gives us a centralized product to include things like standalone art and short stories with our comics. We both are excited about this change and think it'll allow us to focus on putting out the highest quality stories. 

That's it! You're caught up! Thank you for following us, and please check out our Patreon page - I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank each of our patrons for their support. Having the Patreon has actually really lit a fire under me to multitask better - we started the Patreon just as my professional focus necessarily shifted to writing, but usually my art suffers from a few months to a half-year of inactivity when that happens, and I really wanted to avoid that by maintaining less-deadline-y art projects in my "afterhours" time. Having the patron-stream is a lovely reminder, and hearing feedback on my works in progress or what the patrons would like to see more of is really nice and keeps me feeling more connected to those who are viewing our works. So, thank you - you're not just giving us a few bucks a month, you're also keeping me creatively on fire. :)

Join us! www.patreon.com/tortoiseharecreations 

Morel - Chapter One: Sacrifice, Page 3

I had to channel back a few years to when I attended a few douchey bro parties, but I remember hearing someone say, "Bitches love vodka!" It also apparently is a popular hashtag on Instagram.

We also came up with our own brand of vodka for the "Morelverse", Spudnik! Someone needs to make this vodka! -Will

New Speedpaint Video - Xena, Part Three

Part Three of my Xena speedpaint series - this covers all of the armor. Elapsed time is about 3.5 hours (video is 13 minutes).

New SpeedPaint Video - Xena, Part Two

Part Two of my Xena, Warrior Princess speedpainting video is now up on YouTube - it covers about another two hours of painting in 7 minutes.

Thanks for watching guys!

New SpeedPaint Video - Xena, Part One

Hey everyone, a few things...

For my next speedpaint video, I'm approaching it from a different angle. Portraits take me a long time - many, many, many hours. Usually if I convince my computer to record my screen, I have to speed up the video by 20x or even more. At that point people can't even really see what I'm doing - so it loses any use that it might have had to anyone curious to understand my process.

So! What I'm doing for my next speedpaint, Xena the Warrior Princess, is splitting it into parts. I'm recording whenever I paint, but I'm not stitching the videos together, I'm just speeding them up 8x and releasing whatever snippit I managed to get done. Please, let me know which way you all prefer and I'll certainly take that to heart.

I <3 Lucy Lawless. I grew up pretending I was Xena, and I loved her in BSG. I'm actually a bit surprised it's taken me so long to get to her. Will I eventually do a Gabrielle? Yeah, probably, even if it's just for me. :)

Without further adieu, here is Part One of Xena, the Warrior Princess. I hope you enjoy!

ALSO! I've designed a set of 12 Valentine's Day cards as a giant thank you to our Patrons for our first month on Patreon. You can get in on this too! Support our creations on Patreon (for as little as ONE dollar a month!) and get access to the full set, as well as all of our works in progress, high resolution files and downloads, and ALL KINDS of awesome things. Please pledge and help spread the word!

Also, Patrons, we've posted the Director's Cut for Morel page 3 on the stream as well, check it out!

Plus, for all you collector types out there, our patron-stream is the ONLY way you can get all 12 of the cards. Can you forgive yourself if you let such a fantastic bargain pass you by??

Morel - Chapter One: Sacrifice, Page 2

Page 2 of our monthly comic strip. Just starting to feel the characters out here. I was really happy with the way some of the characters' expressions turned out in this one. See you all next month! - William

"Four" - Complete

First print of the new year, guys! Super happy with him.

11x17s currently available at our Store.

Also, our Valentine's Sale is now active, with plenty of time for shipping in time for the holiday. Use code LOVELOVELOVE at our Store to receive 25% off any order, no minimum. Yay!