Wazzzzzup? Here I am again, rambling a bit about my questionable affairs within the art world. Nah, just kidding, I wish I was questionable, that way my life would sound a bit more interesting. Just same ol' me for now, so bear with me :)

OK, so the title of this blog entry is "The porn is coming!...". But, what do I mean by that? Is the porn army coming to destroy us? Is my latest order of porn being shipped? Am I becoming a porn star?... sorry, just to read that last sentence made me spit and spill my drink out of laughter.

So, what do I mean then? As a matter of fact, it means I'll be doing some hardcore artwork in the near future. I know, I know, it's not meant for everybody, I'm just putting it out there. Most of my artwork is softcore at the most, even though is clearly adult oriented. However, you might not know that I've done pretty explicit artwork in the past, not for the faint of heart, commissioned work for a couple of companies. That was many years ago, and it really helped me develop my craft, as it does any other piece of artwork that I render.

Does this mean that I won't be doing regular pin-ups anymore? Not at all. The hardcore images will be an extra niche inside my portfolio. A much harder niche to promote, for sure, but something I want to pursue. As an artist who's been involved with the adult industry for many years, including porn, I truly see this as an opportunity to keep pushing the envelope when it comes to my artwork. But again, that doesn't mean that I'll be abandoning my regular line of work, which is truly what has defined my style. The re-introduction of these images to my portfolio will expand what I have to offer to my audience. Granted, many of my fans won't necessarily be following this kind of work, but that's the beauty of all this: diversity of choices. Even now, a lot of followers of my work are not really fans of my nude and topless artwork... but they're still my fans. So, don't be scared, my artwork is not going away or morphing into something completely different.

Going into a little more detail, I can say that this won't happen immediately, but it surely is programmed to start this year. I am really not sure if I'll be doing just illustrations, or stories (like comics), alone or partnered with a company. All I know is that I'm going into that direction for sure. Hopefully it will work... no, not hopefully, I'll work hard to make it work, which is how I do things when it comes to my art.

Do you remember that little hidden corner at your local video store back in the day? (gee, now I feel old) I'm talking about that corner where all the porn movies were stacked, and everybody was embarrassed to browse through it... which is why sometimes that corner was covered with a little curtain. Oh, the shame of liking porn before the Internet came to change the scene, how I miss those days... not really :) Well, the hardcore images that will be introduced to my portfolio will be the equivalent to that little corner, minus the shame. They'll compose the naughty side of my work. Or better said, the extra-naughty, since all my art is naughty indeed.

I look forward to this project taking off as soon as my current schedule of projects allows it. And I look forward to hear/read feedback about it, good and bad (that's only fair). Again, I thank you for reading this. I like to write about my plans and ideas, and it's good to know that somebody is listening on the other side of the line. Have a great day and see you next time!
​~Pops.

Heeeeeeeeeeeello, I'm back! The title of this blog is "Help: patrons wanted..." because recently, a few of my patrons went rogue and stole much of my work... naaa, of course, I'm kidding. My patrons kick ass in every sense, much respect and gratitude to them. I decided to post a blog entry about my patrons, because even though I've been on Patreon for a while, many of my fans don't know how it works... or even what it is.

OK, so let's start from the beginning: what is Patreon? Patreon is a platform created with the purpose of connecting artists with their patrons, a patron being the person who financially supports art. Many persons out there take a special pleasure and pride on supporting this way the work of one or several artists. Patreon acts like a middle man between the person who wants to contribute (or patrons) and the artists whose work is the recipient of those contributions. The patron sends the amount of money that she/he decides, Patreon takes a commission from it, and gives the rest to the artist in question.

So, you might ask: wouldn't be better to contribute or donate money directly to the artist? If patrons gave their contributions directly, without middle men, it would be great and hassle free... but just in theory. See, Patreon's role is not only to take a commission from the artist, but to provide a platform that will make the connection between the patron and the artist easier and also more fun. And they're doing a fine job! I can post my work at Patreon, and they take care of the technical part, like taking the payment from the patrons. Sure, as I mentioned, if I did everything myself, I would get more money, because I wouldn't have to pay a commission, right? Well, it's not that simple, because, well, you pretty much have to pay commission for every service you use. Even if I was doing all the money handling myself, I still would have to pay a commission to the credit card company servicing my website or platform. I guess if I focused on doing everything myself and try to avoid fees or commissions, I could find a way, like accepting checks for example. But most likely I would be sucked into managing the work around, and that would be more time spent away from my drawing desk... which would result in less art (and who wants that???).

But Patreon's ability to take payments isn't its only asset as a platform. They also provide reputation, an image. By providing a clean and professional platform, complete with the presence of many different artists, Patreon is more likely to have the trust of the potential patrons. Patrons that otherwise would be a bit wary about giving money to an artist's website... especially if they're not even sure if this website truly belong to the artist in question.

On top of what I mentioned above, Patron also provides me with many cool options to post my work, like goals, pledge levels, rewards and more. This options make the relationship artist/patron much more fun and customized. I can decide how many pledge levels to include on my profile, along with the corresponding prizes for each pledge level. That allows me to decide how to get the attention from my patrons and what kind of rewards I'll be providing in exchange for their patronage.

Now, by now you might be a bit confused on what to do to become a patron. If that's the case, or in case you're scared or timid, let me tell you how it works:
1) You sign up for a profile on Patreon at www.patreon.com (you know the drill, your name, your username, password, etc.)
2) In order to become an active patron, you need to register your PayPal account, or if you don't have one, you can register your credit card. In case you are a bit reluctant of giving your information to Patreon, you can rest assured that this is a serious website. But don't take my word for it, do your research about it, and you'll find many many great reviews of their system.
3) Once you're signed up and registered, you can become an official patron of mine by visiting my profile, patreon.com/popeyewongart and choosing your pledge. When it comes to my profile, you can pledge either $1, $2 or $5, with rewards depending on the amount of your pledge. By the way, I've said this many times in the past, but I'll keep repeating it: there isn't such a things as a "too small a pledge". All contributions are sooooo welcome!
4) Pledges are taken on a monthly basis. However, any pledge can be cancelled at anytime, there's no obligation, or "minimum number of pledges". I really want to stress this part, because many potential patrons at first are scared that they will get into a commitment of a certain number of pledges. Not at all, everybody is welcome to join and leave whenever they feel like it... but please don't leave :)
5) Of course, once you sign up, you can leave comments on the artwork or on my profile. I personally love to receive comments, it makes my work easier by knowing what my fans think of my images.
6) On the first day of the month, your PayPal account or credit card will be charged for the amount of the pledge that you chose. Unless you cancel before that day, of course.

As you can see, becoming a patron is not hard at all, and the benefits definitely make it worth. So please consider becoming one, the contributions from my patrons are one of the reasons why I can stay working as an independent artist. At this moment I'm about to reach the $100 mark per month. I'm at $94 to be precise, so as you can imagine, every single help is greatly appreciated.

So, let's make it happen this month! I ask you to visit my profile and check if you would be interested. Also, I ask you to share this information on your social media. The more people I reach, the more chances I have to expand. Thank you again for supporting my work, help comes in many many ways, not just financially. See you next time, when I come back to keep posting about my life as a pin-up artist. :)
~Pops.

Hello there. I'm baaaaaack! Time for a new blog entry. Ah, my blog: the place where I share things that probably nobody cares about :) Naaa, in all honesty, I write this blog because it allows me to learn more about myself. Writing about things, instead of just thinking about them, is definitely a fortifying process. Even if those mentioned things are thoughts that have been in my head forever, it requires an extra effort to put them on paper... or in this case, on a digital text file.

But enough of that technical/non technical nonsense, I'm here to talk about things a bit more down to earth... after all, who am I to pretend that I know what I'm doing? Being that said, I wanted to share some information regarding one of my signature treats when it comes to my pin-up artwork: sidekicks (or characters) accompanying the main girl, with huge eyes and a big tongue sticking out. You might have seen them, as most of my work, up until last year, featured them. The reason why I decided to write about this, is because many people in the past asked me what was the deal with those little guys in my pin-ups, drooling over the featured model.

So, first of all, where did I get the idea? Not surprisingly, I got it from old cartoons, mostly from the "Red Hot Riding Hood" cartoon and its sequels by MGM Studios. You might remember this animation, where the wolf drools and goes crazy for Little Red Riding Hood, who in this story is more of a burlesque girl than an innocent victim in the woods. That cartoon spawned a few variations of the same story and even inspired a few feature films years and years after. My favorite example of this, is "The Mask", where the main character, Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) goes bananas for the beautiful femme fatale of the story, Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz). This movie in fact opened my eyes to how I wanted to portray the beautiful women in my images, refreshing my memory about "Red Hot Riding Hood" from my childhood. In specific, I loved how the wolf would go crazy for Red Riding Hood, and how this would be expressed by his long tongue all the way out, and his eye balls would almost jump out of their sockets.

The first image where I featured this kind of imagery, was in my Halloween piece from 2007, where I drew a pumpkin drooling over a sexy witch (inspired on the beautiful Alsana Sin). But it wasn't until 2009 when I drew a sexy french maid (inspired on gorgeous Olivia Rose) with a cute flower drooling over the floor, that this concept became more and more common, until it was featured in almost all my cartoons, up until last year. By the end of 2016 I stopped featuring these lovable little guys with drooling tongues and popping eyes... but that's a story for another blog entry.

So, why did I decide to feature secondary little characters (or as I call them, props), along with the beautiful girls of my pin-ups? The main reason was to introduce a comedy element, a comic relief by some sort. When I started doing cartoon pin-ups, I decided to make them contrast with my realistic pin-ups. The cartoons aimed to a funnier, lighter (although still sexy) feeling. So, after a while, I wanted these cartoons to be even funnier... without taking away the sexiness. The answer? Funny sidekicks!

Not long after introducing these props, I noticed that people would be more drawn to my images. In most cases, the comedy element made them laugh, which in turn brought down their defense towards erotic artwork. As many people know, humor is a great way to ease off tensions and get somebody more willing to trust. In the case of my artwork, it really helped, it added an extra quality to my work. My pin-ups went from being sexy and funny to very sexy and very funny. And when I say very sexy I'm not kidding, I got away with more and more risqué stuff, because the funny sidekicks made people less wary of the adult themed artwork.

I have to mention one last characteristic of these props: I truly believe that they represent myself and the average viewer of my artwork. I see this funny sidekicks as a way to feature a male character... or to be fair, not just males but anybody who would be mesmerized by the female model's beauty, since a lot of the fans of my artwork are females themselves. Introducing these kind of funny sidekicks, even though they are obviously horny and all excited to be around the model, they don't seem like a menacing presence. If anything, they seem almost innocent. It's all about how the cartoon is presented. These props are always seemingly happy to be there, happy to just see, not necessarily there to touch. So, again, in a way, that'd be the easiest and most acceptable way to feature my good ol' self inside my pin-ups, without taking anything away from the beautiful models. In a way, in my own way I am similar to a director that likes to make a cameo appearance in their movies... what a self conceited jerk I am! :) By the way, are these lovable props, sidekicks, characters, etc., coming back to my artwork? You can bet your ass they are!

With all that said, remember next time you see one of my cartoons featuring these funny characters, that you're seeing me there as well. Or who knows, you might be seeing yourself instead. :)

Thank you for reading this and for supporting my artwork. I look forward to keep writing and sharing more of what's inside my head. Have a great weekend and see you next time!
~Pops.

Hey there! Guess who's back? I'm up and running like a crazy person, with projects and more projects, but that's actually a good thing. Everything has a price, though: just look at me, Friday night writing a blog instead of being out there living la vida loca. Naaa, partying like a madman is not my style, but still, I should have written this blog earlier today (the procrastinator is back!).

Anyway, since I'm late already, I might as well take my time writing this. For this blog entry I wanted to talk about rendering faces on a pin-up... or at least on mine. I've talked many times about how my artwork style changed last year, shifting to a bit more realistic look. An important part of that change is how I render faces, or the look I want for them. I'm attempting to reach a style that features a semi-realistic look, but at the same time I don't want it to be a portrait. A semi-portrait perhaps.

I used to render portraits many years ago, before deciding to become a professional artist. I've had my share of portraits and I know I can do it. So, now I'm trying to get to a rendering that looks more like an advertising illustration than a realistic painting. I'm talking about simplified shadows and highlights, reduced palette of colors and tonalities, thicker outlines, etc. I think that painting like this is a good way to simplify things in my head when it comes to artwork. The more I render a pretty face without getting too much into details, the easier it comes to me.

Now, although is true that I want to render a pretty but simple face, I also want to end up with a good likeness to the model in turn. I could draw a generic face,  that would work for most of my work, I've done it before. And while that is perfectly OK when it comes to artwork, it's not really what I want. Instead, I want to render faces that do look like the featured model. In the past, most of my cartoons would essentially look like the reference model. But now I've taken it a step further. Looking "somehow" or "kind of like" the model is not enough anymore. Now I want people, in specific fans of the models in question, to recognize them by looking at the artwork. And so far, so good. :)

But how do I do it? How do I end up with an image that has the model likeness without employing much shading or detailing? Honestly, I take a lot of my background as a caricaturist into play. In case you didn't know, I used to work as a caricaturist right after I moved to Las Vegas, where I currently reside. That itself is a story for another blog entry, but let me just mention that that job, even though it was a bit short (I worked doing that for less than two years), it really laid the foundation for a lot of my work today. One of those foundations is finding the important features in the face of the subject, and focus on those, so the final artwork has a real likeness to the person being drawn.

OK, that sounds pretty good. But again: how do I do it? I mean, yes, it's pretty clear that I want the artwork to look like the model, but the likeness won't magically appear on my paper or canvas. In my personal case, I start working on the eyes. Eyes are very important. I don't know if they're the windows of the soul, but they can surely elevate the quality of a piece... or bury it. Eyes, in my opinion, are one of the most important parts (if not the most important) when infusing life to a portrait. Have you ever looked at some piece of artwork and have the feeling that the subject is dead? Bad rendered eyes can be the cause of that, most often that not.

When drawing eyes, pay close attention to shapes, sizes, colors, direction, orientation, etc. Think of eyes as shapes and positive/negative spaces. You must get those factors right first, and then you can worry about details like highlights, eye lashes, eye brows, etc. You have to stop seeing eyes as a big and complicated mass. The point here is to make things simpler, and the trick is to identify what should stay and what should go (hey, I said that was the trick, I never said it would be easy). Once you start seeing this in a more simplistic way, you can get a likeness with fewer lines and details. The beauty of this method is that it works with any part or feature of the body as well. Look for those shapes, those negative spaces, those distances between lines. All those often overlooked details are what will make the difference. There's no point on having a perfectly shaded and rendered nose, when 1) the nose is too big for the face proportion, and 2) the shape of that nose is wrong.

So, if you are interested in rendering this kind of art, practice, practice and practice. As I mentioned, the more you do it, the easier will come to you. Don't be afraid of making mistakes, that's the only way to keep going forward. Jump and dive in, I can assure you that you will have more fun if you start experimenting more and fearing less. :)

Thank you for reading this. I also invite you to share this blog entry in your social media, help me spread the word about my work. I'll be back next week to share more about my life and my work. In the meanwhile, have a greaaaaaaaat weekend! See you next time!
​~Pops.

​I'm baaaaaaaaaaack again!... as usual... like every week. OK, don't judge me. The point is that I'm back to write a bit more about my life and my artwork. Today is Valentine's Day, a date equally cherished as hated. I myself have arguments for both sides of the discussion, but I'd rather talk about art, oh yeah!

I do have a new pin-up with Valentine's theme, part of my yearly lineup of holiday pin-ups. These pin-ups, ordered by date are: Mexican Independence Day, Halloween, Day of the Dead, Xmas, New Year's Day and Valentine's Day. So, for the next seven months I'll be focusing on regular pin-ups, before getting into the string of holiday pin-ups again. I'm excited for the whole year in general.

And since I delved into the topic of my holiday pin-ups, I would like to share a bit more background on how these are done. I feel they're a quintessential part of my work, and that's why it's so important for me to keep doing them. For years, I've done pin-ups with these themes in mind. These images allow me to work again and again with the same topic and basically the same elements (pumpkins for Halloween, "sombreros" for Mexican Independence Day, etc.). However, working with the same theme doesn't mean that these images look the same year after year. That's the beauty of doing this: I get to re-visit the same idea with a different perspective and narrative.

But OK, let's talk about this year's image for Valentine's, and how I ended up with this particular rendition. Let's start with my choice of model: the beautiful Kendra Lust, one of the current reigning queens of porn (and what a queen!). Besides her beauty, the main reason why I chose Kendra for this image is simple: I have drawn her in the past. Not long ago, I decided to use "repeat" models for my holiday images. Why? After a few years of trial and error, I have realized that whenever I do a holiday pin-up, the focus of attention won't be the model herself, but the holiday indeed. In my opinion, it would be unfair for a model that I'm drawing for the first time to feature her in these kind of images. When I do the first image of any given model, I want it all to be about her, nothing else. Once we're past the first image, then we can play with themes and approaches.

Let's move on to the technique and style. As you may have noticed, last year I changed my style of images. It all started with my Mexican Independence pin-up, so I decided to keep it similar for the whole string of the fore mentioned images. A more realistic rendering (without being a portrait), with a more surreal and painterly background was the recipe for this  new look and style. I followed the same formula for all the holiday pin-ups, and Valentine's was not the exception. The surreal background always contains the colors and sometimes elements of the holiday in question. Hearts for Valentine's seemed like the logical choice.

However, for this image, I wanted to include one more element, with more detail on the background. A heart rendered with detail. It's the same thing that I did for some foreground elements on a few of the previous pin-ups (like the sugar skull for Day of the Dead). You can say that this heart is technically not a background, because it's so close to the foreground. Foreground or background? it doesn't really matter, I wanted a big heart featured in the image :) In fact, I wanted a candy coated heart, similar to a candy apple. It was all an experiment, and soon the candy coating was put in the back burner for another occasion. Instead, the candy coating evolved into a thicker and more opaque effect, something akin to chocolate or even blood. Regardless, the reception for this heart image was very well received, due to the details, the colors and the effects. It looks good, however, I am glad that I didn't put more detail on the heart, because then it would detract from the main point of the pin-up: the model.

As I mentioned, the heart rendering evolved from one idea to another. Similar to the original, but different indeed. This happens a lot, especially when I am trying to render ideas from my head for the first time. But, I learned that I can be flexible, that if I don't achieve what I had in my mind the first time, I will do so the second time. Or third, fourth, however times it takes. At the end, we have to learn from what we do. Literally. At least when it comes to my personal case, I like to learn from every single image I render, and try to apply that knowledge into the following image. And on top of that, I also try to learn more and more from my reference material. That's how I keep pushing the envelope when it comes to my artwork, trying to improve and evolve. It feels good to be comfortable with your own work... but I don't like to be too comfortable for too long. I always  feel the need to switch, experiment and evolve.

Last, what was the over all feeling and concept that I intended for this image? I wanted to evoke a very hot but also "celestial" image, therefore the clouds and the bright blue sky. Not that I've been there myself, or even believe that that's how it looks up there. But, I did what I do with most of my images: work with a generalized concept... even if this is not necessarily true. If the idea gets transmitted easily, then my mission is accomplished :)

That's all for now. Thank you for going through  my rambles, it feels good to share the why's and the how's. As always, I encourage you to leave your comment below. I always like to read feedback... good or bad, so don't be shy and sing from your heart. I'll be back pretty soon to share a bit more of how things work inside my head. See you next time!
​~Pops.

What's uuuuup? Guess what? I'm back for another blog post. Yeah, yeah, you knew that I wouldn't be gone for more than a few days, so don't act surprised. This week I'll still post only one blog entry, instead of my usual two, due to a heavy loaded week... but I'm happy to be able to post again nevertheless.

So, what's new? A new image indeed. An image that for a moment steps out of my regular work style. It is an image that features... belly dancing. The reference model for this new image is the beautiful and more than talented Mira Betz, a big big name when it comes to the belly dancing community.

If you have followed my art for a while, most likely you know that this is not the first pin-up that I do with belly dancing as the main theme. I actually did my first two last year. However, you probably also know that I don't do this kind of work very often. In fact, almost never. That's why I refer as to belly dancing pin-ups, as unusual when it comes to my artwork. By the way: do I consider this image (and the other two) pin-ups? I do, because even though they're not pin-ups in the most orthodox form, they're still images that: 1) highlight the beauty and form of the body, and 2) you can still "pin them up" on your wall :)

OK, I won't be talking so much about the process of this new image, but the idea behind it. The process is the usual, my regular pin-up rendering, where I sketch an image and I start working up layers of color. So, let's focus on the how and why. As I mentioned before, this is the third image that I render with this theme as a main focus. It is a concept that I have had in my mind for a few years now, but it wasn't until last year that I finally buckled up and did it.

The motive and reason for this project didn't just come from nowhere: both my sisters, are in fact belly dancers themselves. However, my younger sister decided to not only practice belly dancing, but to promote it as well, many years ago. Since then, she has brought many renowned names from the belly dancing community to seminars in Mexico City, where she currently lives. Even though the idea of drawing a belly dancer image had been floating inside my head, It wasn't until my sisters got involved in belly dancing (therefore exposing me to more of the culture), that I started to give this project a shape in my head. I wanted to create something inspired in the incredible dancers that my sister has brought and keeps bringing to Mexico City.

Now, there is something I want to point out: in general: a pin-up portrays a human figure, usually female and also usually in a static pose. Typical examples would be a girl sitting, laying down or even standing. No dynamic poses, for aesthetic purposes. Being that said, I must share that the main problem I encountered when trying to do a pin-up highlighting belly dancing, is the fact that when I say highlighting belly dancing, I really mean it. Not just the form and beauty of the human figure, but the beauty and form of the dancing itself.

In other words, I didn't just want to portray a beautiful model/dancer, in a beautiful outfit, in a regular pin-up pose. Don't get me wrong, I like that idea and I'm sure I'll be rendering something like that in the future as well. But again, this project is about trying to capture a moving moment, an instant taken from a belly dancing performance. The easiest and perhaps most logical solution would be render an image based on photographs taken at an actual performing routine. However, that doesn't help me either, since most of these photographs lack the poetry that belly dancing communicates.

The fore mentioned photographs are quite real and authentic, they capture the performer in random moments during the performance. But what I want to portray is an artful vision of the dance, something that includes that extra element the live performance brings... or at least try to get closer. Think of it as a documentary vs a movie of the same historic event: the movie usually is a more dramatic and visually beautiful version of the documentary. Maybe not as accurate, but more visually appealing. And, that is actually what I want to transmit with these kind of images: a visual treat, even though if it's not necessarily an accurate one, from a technical point of view. To achieve this, I've relied on wonderful photographs taken by very talented photographers with a great eye. Maybe someday I'll take those photographs myself, not as a final product, but solely as a reference for new artwork. But for now, my sincere thanks to both the performer and the photographer.

As in any other project where I've worked, there is a lot to learn and a lot of improvements to be made. But at the same time, there is a lot of room for new ideas, and that itself brings a lot of excitement and fun. Even though this kind of work is not my typical, I look forward to render more of these images and hopefully get better with each new pin-up. It's all about trying to pay tribute to a beautiful form of art through another form of art. I've always said that art breeds more art, and this is a great example of it. :)

So, let's keep kicking ass when it comes to the creation of new art. Just this project alone brings dance, music, photographs, illustrations... what else? When it comes to art, the possibilities are endless. By the way, speaking of art, make sure to follow my sister Fabiola on Facebook to learn more about how she supports the belly dancing community and its presence in Mexico. Visit her Facebook page "Ananda Fusión" by clicking here.

Thank you for reading this, and again, thank you for your support. See you next time!
~Pops.

I'm baaaaaaaaack! This time I'm not kidding, I was gone indeed. No, really, I really was (the fact that you guys didn't notice, it hurts, it truly hurts). OK, as I was saying, I'm back. I went to Mexico, again. This time I went along with family to visit more family. It was a very quick trip. I spent a bit more than 50 hours in my home town... but it was all worth it. Being gone was the main reason why I'm only writing one post this week, instead of two.

So, now I'm back in Las Vegas, back at my studio. What does this mean? It means I have a crap load of work to do. Make that a monumental crap load of work :) I was gone for a short time, but I was behind on my projects even before leaving. By now you might know that I actually enjoy being in this kind of situation: projects and deadlines up to my neck. They bring a sense of an action movie to my life as a pin-up artist. I know, it's kind of a lame comparison, but hey, I'll take any excitement available, even if it's just inside my head.

Among the miscellaneous projects, I have two that are not part of my regular line of work. However, I won't be sharing them for now. They are more or less a surprise. I say more or less, because I've shown a couple of photos or images in the past already, isolated, not as part of a project. The first project is a more immediate one, and it pertains to a series of pin-up images (what a surprise!), with a very very interesting central theme. The second project will take me longer, and even though it doesn't involve pin-ups directly, I know that I will be incorporating them eventually. The key word here is ink :) It's a long road from now, but I am confident I will get there. Once I release the images for these projects, you'll know what I'm talking about.

So, what's going on besides working on "secret projects" and pretending I have secret projects even though I don't have them... or do I? :) Well, I'm also working on pending images from the previous months. In addition to that, I'm getting ready to work in a couple of projects derived from the contacts I did at AVN AEE. By the way, in case you're wondering, I do know that I've been talking about AVN AEE a lot in the past few blog postings. I'm very aware of this, doing that it's actually a good thing, if not great. The reason why I've mentioned it so many times, it's because this past visit to the expo really brought a lot of opportunities to my artwork. It was a short but productive visit... the kind of move I want to keep doing in the near future. I might not be attending a lot of conventions as a vendor this year, but I surely want to be there at least as a visitor. I learned that there are plenty of business opportunities at the expos and conventions... even if I'm not a vendor. Of course, I would like to be able to sell my merchandise at every single event out there, but time and/or money are the biggest obstacle to sort. So, I'll keep pushing and taking advantage of any opportunity available.

There are so many projects that can be potentially exploited. But, since available time is currently a luxury in my life, I must be careful regarding about decisions on what to do with the little available time. This doesn't mean I'm not having fun with my work, it just means that I must constantly decide how to have the fore mentioned fun, selecting the projects that will allow me to keep growing. I am still an independent artist, and that's the part that I enjoy the most. But, if I want to keep being one, I need to look in every corner for potential uses of my art. That is the reason why I am so grateful to all the persons out there that keep helping me in soooooooo many ways. At the end of the day, it's up to me to keep pushing forward, but the friendly push from the fans and supporters make everything a lot easier. By the way, last minute commercial: if you would like to support my artwork more directly, please consider becoming my patron. Visit www.patreon.com/popeyewongart to become one. Sorry for the commercial, I couldn't resist :)

That being said, I better stop procrastinating and get to work... January is already gone! Again, thank you for your support and for you patience reading through my ramblings. Please don't hesitate to leave your comments, I always love to read feedback. It gives me a  better sense on how I'm doing. See you next time!
~Pops.