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Posts tagged Taxonomically Unbound

Our Flag Means Death fan art – Izzy in drag, and digital color practice

Our Flag Means Death fan art – Izzy in drag, and digital color practice published on

For the most part, I’ve just been posting my fan art creations on social media (Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter specifically), but this one I wanted to show here as a before/after thing, comparing my first ever effort at digital coloring with my most recent. So here’s the just-completed Izzy in Drag piece, line art done in natural media, coloring done in Photoshop:

And now, for comparison, my very first attempt at a digitally-colored comic (for this one, the line art was also digital, drawn with a tablet that is functionally little more than a glorified track pad, and is the same tablet I used in coloring the Izzy piece):
Taxonomically Unbound puns about math and food

I would say that’s a bit of an improvement, no? To be fair, I did install a bunch of digital brushes in the intervening 13 years, so I had more texture options for coloring Izzy. Even so, I have learned a lot about flatting and clipping masks and transparency and so forth.

This is all self-taught, by the way. I would love to take a class in digital coloring someday, but it ain’t happened yet.

Cheers,

Dylan

New Taxonomically Unbound, and art show news

New Taxonomically Unbound, and art show news published on
Taxonomically UnBound - Paradigms

Yes indeed, I have a new Taxo Unbo with which to torment you, and it may be found in these places:

And Meow This

Speaking of punnery, that there is the title of the all-cat art show I’m in, and it opens this very weekend. My pieces in this show come from the Feeping Creatures side of my artistic output, so expect monsters and cuteness.

Come to Spectra Art Space at 7 PM on Saturday, February 9 to party at the opening reception and revel in the feline art.

Spectra is located at 1836 South Broadway in Denver, CO. Come to the thing!

More autobio funs, and what’s in store for 2019

More autobio funs, and what’s in store for 2019 published on

Draw Out the Vote - Colorado

Continuing with my efforts to add comics to my website that were originally published elsewhere, here’s the piece I originally created for the 2018 Draw Out the Vote project from Oni Press. Cartoonists from each of the 50 states discussed political issues relevant to their state, and why voting is an important part of addressing those issues. My comic focused on LGBT issues in Colorado.

Anyhow, this is now posted to the here in the Autobio Comics section of good ol’ Studio NDR.

But what of 2019, you ask?

I made a public Patreon post going into some detail regarding my comic makin’ plans for this year.

The TL;DR: version is more Valley of the Silk Sky, including a new minicomic, a new issue of QAT Person, and further pun horrors with Taxonomically Unbound.

Anyway, I seem to be having yet more website issues, so I guess I’ll drop everything and go troubleshoot that now. Cool!

Dylan

New Taxonomically Unbound, new Valley of the Silk Sky website

New Taxonomically Unbound, new Valley of the Silk Sky website published on

Does making the advent colander last through Christmas sieve cause undue strain?

Just as you feared, there is a new Taxonomically Unbound, and it lurks in these locations:

There is also, as you may have gleaned from the headline, a brang new Valley of the Silk Sky website:

Valley of the Silk Sky queer YA sci fi webcomic

This is, as I have probably mentioned before, a replacement for the VotSS tumblr website. While the tumblr one still exists, this new one is self-hosted and therefore less subject to the whims of content moderation algorithms.

It is also much easier to navigate, given that the underlying architecture is more conducive to separating comics from appendices from random art. Also the tagging is actually useful, since it’s not mixed in with all the rest of tumblr’s tags.

ANYway. I’ll continue to post VotSS comic pages here on Studio NDR, but, as before, extra content like appendices, concept art, character portraits, and all that biz will live over there.

Cheers,

Dylan

New Taxo Unbo and some general updates

New Taxo Unbo and some general updates published on

Taxonomically Unbound: If a chicken is reinventing how poultry vocalize, is it thinking outside the boks

Yes indeed, the latest in Taxonomically Unbound punnery may be found here:

Meanwhile, I’ve been working away on the new Valley of the Silk Sky website, which is still not ready for your eyeballs, but it is definitely starting to take shape. Turns out I’ve created a fair amount of content for this series, and it’s gonna take awhile to get it all put in place.

Speaking of Valley of the Silk Sky, if you’ve been wanting to get the digital edition from ComiXology but have been holding off for whatever reason, it might interest you to learn that it’s on sale for 50% off at the moment. You can grab both collections here:

The Long Run: Part One
The Long Run: Part Two

Cheers,

Dylan

New Taxo Unbo, Mini Comic Con, Tumblr goings-on, VotSS news, etc.

New Taxo Unbo, Mini Comic Con, Tumblr goings-on, VotSS news, etc. published on

Taxonomically Unbound - If a grape stubbornly refuses to dry out, is it being unraisinable

First up, here is where one might read the new Taxonomically Unbound, should one so choose:

But, wait there’s more. Oh, so much more to discuss. First up, an event this very Saturday:

Mini Comic Con

On Saturday, Dec 8, I will be at the Sam Gary Branch of the Denver Public Library for Mini Comic Con. The event runs from 10 AM – 4 PM, and admission is free. FREE, I tell you.

All the deets are to be found at this Facebook event page, so click and learn.

Tumblr goings-on

Meanwhile, what the heck with Tumblr, you ask.

As you may know, Tumblr is, as far as I can tell, in the process of destroying itself by driving off its entire user base and generally treating everyone like garbage. Cool!

It’s hard to say right now how all this is going to shake out, but I’m definitely bracing for Tumblr to essentially disappear altogether, or to fall so far into irrelevancy that it hangs around like MySpace’s ghost but no one really speaks of it anymore.

The problem that creates for me is that the Valley of the Silk Sky website is built on a Tumblr webcomic platform. Now, I had long yearned to make a proper VotSS website, since the limits of the Tumblr site functionality grate on my nerves sometimes. But building a whole new website is a massive (unpaid) undertaking, so I haven’t been in a rush to get to it.

However. If Tumbs is going to flush itself down the toilet, getting to website building is a thing I’m going to have to do.

So I’ve started the process. I have a dot com domain for VotSS, and the bones of the new site are there. It’s going to be at least a couple few weeks before I even feel comfortable linking to it, since it really is a construction zone at the moment, but the process is underway.

I’ll continue to post to the VotSS Tumblr site for as long as it seems reasonable to do so, but know that soon Valley of the Silk Sky will have its own home.

Monster Journey update

Speaking of Valley of the Silk Sky, you may recall I’d created a short story for the Monster Journey anthology, and said anthology was having a Kickstarter to raise funds to print. Well, I’m sorry to say the KS didn’t make goal. So what happens next?

I’ve already been paid for my contribution, as have all the other artists involved, so that part isn’t an issue. The publisher has said he’ll likely run a new Kickstarter in a couple of months, and will definitely be publishing the books one way or the other. So I’ll let you know when I have more details.

I am no KS expert by any means, but I have definitely noticed that campaigns running during the holidays tend to struggle. Thanksgiving week is something of a black hole, and losing an entire week of a crowdfunding campaign certainly ups the difficulty. Hopefully a post-holiday campaign will fare better!

Finally …

I was having alllll kinds of website problems last week. I *think* they have been resolved, though I’m still noticing a thing or two out of place. Mostly minor stuff related to deprecated widgets and whatnot.

Anyhow. Lots going on, and I must get back to it!

Cheers,

Dylan

New Taxonomically Unbound, another fan art thingy

New Taxonomically Unbound, another fan art thingy published on

Cornucopia: Horn of Polenta?

Ah, yes, time for some truly corny jokes, wot wot. Here you go:

And but also, I watched the new She-Ra cartoon on the Netflix after my Twitter timeline became 75% She-Ra by volume. And ya know what, it’s a damn good cartoon.

I fan arted because I decided Peridot from Steven Universe would be made wobbly by Catra:

Catra Peridot She-Ra Steven Universe fan art

If you crave further ramblings about character design and cartoons, this public Patreon post shall provide.

Cheers,

Dylan

New TaxoUnbo, plus a Wolverine

New TaxoUnbo, plus a Wolverine published on

If you issue edicts via pointillism, do you stipple-ulate?

The newest Taxonomically Unbound has arrived, and it may be observed in these locations:

So there’s that.

But there’s also this: a commission I recently completed, wherein the prompt was to draw “Wolverine doing something chill.”

I elected to go with bird-watching.

Wolverine is secretly a bird nerd

If you would like a shareable version of that, here ’tis:

Anyhow, that’s what’s what. See you again next week!

Cheers,

Dylan

New Taxonomically Unbound, New Kickstarter for queer monster comics!

New Taxonomically Unbound, New Kickstarter for queer monster comics! published on

Taxonomically Unbound - False teeth for rats: Rodentures

O yes indeed, there’s a new Taxonomically Unbound. Brace yourselves for this one, and read it here:

AND BUT ALSO:

As you may recall, the whole reason I’ve been putting out all these TaxoUnbos was because I was hard at work on a new Valley of the Silk Sky story for an anthology, and the Kickstarter for that anthology is now live!

It’s actually TWO anthologies (though you can choose to back one or both). My story is in Monster Journey, an all-trans masc book about monster funtimes.

The other anthology, For the Love of Monsters, features stories about human/monster dating.

Do they both sound awesome? Of course they do! So go forth and pitch in to shepherd these books off to the printer.

Cheers,

Dylan

The Halloweeniest Taxonomically Unbound is here, and other funs

The Halloweeniest Taxonomically Unbound is here, and other funs published on

If you think Dracula is a knockout, are you down for the Count?

Gotta post this one a day early, for obvious reasons. Ye mought read the new TaxoUnbo here:

In other news, the new Valley of the Silk Sky short story is done. DONE, I TELL YOU.

It took a lot longer than I had expected (digital shading is just simply not any faster than physical media, at least not for me), but it is finished and turned in. Once I have more details regarding the anthology’s release, I shall impart them unto you.

Pros and Comic Cons - Dark Horse Books

Speaking of anthologies, this one just got announced yesterday: Pros and (Comic) Cons, coming out from Dark Horse in May 2019!

I have a three-page story in there, and while it’s a reprint of earlier work, this will be the first time it’s gotten wide distribution to bookstores. So! Keep an eyeball out for that one.

Cheers,

Dylan

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