Band Names 3

Currently, you do much of your drawing early morning before going off to the day job.  How do you plan on changing your daily routine with the extra time?

Funny thing, routines.

For me, the routine is a tool to help get stuff done. It helps keep me on schedule and to get stuff done on a regular basis.

So, I'm not really planning on changing my routine much.

I'll probably get up around the same time and start on the comic right away and attempt to get it done by 7:00 or so. I'm hoping to build in a chance to exercise, which is probably the largest change to my daily regimen.

Do you plan on spending more time in a given day working on the Monster Commute strip?  If so, will your focus be on the art, the writing, or building a buffer?

Yeah, I will be spending a bit more time with Monster Commute, everyday.

(Maybe I'll work on it 2 hours instead of 1.) I'm looking forward to spending more time on #1 the writing, and #2 building up the buffer. (Which is at a tragic record low-level right now.)

I want to do a hand drawn strip here and there, as well as illustrate much more of Monstru. That part is devilishly time consuming. So yeah, I'm just hoping to improve the whole thing over time.

Conversely, without a limited time to work on Monster Commute, do you have time-management tools/techniques in place to prevent an individual strip from taking up a whole day?

Yeah, I certainly can't take all day to make a strip.

Running Steam Crow, we have a lot of other stuff going on like events, designing new products, planning, and doing site maintenance chores, marketing, and stuff like that.

So, I'll be using the routine to attempt to get stuff done. If I don't have a comic done by 7 am, I'm going to consider that a failure. (Mostly due to laziness, Twitter, and Facebook.)

I'm pretty fast, once I focus on the task. It's the focusing that the challenge. I've considered buying a kitchen timer to put a fire under me.

I need to find an app that hides email, Facebook, and Twitter from me until 8:00 am.

What lifestyle changes (good, bad, or just different) do you expect in the coming months?  What adjustments are you planning to make?

Like I mentioned, I need to break up my day better so that I'm not sitting in front of a computer from 4:15 am til 8:00 pm like I do now. I'm going to have to be focused and get stuff done.

I've made a pair of lists called "How to not spend my day" and "How to spend my day" which are guides to make sure that I'm working on the right stuff.

More or less, I need to treat this like (working on Steam Crow full-time) the greatest opportunity in the world, and honor it. There's no point in being lazy.

You’ve hinted about video and have new wooden broaches for sale.  Are you looking to branch out into any different mediums for products or marketing?

Products, sure... I'm always trying to develop something new.

I'm planning on doing a "print-of-the-week" where I illustrate a print, folks order it that week, and I ship it that weekend. I've already done this twice now, and I'm still working fulltime x2. I think that'll be a cool program.

Video? Oh yeah, I've been wanting to do some Steam Crow Show stuff here for the last few years. Looks like I finally have little excuse not to get that going... hopefully you'll be seeing some of that this fall. More news when that's closer.

Do you plan on doing more cons and local events?

For us, Conventions are our bread and butter. They promote the Steam Crow brand, introduce us to new Patriots, and it's the primary way that we make money. We're going to try to get into the local "First Fridays" art scene this fall and winter for sure.

Road shows are tough. My partner (and wife) Dawna is currently maxed out with her schedule, so we can't really add any travel shows. She utilizes every vacation day that she can doing the shows that we already do.

So, we're working on making those shows more effective, more successful in the meantime. Eventually, if we play our cards right, Dawna will be here working full-time too. (And we'll be able to do shows anytime we need to.)

Will the Monster Commute update schedule stay the same?

Yeah, I think so.

5 times a week is difficult to maintain, but it's been really beneficial to us (and our readers like it). The only eventual change will be perhaps replacing one strip a week with video content.

Now that your own commute will be eliminated, is Monster Commute at risk of a name/theme change?

I don't think so.

It's about Monstru, the world of highway monsters. It's about the character's journey through that world, and how they are changed by it. "Commute" is a journey, right?

That said, they'll be back behind the wheel again, soon enough.

Do you have any goals for the next six months you’d like to share with the public?

I've got several, but they're all too fairly dull to share here. (Increase SDCC sales by X amount. Design 10 more wooden badges. Design 20 more prints. Improve Monster Commute. Stuff like that.)

And that’s all I’ve got for now.  Hope these help give you some discussion ideas.

Thanks for the great questions, Matthew!

Thanks again and good luck! Matthew Ashcraft Twitter.com/trollwind www.trollwind.com

Feel free to post any followup questions that you might have! (As a comment.)