Lyta looks great, but Alicia looks disgruntled. Thanks for sharing!

A little. There are always people asking for things or blocking the path of those who might be paying for things.

An artist looking a little tired and maybe irritated at a con? Noo.... :)

Alicia's habits when drawing and eating at the same time are akin to my own: food, including burgers/sandwiches in or out of wrapper, fries or fry sides or open ketchup packets, and drink cups or bottles by my right/non-dominant hand, and left drawing-hand kept deliberately free of food or clutter save for my stylus, pencil or pen, and importantly, well away from anything potentially being knocked away or spilled over.

When I'm drawing using my computer, with very few exceptions the only things my left hand handles is my mouse and stylus; if I need to use a co-keypress- say, if I'm rotating an object or viewport on-screen or moving a layer element- I'll use my right hand to do that. I rarely eat while I use my computer to draw, aside from something like pretzel rods (no flavouring dust, just salted) or something that won't get anything sticky or powdery on my hand, like a hard candy that I can unwrap in one hand without the candy touching my fingers. Most of the time, I won't eat anything other than a drink my right hand handles until I take a reasonable break from drawing.

It's been more than twenty years since I graduated from Sheridan College out in Oakville, and while I did know many of the veteran animation workspace and shop areas had been moved from their old haunts and renovated by the time I finished my studies at the Trafalgar campus, I didn't know until your post that the bulk of Sheridan's animation faculty and teaching areas had been shifted to a new campus; I am not familiar with their York University campus, but again it's been a while since my days in college.

If that is Lyta drawn as part of Alicia's banner, she has absolutely gorgeous feet; I see plantigrade footpaws in evidence! <3

-2Paw.

Well, I don't do art on a tablet, and when working I tend to spend most of my time on the keyboard, though I do have a Logitech Trackman that I use which my hand can rest on as well. I still find it annoying that most of the trackballs they make are now wireless; it's like, a trackball isn't going to move on the desk anyway, unlike a mouse, so what's the gain in making it wireless?

I did a bit of looking things up earlier on, and much of the animation program now seems to be at the 'Sheridan @York' campus, and yes, the '@' is part of the campus name. Granted, I haven't said for certain that's where I'm placing her, that's just sort of what my mind has been using as an approach.

No, the character on the banner is Vermilion, who's more Alicia's own 'fursona', and the name she goes by at the convention. Lyta was always more 'imaginary friend', at least until she became not so imaginary. So Vermilion is Alicia, while Lyta isn't, at least as far as she's concerned. In this image Lyta would actually be a little off-screen; Alicia has been doing some experimenting with origami to make it easier to have something Lyta can 'inhabit' that can be carried around easily.

Vermilion, like green, like Jade. O, I suspect I see the connections there! <3 So Sheridan At York (@York); I can dig that, and it's a nice way of putting it clearly, as Sheridan's Classical Animation program was for many years at the Trafalgar Campus in Oakville, where I studied for three years.

I think you mentioned your Trackman input device a while back when we were discussing my tablet and artwork and yours in turn; I think we might've been discussing GIMP and its upcoming Big Version Update which should agree with Wacom tablets a lot more than GIMP's previous versions. Your Trackman is a stationary trackball mixed with a mouse as a input device, am I remembering correctly?

-2Paw.

Vermilion is actually a slightly orange-ish red... it's not the same 'ver' as in 'verdant' which actually does mean green; the 'ver' there comes from 'vermiculus' meaning 'worm' (according to Wikipedia, because it was similar to a previous dye made from insects). As a mineral vermilion comes from cinnabar, which is mercury sulfide (and thus not particularly safe to work with).

I just figured that 'Vermilion' was the obvious name for a red-maned lion as a result. Sort of a way for Alicia to pay homage to both the Irish and African parts of her background.

And yes, the Trackman is basically a stationary trackball, with mouse buttons under the fingers and a small trackball on the side where the thumb rests. So it is even more specific to left/right handedness than most mice are. I like it mostly because it takes up a really small amount of space on my desk because it doesn't have to move, which is why I always wonder why they bother making wireless versions anyway.

Love the look of this piece, especially with it being a clever "twofer".

... I'd absolutely be asking what her prices were, and realizing after running my budget for the month I can manage it if I do ramen and hot dogs for food. :)

Oh, at conventions she tends to charge by time, $25 for 15 minutes. That said, she's pretty fast.

(I've known a couple of artists that charged by time like that. One of them also did professional animation storyboard work, so 'fast' was definitely true.)

Personally, I'm less concerned with speed than quality, though when I was getting 'art cards' done, it wasn't a bad compromise.

Truth be told I'd probably never make it that far north to actually get to her at a con ;)

Ah, Alicia's character has name! This is definitely no liger.

And yes, this looks to be late day two or three of the convention by her body language.

rjbartrop is very talented at this!

Thank you. I drew upon my own experience manning dealer tables over the years, as well as the convention war stories of other artists.

Hey! Juniper, here! This is actually my FA, though I barely use it for much other than browsing. Thanks for the attention to the zine, however!

Ack, sorry about that. Pretty sure I had known that before but forgot when I went to post this My mistake. Description fixed, anyway.