Let me just start by saying God is good! I am blessed to have a husband who not only supports me as I endeavor to become my own publisher, authoring and illustrating my own series of books, but he is invested in ensuring I have everything I need to be successful.
Yesterday he brought home a brand new medium sized wireless Wacom Tablet just for me! This is going to make the illustration process sooo much easier. I’ll let you know how it goes!
One evening after dinner a few winters ago my younger brother and I went for a walk which we had done frequently since I had moved back home. We would usually stargaze and converse about life and the future. This particular evenings conversation was more of the same and rather unremarkable with the exception of one brief exchange which I will never forget. 
In the course of our walk I asked my brother, Ja’rel who must have been about 15 or 16 at the time, “What is the purpose of life? What’s the point? Ya’ know.” I don’t know what I was expecting him to say, if he even answered at all.
I should probably preface this next bit with a little background on my brother and our relationship. Ja’rel is six years my junior and he is one of my very best friends. He is deeply intelligent and commonly ironic; we are confidants. It is not unusual for me to call him for advice or to get his take on a situation if I am vexed. To say we are close is a gross understatement.
Anyhow, back to the tale at hand, his immediate response to my question was a moment of silence wherein he looked at me as if to determine if I was asking my question in seriousness. I remember his face bearing this look of aggravated disbelief like he was thinking, how could you seriously not know this. Then without a second thought he answered me, “The purpose of life? The purpose of life is to love God and do His will.” I don’t know who was more shocked me at his answer or him at my question. After that bit of dialogue, we moved on to much less profound or at least less memorable conversation. After all what more could be said on that topic.
Today my daily devotion app brought this memory to the forefront of my mind once more. My kid brother was right.
Micah 6:8
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
So after a bit of experimenting I have arrived at a stylistic conclusion, which I’m actually pretty stoked about.
Little Dave 2.0
I got off to a rough start initially with the whole watercolor thing because many of the examples and tutorials I found were working from a scan of an actual photograph. Or the illustration was totally original but the artists technique was so far removed from the look I was trying to achieve it just left me frustrated. All in all this little adventure was a highly beneficial learning experience. I ended up taking a little of what I learned from various other styles and mashed it with a few of my own preferences. I went to the ‘”Effects” menu in illustrator after having a bit of trouble trying to communicate color entirely by using brush strokes, fills or layering transparent polygons. What resulted was the use of an effect called “Texturizer” employing the “Canvas” setting which is the default for this effect. I then went back to my Vectips brushes to add shadows and highlights. Lastly I used the layered polygon technique to give dimension the brown carpet Little Dave is standing on. I’m still perfecting my technique but overall I’m pleased with the results of this endeavor. I don’t think I’ll be needing to do any painting by hand!
Meet Little Dave!
My initial plan was to draw everything by hand, watercolor each illustration and then scan and color correct using adobe photoshop or illustrator. However, while I may be decent with a pencil my illustrations lack the consistency needed for franchise branding and recognize-ability (after all I went to school for Marketing not graphic design, illustration or animation). As a result I’m doing all the illustrations in illustrator and learning to apply watercolor techniques in illustrator.
Here are two tutorials I’ve found that look most promising. This one from designinstruct.com is highly comprehensive. Meanwhile if you’re already fairly certain of what your doing this free brush library from vectips.com is also useful.
Proverbs 27:1 tells us “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”
This is one of those scriptures that I like most everybody else can understand from an academic perspective, however we seldom consider the gravity of what this passage really means. I got to experience that very gravity this week. My older brother died Wednesday evening from causes unknown. He was 37 years old.
While my family and I are grieving we are also learning a valuable lesson, one we thought we already knew. Treat people better than you want to be treated, treat them like you may be the last person they ever interact with in this life. Love them and make sure they know that you love them. Make every moment count because it could be your last chance.
The last time I saw my brother was on Saturday we had dinner as a family. We laughed and smiled, joked and enjoyed eachothers company. And when we parted ways we were certain we would see one another again in this life. My family and I are blessed though, because we can take comfort in the promises of God. My brother died a believer and we know we will see him again in paradise.
K.O|
After reading this entry on the US Patent and Trademark Office website I discovered that you cannot Trademark the title of a single book or single work. You can however trademark the name of a series, which is good to know since I’m in the process of writing a children’s series! Also according to this page from the USPTO you are not required to register the mark with the USPTO.
“You can establish rights in a mark based on use of the mark in commerce, without a registration… If you claim rights to use a mark, you may use the “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) designation to alert the public to your claim of ownership of the mark, regardless of whether you have filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). However, you may only use the federal registration symbol “®” after the USPTO actually registers a mark, and not while an application is pending.”
Now for the really important question… How much does federal trademark registration cost? If you register without the costly assistance of an attorney it will be $325 to file electronically.
While a literary work can be copyrighted for about $45 the same is not true for a book title-book titles cannot be copyrighted. So the best thing to do for someone like myself who is building a brand is to trademark. Unfortunately you cannot claim a trademark until it is being used in commerce. So, if you’re not quite ready to go to market with your product it’s best to keep your intellectual property to yourself.
So here’s the back story on the logo. My first initial and last name spell koi like the fish, so I wanted to incorporate the koi fish element in my logo design. The name of my company is K. O| unlimited and the original logo concept for that included the use of the symbol for infinity and I’d like to keep that logo element as well. So I have one overall design and a slight modification of that design that I’m choosing from. Tell me what you think?
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Hello Readers, Writers and the like!
My name is Krystena and I want to share my self publishing adventures with you! I’ll be posting images from my personal illustration process along with things I learn along the way about the business of self publishing- from highly recommended printing resources, to marketing and distribution strategy.
Thanks for visiting me!
K. O|
koiland 