Illo Journal Project

Posted on January 5, 2021January 5, 2021 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Grotesque Moi! #25 – Planning for 2021

I hope everyone has had a great holiday and a Happy New Year celebration! I’m really hoping that everyone has a successful year in whatever you do!

Plans for Grotesque Moi! are as follows:

Illustrations – The goal is to produce 6 to 12 new portraits this year. some may be in the form of scene illustrations combining multiple creatures.
Illustration Canvas Print Frames – I plan to continue creating customized frames for each of my illustrations.
Red Bubble Catch Up – Setting a deadline for updating each newly finished and released portrait or illustration.
Expansion – Develop illustrations on a splinter line that are quicker to create and potentially making a separate set of pricing tiers that fits with these quicker illustrations.
Plan for phase II and III of Grotesque Moi! – More on these after the above has been integrated.
Grotesque Moi!’s Patreon Page – Add more sketches and line drawings to Grortesque Moi!’s Patreon page..

Plans for Terrene and Ba’anta

Now that Terrene and Ba’anta have been hinted at in the lore of the Grotesque Moi! creatures, it’s time to start the story debuting this world on Patreon!

It’s time to share the first posted sketches that was in my early blog posts here to Patreon.
All future sketches will debut on Patreon first.
Publish the updated labeled geographical map of Ba’anta on Patreon.
Create a large (maybe 48”x36”) illustration of the lands of Terrene.

There’s a lot of things planned out here! I will have to create a calendar to keep things on track!

Indicates Grotesque Moi! Exclusives And White Tier Merchandise!

Posted on June 1, 2020 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Grotesque Moi!: Other Projects 1

I’ve kept this quiet for as long as I can! I’ve begun working on some side projects for Grotesque Moi!. As I get image(s) and info for the new stuff I’m creating. I will post updates as I have something worth posting.

This is a rough sketch for a possible comic I’ll be creating. It will be part of one f the character’s back story.

Posted on November 28, 2019 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Updates #1

I thought that I would share some updates with you! I’ve been more quite lately and I can finally tell everyone what I’ve been up to. Most importantly for the last few weeks I’ve been designing and hand crafting anniversary cards for my wife and daughter. (Yes! Our daughter has participated in every anniversary since she was born!) photos and videos of the cards to follow in a different post.

Grotesque Moi!

Illustration number seven is still in process. I plan to continue it to completion. There are another six illustrations lined up to make the first set of thirteen.
- I had to rework parts of the background and struggled a bit with the main figure.
- It’s still on the schedule for completion.
Commissions are still open for Fantasy Creature/Monster Portraits!
Future Plans:
- A calendar of the first thirteen creatures is to be designed and offered either in the XT Illos Store or through an on demand print site.
- Three more waves of thirteen creatures to be created.
- A new calendar is to be created at the end of each set of thirteen creatures.
- Eventually there will be four calendar options.
- Fifty two creatures to be combined in a card set to be offered on a crowd funding site.

XT Illos

Grotesque Moi! to continue production.
Ba’anta world building development to pick back up.
- Some of the creatures developed in the Grotesque Moi! project will be representative of the races in Ba’anta.
Visual novel with Creative Idiot E to begin development.
Patreon promotions to be ramped up.
- Exclusive content from Grotesque Moi! is already available.
- Free original content reference videos are already available.
Art Markets/Cons Vending results year one.
- Art markets have had very little flow of people attuned to my style of work and no revenue for my illustrations.
- Cons have had a good flow of people interested in my work and the revenue was barely better than the art markets.
- Increase con vending over the next year and try bigger cons.
Overall production to slow down.
- Revenue is currently to low to support projects.
- Part time schedule to resume to allow hours for non-art work.
- look for more art revenue options for current XT Illos lines.
Test other optional lines.
- Special occasion cards test market.
- Offer special occasion cards in XT Illos Store.
- Grotesque Moi! stickers test.
Video Production
- Twenty minutes or less videos to start production on this site and Patreon.
  - Process Videos
  - DemoVideos
  - Promotional Videos

Posted on August 6, 2019 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Grotesque Moi! Update #19

To catch everybody up, we’ve been getting things together to start doing indoor and outdoor events. We attended our first artist’s market a couple of weeks ago. This was at Argosy Market:

Today we were able to show some of our work at The Bubble Hut. It’s on display until Friday afternoon! If you’re in the area please stop by and get a refreshing bubble tea, check out our display and maybe order som prints or your very own commission!

Posted on June 14, 2019 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Grotesque Moi!: #17 Update

I believe it’s time to give this guy the full illustration he deserves! June is the perfect month for him! More to come once I have a good line drawing…….

Posted on June 13, 2019July 16, 2019 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Grotesque Moi! #16 Project Update Sal-Broga, Anuran

Meet Sal-Broga! He is an acolyte of the Anuran race. they are a mix of green frog amphibians and humanoids. They live in close communities and have a strong familial bond in their culture. Anurans value societal structures, knowledge and nature. To show the importance of family and nature they use the symbol of the tadpole in their important buildings and equipment. Its to remind them of their simple start in life.

Posted on February 10, 2019 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Grotesque Moi! #7 Project Update

Hi, Grotesque Moi! fans! For the second February update here’s a couple of sneak peeks from the next creature illustration commission WIP. It’s coming along well and should be finished soon. What do you think this one might be?

Posted on June 30, 2018 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Sketching An Imp Head On IPad Pro

I guess since I draw and have for most of my life usually with a No.2 pencil (or a 4H most of the time) and scraps of paper, I have to try the drawing tools more. So on this IPad Pro I used the Sketching tool with an HB pencil option. It works a lot like a real pencil. The line quality is good. Scribbling, hatching, general basic shading works pretty well. Once I started blending, though, everything turned out more like paint and not so much a drawing. Still I like the results of this piece.

I originally Left my working lines on the right side so that anyone interested in how I created this image, could see how I designed this piece. It’s another in the latest project I’m developing. This is the Imp. A vicious little tormentor that loves to pull evil pranks on the unsuspecting travelers.

Posted on March 18, 2018 by XT Illos — 2 Comments

Practice Work 1

I’m working on the mushrooms for “Relative Perspective”. Each time I try to do them I’m finding they don’t match the realism level the rest of the piece already has.

I decided to find photo examples to study.

I think I finally understand their intricacies now. What do you think?

Posted on January 14, 2018 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

What’s Been Happening?

Hi everybody!

I thought I would ask you what’s happening in your world. Aside from the recent holidays, what events are influencing you? Is there great positive things going on? Maybe it’s not so positive. It’s ok, you’re welcome to share that, too.

Many of my friends are gearing up for this year’s convention circuit. Either submitting work, getting notifications of their submissions or preparing for an upcoming convention.

Some of my friends are dealing with tough life events. Physical or emotional pain has entered their lives. Stress in dealing with these situations, trying to erode their peace of mind.

For myself, it’s a mixed bag. For the negative side, problems from a old injury have come back on me. Sometimes there’s pain for days, even weeks. My real world paying job is affected because of this. I’m stressing over where my future is going. What about my family? How will I continue to be able to support them? Will I return to having constant pain? How much this is triggering my blood pressure and depression. A lot of heavy things.

On the positive side I’ve celebrated 20 years of happily married life with my wife! Both her and our daughter are my whole world! I’ll be turning 54 soon. I’m reworking a piece of fantasy art that was started as a pencil sketch in ’96. I’ve posted progress photos of it before here, “Relative Perspective”. I’ll post updates of it later.

Here are some photos from before: