Fear Not the Dead, Pool Your Thoughts to Love Instead

Welcome back to our occasional, and not-generally-scheduled update of what's going on around the THC studios!

• Valentine's Day Sale! You have until 2/14 to get 25% off anything in the Etsy store! Click HERE to shop, use code LOVE16 when checking out - no minimum purchase! 
  
• FREE VALENTINE'S DAY CARDS! Last year, I did a fun Valentine's Day bonus for our Patrons (Join us! Get cool stuff!), and this year, I've chosen the best of them and created a free, downloadable, printable sheet of Valentine's Day cards. While you're there, consider becoming a supporter for as little as $1 a month, it makes a huge difference, and you can show your support and reap the benefits! Click HERE to get the full-size version. 
  
• Will's superheroine comic, Morel, has officially launched its own webpage - www.morelcomic.com - check it out! 
  
• Commissions have been flowing in! Check out Indi's Commission Page to get on the list! Watercolor commissions have been hot, get signed up for a truly one-of-a-kind, frameable artpiece to call your own. (Pictured here: a camera-phone pic of the 18x24 "Sylph" cover art, from the upcoming Sylph video game.) 
  
• 2016 Tour Poster! We've got most of our shows lined up for 2016, so take a peek and see when we'll be in your neck of the woods! 
  

2015: By the Numbers

Welcome back to THC's occasional update of what's going on around the studios. It's December, and we're fast coming up on another click of Earth's odometer, so I thought I'd take a moment for retrospection before we slide into 2016.

2015 was a hell of a year. Let's do this by the numbers:

17: Number of conventions THC attended this year as artists/vendors. That's pretty far down from 2014's 38 - we'll be finding a happy medium between those two numbers for next year, I'm sure!

321: Number of posts on our Patreon page. MOST of those posts are patron-only exclusives, like works-in-progress pictures, full .psd files, high-res, watermark-free files, sneak-peeks, and Patron-exclusive stock art. We launched the Patreon officially on 1/15 of this year, and it's been a wild ride already!

63: Number of watercolors completed this year (that I have scans of - there were probably at least that amount that got discarded). Here's a collage of some of my favorites:

426: Number of pages in the final release of Into Dreams: A Gina Harwood novel, which was released on June 11, 2015. 

74: Number of commissioned paintings or drawings completed this year (not counting a few at conventions). Again with the collage, though this will probably be the last one, as they're surprisingly time-consuming. 

8: Stock Art pieces released to the Patrons after introducing the concept late 3rd Quarter. 

7: New Fan Art prints in the entirety of 2015 - Crowley, Charlie Bradbury, Arya Stark, Xena, Tyrion Lannister, Seven and Four. I've got one underway and I'm looking to expand this number a bit in 2016 - I wanted to cut back, not cut out fan art altogether! 

3: Other Milestones I couldn't figure out a way to fit into the "Numbers" theme. In addition to all of this, we also created and released Shroud of the Avatar: New Beginnings - our first (but not last) foray into officially licensed comics. We also created and released the Geocaching Pinup set and the MD Expansion of GoCache to commemorate GeoWoodstock XIII, held ten miles from where we live. :) 

2015 was the 4th year since Tortoise & Hare Creations took its first shaky breath, but it's been - by far - the busiest. THANK YOU for being here with us, and I hope you're just as excited as we are to see what Year 5 brings to THC!

Stars are Exploding, and Rainbows are Everywhere

What a fabulous time! Massive leaps forward in equality, and FIREWORKS! - really, I can think of no two things I love more. Welcome to the THC Update for June/July!

• Watercolors!
• I've been doing a lot of watercolor lately, both because I've been dying to get back to it, and in preparation for a November gallery show in Hagerstown! (And because I can shotgun Supernatural while I'm painting ;)) Prints are not yet available, but I'll post as soon as they are!

  

  Check out Indi's Deviant Art for more: indigowarrior.deviantart.com

• Also, we're working on improving our method of making watercolor glazes with naturally collected pigments, and have made a quick How-To video on the process. 
• Also, I've begun fulfilling some commissions in watercolors, so if you have an idea for one you'd like, check out my rates here: http://indigowarrior.deviantart.com/journal/ 
  
• Morel! Normally Morel gets it's own monthly entry, but this month, it get's included in the BIG update. Inclusiveness. :) Check out either the posts tagged "Morel" or Tortoise & Hare Creations' Instagram/Tumblr or Twitter pages to catch up on the story!
  
• Into Dreams! The first reviews are coming in, and they've been overwhelmingly positive. Be the first on your block to get into the series, and get well ahead of the curve! 

  

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Z214KXK?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

• Patreon! The second quarter's rewards just got sent out, and there were some GOOD ones, including the last proof of Into Dreams, signed over to winner Eric H.! There are nearly 200 entries in the patron feed - most are patron-exclusive. We have some exceptional plans for our patrons in the coming quarters, and you will not want to be on the outside looking in - JOIN TODAY! 

  

  https://www.patreon.com/tortoiseharecreations?ty=h

Upcoming Appearances!

If you're in Pennsylvania, make your way out to State College, PA next Saturday, July 11, for BookFest! We'll be there with bells on, and a stack of novels (as well as comics, and art!)

Morel - Chapter One: Sacrifice, Page 6

Here's this month's Morel comic, marking Mushroom Month! Follow W.O. Billman II for all the details on Instagram or Twitter!

Spring has Sprung!

It's April, and we at THC are ecstatic to finally be able to venture back outside without fifty layers on. And this bright light in the sky - what is that? It's so warm!

Other than today, of course, because it decided to rain.

Here's a few bits and pieces we're working on currently!

• New Print! Tyrion Lannister, available in 11x17 at our Etsy store
• New Dark Unknown Bestiary piece! Giant Spider
• All of the GoCache expansion cards for GeoWoodstock are DONE! We'll share one or two as GW inches closer, but you can check out a preview of one of them at our patron feed: www.patreon.com/tortoiseharecreations (must be a patron to view)
• May is MUSHROOM MONTH! Join us as we share a bunch of Morel-related items for the best gathering month of the year. 
• Into Dreams, the third Gina Harwood novel is in the hands of the beta-readers, and following a final editing pass, will be finished. I'll have a release date for you in the next update, I think!

We have several more convention appearances on the horizon as well, come out and say hello if you're in the area!

• 4/10-4/12: Steel City Con, Monroeville, PA
• 4/17-4/19: 1d4Con, Martinsburg, WV
• 4/25: Creator Con, Silver Spring, MD
• 5/15-5/17: Sci-Fi in the Valley, Altoona, PA

Morel - Chapter One: Sacrifice, Page 5

April's comic. In May, I will be doing "Mushroom Month" over on my Instagram page @w.billman. I'll be posting pictures each day from my mushroom-hunting trip in April, along with tips, recipes for dinners, and some artwork to boot. -Will

Morel - Chapter One: Sacrifice, Page 4

This one is pretty self explanatory. One thing you may (or may not) have noticed is that Donna uses a different font then the other characters. When she was little she had a bad speech impediment, this was fixed through therapy but it tends to give her a slight accent. I will probably touch on this sometime down the road, but for now its a good piece of trivia for you.

-William

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

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

Morel - Chapter One: Sacrifice, Page 1

And with this, the story begins. You may see some differences between this page and the prologue. Morel is designed as a newspaper-style comic developed with Instagram in mind. I have a feeling Chapter One will continue to be a learning experience. - William

Introducing Morel - The New Superheroine Comic written by W. O. Billman II

Morel:

The story of a young twenty-something woman coming to terms with her homosexuality and newly acquired super, but strange, powers. She loses her best friend and first love, which drastically changes her life in more ways than she or anyone could ever have imagined.