Besides ramping up development on the next Doctor Baer book, I’m also ramping up experimentation and creation of new in-world Doctor Baer ceramic objects. This time I’m playing around with developing some kind of charm or amulet of the fire skeletons.
Fire skeletons are creatures you’ll meet in The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue (click the link to see some sample pages and even order the book!). These ghostly dog skeletons blaze with a cheerful fire, but change into something dangerous after a calamity occurs in Doctor Baer’s home.
My first step was to design the stamps for the clay. I created some vector files in Affinity Designer which I exported as SVGs. Once imported into Blender I extruded the shapes into 3D objects and took them into Tinkercad to be turned into stamp models for printing on my Flashforge 4.
I tried a couple of different approaches. Some with a positive stamp, some with a negative stamp, some a combination of both.
After bisque firing, I glazed them with Speedball Mid-Fire Blackened Copper. The samples I saw showed a sparkly, ember-like color, which I thought would be perfect for an amulet for a fire spirit.
Here they are after glaze firing. I was hoping for something a little brighter, though I can’t deny that the shimmer on these is pretty.
I’ll be bringing a batch of these, and my other Doctor Baer talismans, to ALA Annual this summer. If you stop by the Iron Circus Booth (2534D), I’ll be glad to give you one! I’m also signing advance reader copies of The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue, and I’m drawing everyone custom cursed objects. Find out more here.
As the school year came to a close, and my full-time residencies ended, I excitedly began ramping up development for the next Doctor Baer story.
Here’s our monk leading us to the abbey (formerly a church) hiding a dangerous secret.
I’m continuing to look for ways to streamline the drawing process, and leaning on 3d models seems to be the way to go. Here’s the model of the abbey:
I didn’t build this one, though. I hired a Blender artist to create it and the entire town where the story takes place:
This low-polygon representation won’t be useful for making an animation or video game, but it’s exactly what I need to streamline the process of drawing various scenes in Clip Studio Paint.
I’ll say more about the influences behind the locations as I make more development drawings.
Indiana Jones grew much larger than its creator. How do you think you’d feel about being an artist and about Dr. Baer if it found great success and the Dr. Baer intellectual property grew beyond your control of it?
While I like to think I’d be able to let it go and see it turned into derivative works, I know I haven’t always felt this way. So I take a survey of my WHY over the last 30 years.
May 31st marked the end of my first year where I led in-school comics residencies full-time. I’ve been a teaching artist since 2007, but it’s never been more than a part-time gig until the 2023-24 school year. It’s been a rich, meaningful challenge, but this introvert is ready to spend some time in the studio quietly making art for a bit.
On my last visits, some of the students gave me art as a thank you/farewell present, and I feel seen:
You don’t have to spend a year with me to find out how much I love Orko. The fact that a teenager, the natural enemy of all things sweet and sincere, spent the time to make this for me was touching.
And another student celebrated my odd convergence of interests by drawing the Bleacher Creature, a Gill-man plushie I take to every Columbus Clippers baseball game:
My thanks to all of the teachers and schools who invited me into their spaces to work with their students, and to the Ohio Arts Council, whose TeachArtsOhio grants make my residencies possible.
I’m also going to be drawing custom cursed objects for anyone who stops by:
And you’ll be able to get some of the first Doctor Baer talismans! These ceramic objects are in-world artifacts you’d find if you visited Doctor Baer’s spooky home.
Earlier this month I had the privilege of being the visiting artist at the Ashland High School Art Show. Instead of leading some formal presentation, I invited some of their art students to play along in the Super Comics Challenge game show, which reveals the principles and process of art-making through gameful Taskmaster-like challenges.
It was one of those marvelous experiences that felt perfectly aligned with how I like to show up as a teaching artist. I’m grateful to Ashland High School staff and students, and the Ohio Arts Council for making this experience possible.
I just got the advance reader copy of The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue!
It’s hard to articulate the emotions I felt holding this artifact of two years’ worth of effort in my hands.
Which got me thinking about this Thought/Question/Wondering from the Doctor Baer AMA:
Do you ever feel the tension between protecting time to work on your book against time that friends and family want you to spend with them? What does that look like, and how on earth do we find the best balance in this (that’ll bring the least amount of guilt, ha!) ?
So I take some time to explore the tensions between us and the world when we set out to make art.
Gerry D of the Totally Rad Christmas podcast was kind enough to have me on to share a bit about my upcoming middle-grade graphic novel, The Inscrutable Doctor Baer and the Case of the Two-Faced Statue. We talk about the 80s cartoons that inspired bits of the book, some of my takeaways and experiences making it, and (given the general topic of the podcast), share some of our most impactful Christmas memories.
This is my first public interview about the book, so outside of my Patreon, this is the biggest sneak peek available yet!
