Alice says Mr. Denton looks like a Jack-o-Lantern – also, Nobby is me here; I would get into a panel van if they offered me tea.
___
I had a fabulous Memorial Day!
I often forget how much I enjoy my father’s side of the family, but I was reminded the moment the banter at the restaurant started.
I recited How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck as fast as I could (which is very fast, considering my siblings and I are speed-talkers – this is from Mom’s side of the family) to the great amusement of my Granduncle.
But what was strange was that Alice and I got gifts. Is this a gift-giving holiday? I never knew.
Nonetheless, our Uncle Robert gave Alice a beautiful French mantle clock from the late 1800′s, which he had restored for her, and my Grandma, knowing my use of teacups, gave me antique silver demitasse spoons, which belonged to my great-great-grandmother.
One even has bite marks where my great-great-granduncle, in his infancy, gnawed them fiercely. (D’aww)
I hope you had an exquisite Memorial Day as well.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Whoa…look at all that text. I didn’t even bother to read it all.
___
I officially feel as though I’m a cartoonist: for the past three days I haven’t bathed because I was busy with my art…
Is there an award for that? Is it shaped like a luffa sponge?
Harvest started; it’s the earliest wheat harvest this place has ever seen, and the farmers are all thrilled.
My Dads helping my Granduncle with the harvest….they won’t let me near the million dollar combines, though, so I have to watch from the house.
I don’t blame them; if I owned a million dollar object, I wouldn’t let me near it either.
- Love, Sammy Odette
The Traumagic Academy is one hazardous place, apparently.
Those were meant to be gardening shears but…I forgot to draw them like that.
Irritable tailor, perhaps?
___
I feel I should reveal this to you all…
I have a typewriter.
I like to write (to an unhealthy degree) and so the natural, cliched step was for me to have a typewriter…
So I do have one.
I’ve had it for about a month now. It’s in topnotch condition, and we got it for fourteen dollar at a garage sale.
At first we were concerned about what we would do when the ribbons needed replacing, but we discovered a ‘Typewriter Supply Shop’ in the town twelve miles from us.
Why?
Why is it there? Is there some huge market for typewriters in the country that I never knew of? Are people banging on the glass doors of the shop before it’s open, wailing like banshees in tones of desperation ‘Ribbon! We need ribbon!’
I may never know…but I oddly comfortable with that.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I’m with Raw on this one; when people don’t stop talking, I get frustrated.
But then that’s why God gave me an imgination; to block them out and think about dragons.
____
I had a crashing headache yesterday…thats my only excuse for no art. Sorry.
It was wonderful today.
It was my turn to stay at home while everyone goes to church, to make sure Monmon doesn’t defect to France.
Being a Sunday, it meant that all the usual farmers and nearby neighbors had left to church as well. In the stillness of the early morning, Monday and I went for a walk down a street devoid of cars, or tractors, or people.
It felt very much as though we owned it all….solitude is an extraordinary thing.
Though I think I prefer company, I liked the feeling immensely.
- Love, Sammy Odette
This was so fun to do!
It was a little joke in my head for awhile, and I finally decided to do it.
It has many layers to it…or so I like to think.
The first is the PETA logo, which has a white rabbit.
The second part is that it’s supposed to be Peter Rabbit, from the Beatrix Potter stories.
So…I call him Petr Robot.
Which is redundant, I know.
I think the funnest part about drawing Petr is designing him. I think his robotic function is collecting sights and sounds as a mobile moniter.
PS: No disrespect to PETA. I’m all for proper animal care.
Maybe you’d make more friends if you’d stop lurking in the shadows of trees wearing a tattered hood….just a thought.
____
They started harvesting the wheat today!
How exciting for me, and maybe ten other people.
Nothing else to report, beyond the fact that it’s in the high nineties, and I’m still drinking boiling hot tea.
I think I’m immune to heat. It must have been all those Lava Licks I had as a kid.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I wish I lived where Chance lives…
oh wait – I DO!
___
Wow, I have been so busy with art practices.
Pencil, ink, paint…my hands are now permenately a color that I’m sure nature never intended them to be.
….Maybe ‘psychedelic lizard’ skin patterns will catch on. Then I’ll be all the rage.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Nobby lookes precisely like I do in the morning; angry.
___
My Uncle Troy has a lunar rover.
Okay…it’s not exactly a lunar rover, but it’s pretty darn close. The farmers use it to get from field to field quickly, due to it’s low gas usage and its all-terrain capability.
It is ubelievably cool. I now ponder if cartooning is the correct line of work for me.
I wanna be a farmer, and I wanna have a lunar rover!
Life is unjust.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Karnegie is looking dapper!
And Nobby shouldn’t be walking about alone in a carnival at night…
She might hurt someone
___
This’ll be the start of quite a few strips that’ll take place at the carnival (Those of you who have carnivalphobia is forewarned). It won’t be very long, only enough to foreshadow.
~ woooOOOoooOOoo ~
Okay, I’m done.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Since – according to three of my critics – no one has any idea what’s going on, I’ll clear it up:
Nobby is looking for Rawleigh…who is lost. See prior comic.
Still lookin’ dapper, Karnegie.
___
Near my mother’s garden is where the cows graze.
Should the cows desire, they could peer over the fence at her while she’s gardening. We refer to them as the Ladies, due to the strange, refined, bovine air they have about themselves.
I’m also in love with the youngest calf there; it’s brown with a black nose and ears, and is so tiny and spindly it almost looks like a dear.
I’m in grave danger of calfnapping.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Rawleigh isn’t worth it; run, Nobby.
____
Well, close call: I might have had to gone on hiatus for a week, but fortunately, it did not come to pass,
and I’m still chained to my cartooning desk…
Woot!
- Love, Sammy Odette
My apologies universe, but I will be unable to upload a regular comic everyday for this week.
I will try to upload one ever few days, but even then I’m uncertain if I’ll have time.
Huuuhhh….c’est la vie.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I hope y’all remember what’s going on; Nobby’s in a the Clown Corner of the Carnival, looking for Rawleigh, who isn’t there.
Nobby does not like clowns.
____
I’m back, collective universes!
Much earlier than I thought too!
My regular schedule will be reinstated, and I will draw my fingers into bloody stubs again.
Yay!
- Love, Sammy Odette
Awwww…Karnegie is so sweet!
____
I have to get up at 6:00 tomorrow, so I can go swimming at the gym….
Kill me now.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Sorry about not posting yesterday: I was incapacitated, mostly due to dying.
But I’m all better now, so…
Please have some Chancefellow cuteness.
- Love, Sammy Odette
No you haven’t.
___
A dog was near our house today, with the intention of courting our dog, Monday.
Now, as we locked her in the house, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed; I would love a pack of fluffy, weird looking puppies running around….
And at the same time, felt desperately relieved. Staying up at all hours making sure the puppies were alright, and weren’t wetting on every available surface?
I think I take a good night’s sleep over cuteness.
- Love, Sammy Odette
A Song of Fire and Ice – Robert Frost
Have you noticed the steady decline in customer service?
It’s practically this bad nowadays.
___
It is 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and I’m still drinking tea.
Addictions are scary things.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I no longer design the color scheme in this comic.
I have my color-blind clown twin do that for me.
Ah, the psychological torments I would put up with for donuts.
___
My father and two of my brothers (Jules and Lucas) had to leave our home for a few days to seriously repair one of our properties.
My mother, Alice and myself stayed at home to (a) watch the puppy and (b) eat chocolate cake while we sit on our butts watching Jane Austen adaptations.
Ahhh, gender equality.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Bipolar, schizophrenic, dissociated identity disorder, or hormonal?
Taking bets now.
___
Yay, my itinerant male family members are coming back tomorrow!
We shall prepare a feast.
- Love, Sammy Odette
An illustration for a project I’m working on.
Umbrella’s are the only way to traverse in comfort.
On said note; I’ve always wanted to glide on an umbrella. Alas, I was not hooded enough to pull it off.
Chancefellow is holding a stuffed cow, in case your moniter is the size of an iPod and you can’t see it.
___
Sorry about yesterday’s acute lack of post.
We unexpectedly had company, and I didn’t have time to upload bupkis.
So here is Chancefellow to divert your anger.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Here is the artwork you see on the sides of my blog.
It’s the first piece of art I did regarding Chancefellow, and I hadn’t smoothed out all the details; consequently, he looks like he’s dressing up as Nobby.
Just pretend he’s role-playing his hero.
Roll with it, people.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Due to the nature of my unprofessional scheduling, I’ll have to be on hiatus for a few days.
A week at the very most, and a day at the least.
My Apologies. Until then, enjoy original character design doodles.
I love him. I’m sorry if that’s vain, but he’s just the coolest person in the comic.
My advice; skip every comic where he doesn’t actually appear.
___
My six month old puppy (Monday) that weighs 80 pounds is very familiar with my family.
However, living on a farm doens’t give her much chance to socialize with strangers, so she’s not very good at restricting her excitement.
She used to behave well when she was REALLY tiny (20 pounds) but last time we brought her, the vet was packed with people and nervous dogs, and Monday ended up making a spectacle of herself by flipping out.
This time, my Mother and I were prepared. We put her in a choke collar, and I wrapped it around my leather-gloved hand. I also had a spray bottle and pretzels (she loves pretzels, though how she acquired this taste is beyond me) to rebuke and reward her, respectively.
Well, we entered, and on the ground in a cage were a bunch of itty-bitty kittens who’d just opened their eyes.
I was concerned Monday would inadvertently hurt them, but she was mesmerized by them. She stared at the cage for a few minutes, tense and on her guard, before cautiously nosing the cage. The kittens inside mewed encouragingly and licked her nose. She then laid in front of the cage, nose to nose with the three ounce balls o’ fluff, making herself as small as possible so as not to scare them.
She spent something like fifteen minutes just staring at the little critters.
Even the vetenarians thought it was the cutest thing they’d ever seen
(and I’m sure they’re experts on the matter.)
- Love, Sammy Odette
I wanted to draw Rawleigh in my illustratory style, and in street clothes, so here he is!
Aww, isn’t he so tiny and adorable? Like a lost puppy.
Of course it flies. It has to fly. Who for a moment thought it wouldn’t fly?
Not I.
___
Uwaaah ~ !
My doggy is going under the knife!
Which is to say she’s getting fixed…but she’s never been away from home before! She’s only six months old!
I just…I just miss her so mu-huh-huh-huuuuuuch ~ !
- Sadly, Sammy Odette
Always be prepared.
___
My puppy is back from the vet! She’s unsteady on her feet, and her tummy is shaved like a monk’s head, but other than that she’s as chipper as ever.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Did he STEAL that from Chancefellow?!
Oh, no, wait; Chancefellow let him borrow it. Okay.
I was worried there for a bit.
Snazzy, Atticus. Truly snazzy.
I think the Mom is Asian. Maybe from Japan.
If I was more prepared, I’d have these things planned out better.
If it WAS true…then those red-haired genes must be ferocious.
A wise move, Raw.
____
Another Sunday comic, hooray!
I had a migraine yesterday. Sorry.
That aside:
Country Weather is crazy!
First we had a long dry spell which is just ruining our corn, and today we had a heavy downpour with fierce, whipping wings that beat the rain into a fine spray.
Monday wanted to go outside and lay down in the midst of it, despite halfway floating on the sheer force of the wind.
We said no.
- Love, Sammy Odette
A wise move, Raw.
____
Another Sunday comic, hooray!
I had a migraine yesterday. Sorry.
That aside:
Country Weather is crazy!
First we had a long dry spell which is just ruining our corn, and today we had a heavy downpour with fierce, whipping wings that beat the rain into a fine spray.
Monday wanted to go outside and lay down in the midst of it, despite halfway floating on the sheer force of the wind.
We said no.
- Love, Sammy Odette
The Dreamer is me, just to make it perfectly clear.
Nobby would be the cruel older sister, and the Raw the little brother, if they were a legit family.
And if they were eight and five.
The DWCSG meets only on weekends.
Rawleigh looks so natural screaming.
It’s almost difficult to draw him not screaming.
The Dreamer dressed him well…
(backhanded compliment)
Donut day, donut day ~
I mean Sunday.
As Chancefellow has so kindly explained, there is an update in the character profiles section.
This means new artwork regarding said characters.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I have no idea who this boy is, or what his story is; it was just a watercolor practice.
But there is a story behind it!
When I was nine I went fishing with my siblings and my Dad.
It was my first time, so I eagerly cast my line from where I stood on the shore of the richly stocked lake, into some reeds where a few frogs were sitting.
I felt a snag and pulled up, eagerly expected the pretty, glimmering rainbow trout…
And I pulled up a big ugly crawdad
Thus ended my career as a professional fisher.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I’m so mean to myself.
___
I love the pool at our gym. We go on Friday’s early in the day, when it’s ‘Ladies Water Aerobics Day’;
really nice old ladies dancing and singing in time to music.
I feel oddly comfortable and at home with them…
I think I was meant to be born seventy.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Watercolor practice ~
Oh, an for information’s sake, I need to warn you:
I’ll be on a irregular schedule.
I’m trying ot get better at my illustration style, which I can’t do if I’m cartooning 24/7
So I’ll be updating every few days with artwork unrelated to my comic.
Like this one!
See, you’re getting used to it already.
- Love, Sammy Odette
This is watercolor practice of my character, Handel.
He’s a kobold (or at least my version of what I think they’d look like) from a story I’m working on.
A kobold’s diet consists mainly of what ever they can scrounge up from a forest; mushrooms, rodents, insects (snails are staples of their diet) nuts, plants – anything, really. They take what they can get.
I wanted their clothing to be influenced from 1600′s fashion; nothing fancy, just a doublet, jerkin and breeches. They don’t wear boots; beyond the fact that it doesn’t fit their weird feet, then the soles of their feet are like leather anyways.
- Love, Sammy Odette
The four main characters from the story I’m working on.
Clockwise from top:
Handel
Faust
Habogi
Rattle-Skin
- Love, Sammy Odette
on a barrel in a storage room eating snails.’
This is Rattle-Skin, one of the main characters of a children’s book I’m workin’ on.
___
I have been on my roof.
Ever since I was very small, the simplest desire of my heart was one thing;
I want to hang out on my roof like they do in cartoons.
Unfortunately, two of the houses I lived in did not have easy access to the roof…
And then I came to this house out in the country.
I was up on the roof, with a wide view of the farmlands and cows…
And it was everything I’d ever dreamed it would be.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Just a practice illustration of two characters from my current story.
It began as a practice on painting a tree, because on the back of the same canvas I ruined - irredeemably - an illustration straight from the story line itself…
Because I didn’t know how to paint trees.
Then is turned into Habogi and Faust chillin’ on a spring day.
Habogi is about to shimmy up the tree to steal some eggs from a nest.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I drew a picture of the four main characters from my new story in hats,
and somehow couldn’t stop until I’d colored them in.
My wrist regrets my choice.
- Love, Sammy Odette
The second illustration from the first chapter of my book ~
The first time I tried to draw it I failed spectacularly.
This came out much better. Another to satisfy my inner, snarky critic.
- Love, Sammy Odette
…but it wasn’t the hounds straining at their leashes.’
The final illustration for the first chapter of my story ~ !
Man, these take forever, since I always enter a state of deep despair halfway through my drawings.
Thank heavens I’m stubborn, or I’d never finish any of them.
- Love, Sammy Odette
This is a character from my story; she’s based off of the Turquoise Fairy from Pinocchio.
Turquoise Fey is a title, given to those who own Fortune. This is the current titleholder, Marien Kafer. *dies from puns*
She’s only five feet tall, unlike her tall and slender predecessors, and very freckly!
Here, I portrayed her with a few symbols of luck. A horseshoe, a key, ladybugs, a rabbit (I didn’t have the heart to draw only his foot) a crane, and a bunch of clover (although only a few of them are four leafed clovers.)
I based her dress off of ‘Queen Henrietta Maria’ by Sir Anthony van Dyck.
Unfortunately the scanner ate half my lacework.
- Love, Sammy Odette
…making his way to the Clanton Public Library. His backpack was stuffed to bursting
with books on the verge of being overdue.’
A small illustration from chapter two of my book.
If you’re wondering why the sidewalk is yellow, than allow me to explain;
in the old town near where I live, half the sidewalk is made from slabs of yellow limestone, and it looks rather lovely.
- Love, Sammy Odette
..along the length of the courtyard, and up a maple, and onto a branch,
where his gaze met the gray eyes of a twelve-year-old boy with a pale, puckish face.’
This does not look as though it merits the unnecessary amount of hours I put into it.
Ah well. Good enough.
- Love, Sammy Odette
…and helped himself to her birthday cake.’
This took far longer than I thought it would, but it is done!
This is what’s going on ~
Skinner meets Felix (who is in fact a girl) for the first time since they were born as humans.
He’s crashing her twelfth birthday party, like a good friend should.
This is the last illustration of the second chapter! *fanfare*
- Love, Sammy Odette
…and realized it was an old woman with her head and shoulders wrapped in a headscarf.’
Mini illustration from Briar Hedgehogs, my kid’s book.
It was based off of a tallish tree stump that rather looked like a smiling face. I kept seeing it whenever I was taking a stroll in the woods.
It has never ceased to make me think there’s just this random happy hobo taking his midday constitutional.
Also, this took a surprisingly short amount of time…I hope it doesn’t show.
- Love, Sammy Odette
…and saw, to their delight, that his ears were horned.’
NOTICE:
I’ll be gone for a very long time, working as a missionary in the poor inner city.
That was not a joke. I’m serious.
After a year or so I might get back on track art-wise, but I’m not sure.
- Love, Sammy Odette
I’m so back, baby!
I just got home from 6 months as an intern at a live-in soup-kitchen thing,
and now I’m ready to get some hardcore cartooning done!
I’m glad to be back on my farm, where I belong. Streets that flow with dirt and gasoline are lovely, in their own right,
but I’m a cow kinda girl. Plus I missed Monday, the furriest dog alive. She’s going to shed her winter coat soon, I think,
and then I can say good bye to black pants.
And spring is much delayed here. It frosted over yesterday. At least its raining,
but I am very much looking foward to pulling out my overalls and cowgirl boots.
(The inner-city did not provide much occasion to wear it.)
- Much love, as always, Sammy Odette
Bits of farrago floating about in my art book.
Rawleigh is a Trekkie. Its time this sad fact was revealed.
The frogs, birds, and turtles (which may or may definitely have been based off of mata mata turtles)
are concept drawings for a swamp located behind the Traumagic Academy, which is sort of a magic waste dump site.
Also, for a limited time only, Patchwork Magic characters with eyes! (0.O)
Now featuring Patchwork Mustache.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Illustration practice, depicting a young (very young) artist gathering inspiration from her favorite things.
Happy 4th o’ July!
I spent my time playing sock wars with my kid cousin and little sister after feasting on bruschetta and cola.
In hindsight, I regret my culinary choices.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Illustrations ~
This is a sort of Edwardian version of Beauty and the Beast I wrote for English class years ago.
And not on that note;
Today a stag tried to jump me for my lunch money.
I was walking innocently down a back woods alley and it burst from a shelterbelt, big and red and pretty, with huge horns.
My slow, fat dog (Monday) chased it off to the best of her abilities, which are sub par, but I appreciated the sentiment.
Now I’m going to have to start paying the raccoons protection money.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Perspective makes me queasy.
The doll on the window sill was made by her adopted father.
Poor girl couldn’t understand why the other dolls didn’t look like her.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Long Ago and Far Away was my childhood, so I thought I’d do watercolor practice in a homage to it.
James Earl Jones is still the best thing to ever happen to this world.
You can’t buy this show anywhere, so I just recently found it on Youtube; I’ve been drinking chamomile tea and eating scones as
I watch my way through the series. I’ve gotten a nostalgia high.
I love the way they do each episode ina different style, and looking back I realize how much this show inspired me to draw.
Episodes featured in here, clockwise from top:
The Talking Parcel (also a fun book, retitled; the Battle For Castle Cockatrice)
Janko Raven
Beauty and the Beast
The Poor Man’s Vineyard
The Hedgehog
- Love, Sammy Odette
My kobold OC Habogi.
In my story he can travel into other people’s dreams, and when he does he wears court robes
which symbolizes a promise made to him by the gods of his world.
My mastiff puppy is almost two years old and is now deciding she’d going to have one last growth spurt
before she hits the big ‘zero-two’. I’m told they can grow up to fifteen pounds in the weeks leading up to it!
She’s eating everything in sight.
- Love, Sammy Odette
She had a tough time at school after they found out about her robot leg,
So her griffin bud is comforting her.
My heavens its windy out here on the plains; the trees look like they’re doing yoga.
I hope you had a good Halloween. I spent mine indoors with my art and a pile of candy, which is to say,
best Halloween ever.
- Love, Sammy Odette
One of my main characters, Faust, from the kid’s book I’m working on.
She’s planning on how to keep her friends alive – they have a propensity for wandering into
nigh suicidal situations.
My friend on a farm breeds rabbits and her Dutch Rabbit just gave birth to a bunch of little slippers.
They can fit snuggly into the palm of your hand ~
- Love, Sammy Odette
A gift for my brother London on his thirtieth birthday!
We’re both suckers for the classics.
- Love, Sammy Odette
Illustration of the fairy tale Donkeyskin from The Gray Fairy Book by Andrew Lang.
My cousin visited with her two little kids (3 years and 3 months) and they are way too cute to be allowed
to exist.
The three year old is both fascinated and terrified of our enormous half-mastiff, Monday; thinking about it, her size next to our dog is like a normal sized adult next to a moose.
- Love, Sammy Odette
An Illustration for a book I’m writing called ‘Narrow Ways’.
I’m so excited about this book! I like the characters and the plot equally, (which is rare for me)
and I just can’t get them out of my head.
Anyways; A little girl is lost in a magical, hidden, urban world called ‘The Narrow Ways’.
She gets captured by an evil man and locked in a cellar until a nice magician (the man on the furthest right)
rescues her and takes her on as his apprentice.
This is a grimmer novel, but as always I can’t help but make it happy.
- Love, Sammy Odette
This is the good guy of the Narrow Ways story I’m writing!
So trustworthy, so kind.
No, but really, Bishop is a fantastic guy, even if he out of his right mind. Sorry for the mood whiplash as well; I know you’re used to my cute comics or my quaint illustrations, but the Narrow Ways is rather twisted by contrast to my usual style.
Still messing around with the style, though.
Have a good week! More to come.
- Love, Sammy Odette
…Because a murder is the collective noun for crows!!
…I’ll shut up now.
My original character, Catskill Moro, from my story ‘Narrow Ways’. I have difficulty stylizing things, but I like how my weird looking crows came out; especially with those huge luminous eyes!
We had a freak snowstorm where I live and now everything is pristine bright whiteness, except for the fluffy brindle blob that is my dog sitting in the middle of it all, making sure no one steals it.
Hope no one catches a cold,
- Love, Sammy Odette
