Hey guys,

I’ve been a bit quieter than usual lately, so I thought I’d let you know what I’ve been working on that’s been keeping me so busy.

I was invited to teach on a site called SkillShare, where students can access thousands of different courses on a wide variety of topics for a single monthly payment. (Unless, of course, you're one of my students - in which case, I can get you a two-month membership for free.) ;)

I decided to accept the invitation, and this week, I published my new course, Low-Cost Marketing for Small Businesses and Freelancers.

In it, I explain how to:

1. Choose the target audience that needs you most and is the most likely to buy from you

2. Create an awesome service package that makes you stand out

3. Describe that offer in a way that makes people want to buy it

4. Overcome objections in a way that creates connection and trust instead of feeling pushy or salesy

As a teacher on the site, I’m allowed to do something special for my followers:

I can get you two months of FREE premium access to SkillShare, which includes my course and all the other courses you’d normally have to pay to watch.

Click here to check out my class and sign up.

I don't know how long this promo will last, so if this is something you’d like to take advantage of, please claim your two months of free premium membership right away!

I'm planning to create more classes in the future, including a tutorial for drawing snowflake patterns like the ones I've been publishing lately. If you want to stay updated on my new classes, please follow me on SkillShare.

​I made this one ludicrously late at night, while creating the slides for a new marketing course I'm putting together on a deadline.

This was actually based on a quick snowflake doodle I did a while ago. I've been coming up with shapes and color schemes for snowflakes faster than I can draw them, so I started a file to store all my ideas until I could flesh them out.

This pattern is available on coffee mugs, shower curtains, blankets and more in my Society6 store. Here are some examples of products adorned with Snowflake Sunset:
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​I took a slightly different approach  when drawing this snowflake; I knew what I wanted the outer border to look like, so I drew that first, then made up the rest as I went along.

I'd originally had an idea of what I wanted to put in the interior, but when I actually drew it, it didn't go well with the parts I'd already drawn, so I scrapped that idea and improvised.

This pattern is available on coffee mugs, shower curtains, blankets and more in my Society6 store. Here are some examples of products adorned with Winter Woodland Wonder​:
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If you like one of the items in that picture and you want it in your home, or you know someone who'd love to get it as a gift, you can see its link below:​

Tote Bags
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Notebooks
Hand & Bath Towels
Shower Curtains
iPhone Cases
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Rectangular Pillows
Travel Mugs
Comforters

​I liked the idea of a lighter blue snowflake against a dark blue background, and I wanted to make another pattern with wider, more gently curved spokes and the intricate details on the inside instead of the outside, like I did with Starry Snow Spiral.

After I created the background gradient, I realized the way it went from lighter on top to darker on the bottom reminded me of the ocean, so I decided to add a wave pattern.​
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This pattern is available on coffee mugs, shower curtains, blankets and more in my Society6 store. Here are some examples of products adorned with Snowy Cerulean Sea:
​ 

If you like one of the items in that picture and you want it in your home, or you know someone who'd love to get it as a gift, you can see its link below:
​
Tote Bags
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Notebooks
Hand & Bath Towels
Shower Curtains
iPhone Cases
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Rectangular Pillows
Travel Mugs
Comforters

​Yet another snowflake pattern. :) I especially love the color scheme on this one; I’m a sucker for blue.
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I'd originally planned for the lighter purplish spokes to be the main part of this snowflake, with smaller and narrower additions in between. But then I added those wider, petal-like shapes behind the secondary spokes as an experiment, and liked the effect so much that I decided to keep it.

​As I usually do with my symmetrical patterns, I've added it to my Society6 store, so you can get clocks, pillows, notebooks, and more with this artwork on them.

Below, you can see examples of what some of these items look like.

If you see something you like, check out its link below:

Tote Bags
Wall Clocks
Throw Pillows
Notebooks
Hand & Bath Towels
Shower Curtains
iPhone Cases
Wall Tapestries
Coffee Mugs
Rectangular Pillows
Travel Mugs
Comforters

Page 43 is done! If you want to read the comic from the beginning, you can see all the published pages of Just Cause here.

Poor Napstablook - they're so sad, but they can't even cry without making people want to vacate the room. And poor Frisk, who very much wants to vacate the room, but is hampered by their barely-developed social skills.

The kid can be a bit two-faced at times, but to be fair, honesty is hard for a child who's afraid they'll be punished for telling the truth. Especially when that punishment could be death. For them, in a situation like this, lies and truth are more a matter of survival than morality.

And now, on top of everything else, they've got a voice in their head that isn't theirs. Let's hope it's friendly.

To support me as an artist, get early access to completed art and stories, and gain exclusive access to works in progress and the written version of pages 44-46, please consider pledging $1/month or more on my Patreon.

If you want to commission me to draw something for you, you can see my commission price chart here.

A few days ago I was up ridiculously late, and I was inspired by the stark, rich visual poetry of barren branches silhouetted against a clear predawn sky.

​I wanted to create something like that in my next symmetrical pattern, and this was the result:

​The original version of this had no stars, but it felt a bit incomplete to me, so I added the stars at the last minute.

You'd think drawing all these snowflakes would be slowing down production of Just Cause, but it's actually sped it up considerably; after only 19 days of work, I'm just two panels away from finishing the next 53-panel page.

Having this bit of variety helps to extend my attention span and keep me from getting bored of drawing the same type of thing all the time, which has increased the amount of time I spend on my art overall.

​Because I'm drawing the snowflakes at such high resolution, it often takes Krita so long to complete each stroke that I have time to work on my comic in Photoshop while I'm waiting for it to load.

All in all, I'm really glad I discovered this new hobby.

​I wanted to try a different look for my latest snowflake – something harsher, harder-edged, and with more straight lines instead of gentle curves. I also planned for it to have a bit more of a synthetic, technological feel.

One of the first things I decided was that I wanted to use the “stained glass” filter in Photoshop for the background, and while it took a bit of tinkering to get the size and shape I wanted for the “glass cells”, I think it complements the snowflake well.

I’d originally wanted the lines of the cells to be whiter, but once I drew the snowflake I concluded that that would’ve been a bit too much white, so I decided not to make that change.

One of my favorite things about this design is how the gradient makes different aspects of the border decorations pop, depending on what shade they’re being contrasted with.

You can see the other symmetrical patterns I've created here.

It's been just over a week since Avengers: Endgame hit the theaters, and the ending definitely stuck with me.

I've been thinking about it a lot over the past few days - in particular, I've been stewing over the fact that two characters in particular could have had a canon-compatible happy ending, but didn't.

This post contains HUGE spoilers for Endgame, so if you're avoiding those, please bookmark this post and come back to it after you've watched the movie.

Are you spoiler-proofed? OK. Here we go.

The heroic sacrifices of Tony and Natasha were poignant and necessary to the Avengers' victory, but for the two of them to STAY dead was not.

If anything, their continued state of deadness was LESS probable than their resurrection, because if I thought of a canon-compatible way to save them before the movie even ended, Bruce Banner can, too.

If you're still sad about their deaths, and you'd rather mentally live in a world where they're still alive, here's a short fanfic I recently wrote, in which Bruce did what he SHOULD have done in the movie.

If you aren't interested in the fanfic, and just want the fan theory:

As long as the Infinity Stones are present and intact, they maintain a stable flow of time, and removing a person or item from the past doesn't seem to change how that person/thing affected the timeline after they were removed.

Because of this, through the power of quantum time travel, Past Gamora was able to reenter the timeline after the point where she was sacrificed to the Soul Stone, without causing her to be absent in the years between her removal from the timeline and her return in Endgame.

Thanos, too, was retrieved from the past without disrupting the sequence of events in the primary timeline. Even after the Stones were destroyed, the disappearance of his past self didn't stop him from having been present in his retirement home when the Avengers arrived.

That being the case, if versions of Tony and Natasha were removed from the timeline before the Stones were destroyed and brought to the present, their actions after their removal would have been preserved.

Nat would still get the Soul Stone for Clint, and Tony would still destroy Thanos' army, but both characters would still be alive.

There would still be a cost. Heroic sacrifices don't come for free.

These past versions of the fallen heroes would be missing at least five years' worth of memories - which, in Tony's case, includes ALL his memories of his daughter. He would have to rebuild his relationship with her from scratch.

They would both forget all the time they'd spent bonding with people after the Decimation, the new friendships Nat had formed, and the years Tony and Pepper had spent as husband and wife.

But there would still be hope. They'd still be alive.

And all the people who loved them, in their universe and ours... all the trauma and PTSD survivors who saw themselves in Tony, and needed that representation of their pain to have a happy ending... all the people who found solace in the idea of Irondad... could live in a world that's that much brighter.

What did you think of the end of Endgame and this fan theory?

Do you think it was a fitting end to Natasha and Tony's stories, or do you wish it had gone differently?

Do you agree with my theory, or did you see a hole in it?

I look forward to reading your comments.