In the last 5 years I really dug into my work and abandoned blogging. I've been a maintenance technician and part time have started Illustrations by Pat! which is a graphic art business that has done work for my local school district, Marriott Hotels, and have exhibited selling prints at Power-Con twice in California, once in Ohio, and Planet Comicon in Kansas City. I have done t-shirts, exhibition packages, custom tickets, art prints, magnets, custom trading cards, a deck of playing cards, comic sketch covers, and multiple commissions. I literally have "fans" that remember me and come to see my table year after year. If I had told myself five years ago that I would have accomplished all this I would have called you crazy. I've met so many people I idolize, look up to and personally have grown as a person. It's been 5 years of growth.
So here we are at day one, 1/1/2023 and 2022 is now gone. Despite all the grown I've had 2022 was probably my lowest year since I've been on here. I could talk about my normal job but it's a job. It's not exciting at all. Things break and I attempt to fix them and no matter how hard I try and work my bosses think I don't do anything. Such is the life of a late shifter. It's been that way for years and 2022 was no different. This year I didn't do Plantet Comicon but I did do Power-Con when it moved from California to Ohio.
2022 I will honestly say is the year I gave up on myself. I say that because all year I was kind of this soulless zombie going to work and not working on my dreams. I went to Power-Con with no real new artwork. I'm not sure if it was just coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic but my heart just wasn't in artwork. Pandemic depression was real. Let me tell you but in 2022 we were coming out of lockdowns, wearing masks, and social distancing as a country and the separation of people changed people. Not all but some. I was one. I will tell you that in 2022 I found that I really had fans as I entered into Power-Con. I was dumbstruck. I felt my artwork isn't that good but people returned to the convention and remembered me. One even sought me out. It was a crazy feeling and felt that even though the convention circuit for me is currently a monetary loss it is still fulfilling.
While I was out in Ohio I tore my knee so I missed two days of Power-Con. I felt really bad about it. We were walking too and from the hotel and I just couldn't walk. I had well wishes and artwork sent back to me and it was so heart warming. As of the time of writing this my knee still isn't fixed. It was a tear in the cartilage but I'm able to walk and put weight on it again. Some days I still wear a leg brace and some days are worse than others on it but it's working.
So that's been my 2022 in a nutshell. Mundane, boring, and depressing. So what do I have in store for 2023?
Let me preface this by saying it's time to just be a f*cking menace. It's 2023 and my dreams are for me! I want to grow my business, I want to grow my reach, and I'm gonna grab hold of dreams that I've had, make them come true, and make new dreams. I'm tired of having the same ones year after year.
So in 2022 we saw the rise of AI art. I'm not going to dive too much into it here but fellow artists have collectively flipped their sh*t and rightfully so. I didn't because well.... it pulls from artwork much better than my own so I felt safe. But I've been upgrading my art style in 2022 and in 2023 I will continue to upgrade myself and not be the same me that entered into 2022.
2023 will see me return to Power-Con. Power-Con changed formats from a Masters of the Universe convention to a toy convention but MOTU is still what everyone is there for and is of my most popular artwork. 10 new pieces in my upgraded style will be there.
I'm gonna take you back many many moons ago. Let's take it back to Myspace for a minute. Back in the Myspace days, before Facebookand Twitter I corresponded with Marc Silvestri and pushed him and pushed him about digital comics and what all that holds for us in the future. (I was a comic nerd.) He would never say and now let's bring it back to current, digital comics are nothing more than catalogued glorified PDF files. I had a much different idea and the industry has not moved forward with the possibilities and while digital comics have a large base they have failed them. I see digital comics being able to tell stories within stories and offer a more fulfilling and richer story telling experience. I think I'm gonna work on that which will be exclusive to illustrationsbypat.com.
This is getting long and more production related and not so much of a personal blog so I will leave it with this, in 2023 I will work harder to better myself, cultivate my hobbies, love harder, cherish those around me, and start putting my mark onthe world.
Love you all. May you also get out there and kick 2023's ass!
Pat!
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