It seems whenever you come to a point in life where you have to make decisions, whether they’re BIG decisions or little ones, you inevitably find yourself drawing some sort of lines. These aren’t lines on paper, but rather metaphorical lines that you’re drawing into those spaces in your life between the old and the new, or the stressful and relaxing. My own lines have been sort of zig zagging every which way for a few months now, in ways that required me to really focus and find a way to draw straight lines, but I think after a lot of struggling, I finally found a good ruler to use in the short term, and hopefully after a short period of time I’ll be able to set it down again and get back to some freehand drawing

The transition back into the working world is going moderately well so far. It’s a job that I know I can do, and I’m not running into anything that is really mind bending and causing me problems yet, so that’s a huge plus. It’s also nice to be able to put in my hours, and LEAVE when it’s done. Hoping I can get all the hours I want when football season rolls around soon, but that’s still kind of up in the air right now. I know I’ll be able to get game days and at least one practice day off, but hopefully I can get things worked around the other practice and stuff. we’ll see. It’s going good as I said, and it’s going to be nice to have steady money coming in again for a change.

I wanted to wait until after the weekend of the 4th to really get moving on stuff again, but I may have to man up and just start DOING things again before then. So much to get started on here. I’m going to really start moving on my creator owned project here, as well as some other things with DJ Coffman. Working on a cool pitch now with writer/creator Eric Hobbs. It’s a great little story, weaving elements from various sources like Neverland, Oz and others into a gigantic, all ages, adventure that looks to be something very special. Artist Derrick Fish is doing some absolutely amazing work on this so far. Some of you might know Derrick from his webcomic work on Dandy and Company. I’ve been reading that forever, and was excited to see his name and his work on this project and get a chance to work with him. We’re doing some really great work together, can’t wait to show some of it later.

As for my own project, I’m going to share some new stuff soon from that. However I’m NOT going to be sharing the name again any time soon. Needless to say, in the last week, I went to see if the domain name I wanted was available for it, and it was. This morning, it’s been registered and has some template thing installed on it and mysteriously has no contact information, no links, no content, but a header and a flaky looking “this belongs to me” tagline. Probably a coincidence, but in a day and age where people just scoop up domains for things left and right in hopes of selling them off, it just as well could be someone hoping that I’ll shell out money for a name I was going to build an IP around.

On the homefront, things are great. We’re getting a lot of little things around the house and yard done that we’ve been meaning to, and enjoying spending time just hanging out this summer so far. Not going to baseball/softball 5 nights a week and weekends is a HUGE bonus as well. Leaves you with a lot of free time in the evenings that’s for sure. Just in the last 3 days, I’ve put in a screen door in the garage that my wife has wanted for 3 years (evidently so I can now hear the speakers from the garage stereo better, which I guess is partly true) put landscape lighting around the water garden/pond by the patio with the wife, finished laying a natural stone wall on the backside of the burm by the pond, and trimmed all the grass in the front yard. that doesn’t even take into account the consumption of extra greasy and crispy onion rings, the graduation party with a live band, playing Lego Batman on the pS3 with my son, sleeping in late on Sunday, having friends over for a 4th of July PRE party, party on Saturday night etc….. so life is definitely good. The only thing I could complain about is that I’m still owed a lot of money from one comic publisher, but really…if that’s the worst thing going on in my life, I’m lucky. I’m sure that situation will be resolved one way or another, hopefully in the next several weeks or in the next month. It needs to be resolved so I can get on with my life. Something I’m making an effort at doing. And while things are hectic, it’s a good hectic now, and I’m enjoying it.

So I’m going to get working on some things that I feel good about now, and hopefully….set that ruler aside and find time to start drawing some of my own lines.

coloring live tonight till I crash, working on a page from the official Flobots webcomic, and probably Take a Chance #5.

Watch live video from jembury’s channel on Justin.tv

redesign of the site and blog happened at a good time. I’m swamped right now. Working on editing and designing TWO graphic novels, both over 100 pages long, potentially coloring some interesting new projects, doing a few commissions, and working on my own creator owned project more here. Still, I’m getting a lot done this week, and am scheduling work for June. So if you need a colorist for your comic, a digital painter or concept artist for an upcoming project feel free to get in touch. We’ve been making due here somehow, but it would be nice to line up enough paying gigs for the entire summer, that’s for sure. The search for a day job is going absolutely nowhere right now, so that would be one less thing to worry about.

Can’t wait to start getting actual pages done for the Rift in Time project. The script is really writing itself and I’m having a blast with it. Very fulfilling, and it’s going to be a great all ages kind of project, very visually appealing, fresh and fun I think. A distinct animated kind of Don Bluth look to it all as well.

back to work here, just taking a short break to fill the void with a progress report.

Watch live video from jembury’s channel on Justin.tv

50 minute study in PS from yesterday.

I’m going to be offering $10 sketch card commissions on a monthly basis here through my blog, and the other blogs I have around the net (I also have a link on the Imagine FX homepage for A Mirror Image, which mostly just reflects what I post here)

So here’s the details. Some time in the next week, I’m going to have a paypal button made up for the site here. You’re going to be able to click on that and order a custom, full color, sketch card, on 100 lb bristol vellum, created with Prismacolor markers, colored pencils, ink and/or acrylic or watercolor paints.

-Shipped in protective covers directly to you, for only $10.
-Any character of your choice.
-Turnaround time will be 2 weeks on these. That means that within that 2 week timeframe, your card will be created and shipped directly to you.
-Card dimensions will be standard 3.5 x 2 inch sketch card size.
-ONLY single character cards, no adult themes, keep the requests at the PG-13 level please.

If you want to get your order in ahead of time, hit me up on the blog, or send me an email. I’m only going to be offering 10 of these per month, which means that if I get more than 10 orders in a month, your cards will be done in the order that they were received, and the following month will start out with any carryovers from the previous month.

Here’s a few samples of previous cards for your viewing pleasure.

figured that I’d set up a virtual table for the upcoming Facebook Comic Convention in March. Head on over to my page and join up, Jason Embury’s virtual table for the Facebook Comic Convention.

not much time for that much rambling right now. Working on Take a Chance #5 right now, as well as starting colors for 1001 Arabian Nights: Adventures of Sinbad #9, cooking dinner and taking care of a sick wife, running kids to basketball games and practices, and trying to find time to get some gaming in still. Not to mention planning out the rest of my year so I can get some personal projects completed too. and boy is that Prince of Persia for PS3 is addicting for some reason (i’ve got to get back to it some time soon here), and I’ve found myself playing some OLD SCHOOL Castlevania lately on the Wii. Who needs sleep right?

Life becomes infinitely MORE hectic once you have kids, I’m convinced. However having YOUNGER kids is nowhere near as crazy as it is when your kids get to be of an age where they’re gone at sporting events every night of the week. I’m not the type of dad who is going to miss TOO many games that my kids play in, I rarely have an excuse to not make a game since I work from home. The wife and I have decided to trade off going to the away games this year for my daughters bball team, simply because I don’t feel like shelling out $10 at away games and subjugating my son to have to travel and sit through the away games as well. The season is roughly half over, but….on the horizon is track season (and having run track and been pretty successful at it, I think I’m going to have to venture out to see how those meets go too) as well as “conditioning” and “training” that my son wants to start for football this coming fall. In addition to the time that the kids want to spend on basketball. I won’t complain, at least not right now when I don’t have any deadlines creeping up on me. My kids are healthy enough and have the DESIRE to go out and play sports, and really, that’s what is the most important I guess.

Been a LONG week in the studio. Wrapping it up by saving out high rez files and getting those uploaded today, and enjoying a semi-day off here. If I can manage it. Going well so far though. One the agenda for the weekend are 2 pages that I have to get colored by Monday, need to help with taxes (which hopefully haven’t become too complicated being self-employed), and I’d like to do some other things over the weekend as well. Need new biz cards designed and printed, need to update my portfolio with new work since it hasn’t been done in MONTHS now. Saturday is going to be an all day bball tournament for my son, so I’m planning on that entire day off as well. more after the cut…. Continue reading

40 minute study of the day in PS. Not thrilled with the atmosphere behind the mountain, but that’s all the time I had today, probably could use another 10 minutes worth of refining to fix a few minor things but these are speed studies and exercises really, not trying to be perfect with everything.

going to ATTEMPT to do 30-60 minute studies the rest of the year, wish me luck!