Everybody’s working for the …. well, I work weekends, too

Summer has finally given way to a chilly, cloudy, glorious autumn, easily my favorite of the four seasons (no offense to Frankie Valli). Skies are gray, air is crisp, pumpkin pie is pending, and my birthday is just around the corner. Life is good.

It’s been busy around these parts these days. I’ve been working on a lot of illustrations, a small sampling of which you can see below.

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This is a recent batch of commissions I’ve done, including a request I did for my son Caleb for his birthday: a drawing of him as a Portal test subject. The center one is a wedding present someone commissioned that I thought turned out pretty well. And a “Choose Your Adventure” gaming print that I’m hoping my brother likes (he doesn’t know it’s coming – don’t tell him!)

I’ve also got a handful of Christmas commissions to work on, including new pieces for our company’s annual charity auction that I need to get completed very soon. But in the meantime, I’ve been working on another sort of creative project.

A couple of weeks ago, I was hunting around the Google Play store for a nice-looking pixelated Android icon pack. Out of the dozens of icon packs available on the store, I couldn’t find one that was the right style, and it occurred to me that I had at my disposal the tools to create just such a pack myself.

Introducing the (as yet incomplete) 24bit Pixel Icon Pack. There will actually be TWO packs, one that has two square icons for each app that are slightly different in style/shading, and another that has two icons with rounded corners for each app, each, once again, slightly different in style. The plan is to get the pack up to approximately 150 icons before releasing it into the wild. I’m at around 30 at the moment. Miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep.

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So, that’s what I’ve been working on recently. Art, icons, reading, gaming, family. Such is life. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

All Quiet on the Western Front…

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve had a blog post up. But I have a very good excuse! It hasn’t been the general sorts of things, like laziness, or forgetfulness, or just plain sick of blogging. No, in April we discovered that we had to move out of the nice home we had been renting in Windsor Heights (a suburb of Des Moines). That meant a mad dash at the last second for new digs for our family of five, and an exhausting move and resettling in our new place in Ankeny (also a suburb of Des Moines, just further north).

After a period of unpacking, I finally got my art table set back up and got back to drawing again. I had a handful of commissioned works to get through first, but eventually I got back to drawing pieces that I could add to a store. Since all of my purchasable items on Etsy had expired, I thought I would try my hand at selling things through Society6. So I setup a Society6 page for myself, and immediately began listing items that I had recently drawn.

Items up at the very moment include these fine specimens:

And more will surely be added in the coming days.

I’m also starting to get more requests for end-of-year commissions, so while I have some time and openings for commission projects at the moment, my calendar is quickly filling up. So if you think you might be interested in acquiring a one-of-a-kind piece of art from me for your friends or family this holiday season, please visit my commissions page, take a look around, and contact me with an awesome idea for a project you want me to undertake.

So, to sum up: sorry I’ve been gone so long, I’ll be back more frequently to blog about excellent things, but in the meantime, check out what I’ve got posted for sale, and get in touch with me for commissions.

Oh, and thanks for being a friend!

2013 Hugo Nominations announced

Between family, drawing, and my crippling addiction to video games, I leave myself very little time for the simple pleasures of reading. I used to read pretty much any and all scifi and fantasy that was published, but these days I can barely manage to stay ahead of Hugo and Nebula nominations, and catching the eventual film adaptations of anything else I may have missed. Such is life.

This year, I’m a bit despondent on the Hugo nominations. I’ve already read (and quite enjoyed) a signed ARC of Redshirts, courtesy of this contest right here, so I’m already a full 100% ahead of where I usually am in reading Hugo-nominated works every year. I’ve no interest in the Vorkosigan series, though I’ve been told it’s quality stuff. And I’ve also no interest in Arabic fantasy (no offense to my middle eastern friends, of course) it’s simply not a setting I’m connected to in any meaningful way. So, Throne of the Crescent Moon is not likely to make my reading list.

So I’ve added Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2312 to my “to-read” list, alongside Mira Grant’s third Newsflesh novel, Blackout (which was already on my list, because Feed was awesome). And yet with even those meager additions, my list grows ever larger, and my time ever shorter.

Maybe someday I’ll stop killing zombies in video games and read about other people killing zombies in the novels I need to read.

From 2012 to 2013

Yeah, I’m doing that whole looking back at the year behind us, and looking forward to the year ahead sort of thing today. Bear with me, I haven’t written a blog post in several months. I’m a bit rusty.

All in all, 2012 was a pretty good year for us. It was the year my father fought and beat cancer a second time. It was the year we were finally able to move our family out of our tiny house in our beloved small rural town, and into a bigger place in a Des Moines suburb. It was the year I got to work on some top priority projects at my day job, got to do some more international travel, and worked very hard on my assignments. It was the year I decided to finally focus on my art and try to not only continue to increase my skill, but also attempt to turn it into a functional side business. We may have run into money problems a couple of times during the year, but we always managed to dig our way out, through persistence, sacrifice, and help from our friends and family. Our kids are healthy, happy, growing, and learning (still at home!), and our family is strong and successful in all the ways that matter.

And from the looks of it, 2013 will likely turn out to be more of the same. I plan to focus even harder on improving my art and accelerating my business, and I’ve added new tools over the past couple of weeks that will help me do that. I’ve got some great projects in the works for next year, and I’m looking forward on completing some tasks and moving on to new challenges. Our family will continue to be focused on love and commitment, and we look forward to seeing spring at the new place.

The past year is one where I feel like many of our family’s hopes and dreams that we had been struggling for years to accomplish were finally fulfilled. It was a fight to get here, but it was one that was worth fighting, and one that we ultimately won. I have a feeling 2013 will have new struggles of its own, but will again be rewarding in all the ways we want it to be, with maybe a few surprises here and there.

So, here’s to an excellent 2013. May you shine as bright as I like to imagine you will.

What I’ve been up to: ART!

Okay, so it’s been roughly a month since my site redesign, and I only just today remembered that I had a blog. I had planned on only posting about once a month anyway, so consider it a WIN that I’m getting to it before the end of September.

But that’s okay, honestly, because I’ve been extraordinarily busy with what I can only describe as a passion for my true calling: drawing. Over the past month, I’ve been drawing regularly, setting aside two to four hours every evening (weeknights) or day (weekends) for various artistic pursuits. I’ve setup a Facebook page upon which to post my artwork, as well as a Deviantart page, and an (empty) Etsy site. All in preparation for my attempt to turn my love of drawing into a living, breathing, potentially even profitable, side business.

You can use any of the links above to check out the work I’ve been doing. I’m quite proud of what I’ve accomplished, but the best motivator is seeing that with each new drawing I produce, I’m slowly getting better at my craft.

At the moment I’m in the process of selecting a printer (company, not device) to use to generate professional prints of my art that I can sell through my Etsy store. Once that’s ready, I’ll just be focusing on drawing, drawing, and more drawing to add even more content to the store for people to purchase.

Excited? I am! I never pictured myself doing something like this, but I’m incredibly grateful that I’m able to follow such a dream, and not only do the people around me not laugh at my silly ideas, but actually encourage me to be successful.

Onward and upward.

Welcome to the new NathanielPayne.com!

I’ve revamped the website once again. I was growing tired of the old site that was plagued with numerous PHP errors and content positioning problems. This time I’ve tried to put together something cleaner, better organized, and not nearly as cluttered. I really like the new look, and I hope it’s something that sticks around for a while. Plus, this new design is iPad-friendly!

In addition, along with a fresh, clean coat of paint, I’ve established a self-hosted WordPress blog (no more Tumblr!), and I’m also in the process of assembling a self-hosted image gallery for my growing portfolio of artwork.

So, take a look around, kick the tires on the new site, and let me know if anything appears to be broken or missing.

And welcome!

wilwheaton:

fishingboatproceeds:

robofillet:

effyeahnerdfighters:

colfr:

Jennifer Pinches – the Nerdfighter gang sign on the Women’s gymnastics team final in the Olympics

Woo hoo! You can follow Jenni on twitter here. Best of luck to her and the Great Britain team!

DUDE.

Go Pinches!

I WILL REBLOG THIS FROM ALL THE PLACES.

Amazing. Just amazing.

Okay, I have to admit, that’s pretty freaking awesome.

seenontabletop:

Seen here is only half of the group we entertained at our home Friday night at the inaugural hosting of our new monthly game night! We had more than a dozen crazy awesome friends over and had a couple of different tables playing Settlers of Catan, followed by some Zombie Dice and Dominion (a fantastic game which absolutely needs to be covered by TableTop sometime!)

Future game nights will feature Small World, Munchkin, and probably a lot more Dominion. Many, many thanks to TableTop for inspiring us to open up our home to friends and great games!

Hey, my submission hit “Seen On Tabletop”! This is some of the friends we had over to our house last Friday night for our monthly game night. It was a wonderful time, and we can’t wait to do it again! And again! And again!