What’s Been Happening?

Posted on April 2, 2020 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

New Things for the New Year: Part 3

Posting here first before it goes up on other social media! This is a new video ad that I made for my work for Grotesque Moi!. Everything (including the music) was created by me! If you like my work and want to own a part of it, there are different levels of prints and commissions available here on my website shop. Patreon is another option where you can support at any tier.

As a reminder, please support your favorite artist. It’s easy to assume that they’re ok especially if they’re producing work. Many are struggling because they are not able to make their normal income from conventions and art markets because of the world situation with COVID19. Financial support is best of course but you can help in other ways. Likes, comments and sharing helps bring their work to so many others.

Thank you for being there to help us through a difficult time!

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 September 15, 2019September 15, 2019 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Site Update! #1

Hi everyone!

I wanted to give you an update on things. First of all I have been busy putting things together to show my work in artist’s markets and planning to do some small (and possibly some large) conventions through this year and next! My daughter has joined me with her work this year and we’ve been showing together! I’m really enjoying having her share something that is so much a part of me! I’m looking forward to having her with me next year, as well! I’ve got my blog page back on my site and added Mailchimp for email signups and campaign notifications for everyone That’s signed up,

To set up for the artist’s markets and cons I’ve been making our:

Table runners
Banners
Signage
Adding mounts to table cloths/ banners/table runners/backdrop
Creating banner extensions for the back drop
Making the backdrop’s length adjustable for height restrictions
Making the backdrop banner’s length adjustable for width restrictions
Designs token coins to use at shows
Creating picture frames for the first three Grotesque Moi! illustrations (still working on this one, maybe 1/3 of the way there)
Designing a couple of table displays for prints

(Here’s some pix of our artist’s market setup!)

I will post more about the things I’ve been working on individually in future posts.

I hope you’ve had a great summer and are ready for the holidays!

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 July 3, 2019 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Grotesque Moi! #18 Update

Hi everyone! I stopping by to give you an update on Grotesque Moi!. I’ve been adjusting the first five illustrations (illos) so that they print more accurately. After having some standard prints and canvas prints ran I’ve had to make some adjustments to my computer and IPad so that the new creations should print right with minimal adjustments. Please enjoy the new and improved images!

Posted on September 25, 2018 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Family

I felt an update has been long overdue. I’ll start with this. It’s been a few weeks since my mom passed. Earlier that week I found out that my dad has cancer in his lungs and lymph nodes. Smoking cigars is what brought this on. He started his first of 3 rounds of chemo and radiation last week.They had been divorced for more years than they were married. My dad had remarried. My mom didn’t.

I credit Edgar Rice Burroughs for instigating my desire to create fantasy art. Long before this my dad introduced me to his hero’s. The stories about Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Hop Along Cassidy, Lash LaRue and the Lone Ranger are his favorites. We would watch the reruns on tv. We would catch Star Trek, Superman, Batman, the Green Hornet, the 6 Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman. Favorite Saturday morning cartoons were Hercules, the Roadrunner, Speed Racer and Astro Boy. My brothers and I learned to love these great stories.

I get creativity from both sides of my family but the stories of the fantastic come from my dad. His side also gives me musical abilities which my daughter gets to explore in college and maybe even a career. We get more than our last name from my dad. As I mentioned it an early post, he made us the first generation in our line to pell out name as Thaxton. Another interesting thing is how much he wanted me to go into the sign business. Funny thing is that illustrating is somewhat like designing signs. You help others visualize a concept in both.

Thanks, Pops, opening this fantastic world for me,

Posted on September 4, 2018September 4, 2018 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

A Great Loss

I’ve had a lot going on, lately. With work and my art, its been tough to squeeze out time to create. My daughter and I began our yearly adventure at Dragon Con.

Friday night after I got off work we went to pick up our badges with a close friend of hers. After getting the badges we decided for them to checkout a K-Pop event. My phone has been giving me problems lately. The map wouldn’t function and I was getting calls that either wouldn’t open, wouldn’t connect, drop calls or failed messages.

When I got a better signal my wife was able to get a message through. Someone was knocking at our door at home but it was late and she didn’t want to answer while she was by herself. Shortly after another couple of messages came through.

The last one was telling me that my Mom had died. We left immediately.It was so hard to keep it together all the way back home. I waited to tell my wife and daughter until we were home together.

It was very difficult to keep everything together. We were able to get to her house and see her before they took her. Her health hasn’t been good but this was a shock for us all.

The thing is we were going to visit on Monday to talk to her about my father recently developing lung cancer. This has been the hardest week of my life.

This is one of Ma’s proudest moments. In 1983, when I graduated high school, Ma also graduated with her GED.

Posted on March 25, 2018 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Latest Updates 1

I thought I would update you guys on my current status on my projects. Before that I wanted to ask a question of you:

When you don’t have your materials redily available, what do you do about creating?

My position on this will be explained within this post.

Here I am working on a very long term project, “Relative Perspective”. (I plan to share the whole journey once it is finally finished.) I’m having breakthrough after breakthrough and making good progress, for this project. I find myself delayed, again. It’s not from any issues with the work.

As I have mentioned before, having a portable art tool has been a liberating benefit. My daughter is enjoying the benefits with her school work. Because she has assignments due, the tablet is spending time with her this weekend, again.

Luckily I have traditional work to continue. I was able to get some sketching done last night. I plan to bring that journal with me out today so that I’m making progress. As much as I hate multitasking and it’s horrible side effect, symptoms of procrastination, at least one of the projects waiting in the cue gets attention, today.

I’ll have to remember my mindset when I can resume “Relative Perspective”. I hope my daughter does great! I’ll keep plugging away on the other work.

Posted on March 4, 2018March 4, 2018 by XT Illos — Leave a comment

Illustrating Coins 03042018

www.youtube.com/watch

Hey Guys! Here”s my first video uploaded on YouTube! I’ve still got to create banners but I think it turned out OK for a time lapse. I’ll be doing more of these along toe way! Thanks for viewing!

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: