My Internal Depth Chart
Someone might get called up to the big line.
I have committed to my future side projects. You can read about The Core 4 here to get an idea. As I was organizing my Notion app, I audited the side projects I had on the back burner and updated their status. It’s interesting how handling my side projects has become like juggling line changes on a hockey team.
So I figured I would share and update where these upcoming prospects currently stand. They may sound like projects, but I feel they can be exercises leading up to my core side projects.
The Well of Souls - Create 3D-modelled assets to recreate the set from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Originally, I wanted to use this as a way to test my abilities in creating AR/VR content, but my interest started to sway. I’ll touch more on AR/VR in a later post. For now, this will be used to practice my set design, building and hard-surface modelling for when I plan to do Reeducated.
Stanley’s Day Out - My friend Rawl Chan put together a script for 2 children’s books. I pretty much have creative freedom in the look for this. It will be a self-published ebook on Kindle.
Outta Left Field Clothing - Getting my back to my t-shirt apparel design roots. With current economics, I can’t run my own t-shirt store online. I have decided to use Printful and Threadless to get a jump on an idea after the 2025 World Series. When I was developing Key Clothing, it took a year of coming up with ideas and testing them out. When I started learning AI Prompting, I came up with OLFC in about 20 minutes for the 1st collection of designs alone. I have decided not to use GenAI to produce the actual art, which will still be me.
Creactor / Midnight Ink Zine Project - After the completion of Killzine, I was approached by an acquaintance, Gavin Ball, during a visit to Pickering’s ARTFEST. I didn’t have any work to exhibit to show off, but he was telling me about the benefits of publishing an art book in the shape of a zine. One of my favourite illustrators, James White aka Signalnoise, put out a call for a Zinetober idea. Think of Inktober, but instead publish a zine. I recently found a supplier for printing a zine in comic book format, so now it’s just a matter of drawing and illustrating.
Alphatiles - A series of spot illustrations based on alphabet lettering and reptiles. I have preliminary sketches for most of the letters. It’s a matter of taking time to create these in vector format.
Grayscales - A series of pen & ink caricatures & illustrations inspired by the teachings of Aaron Blaise. Right now, I’ve started doing WWE wrestlers (yes, I’ve gotten back into wrestling big time). I’m considering including these in the Creactor zine.
The thing I have learned from other artists and designers is the importance of trying to create multiple streams of income. In my current situation I have seen the need to diversify where the cash flow comes. I’m not saying these projects are difficult but are more like assignments. In preparation for the Core 4 to take off.
-JD