Listen, I’m going to level with you. This post is too long for your email. You’ll want to open the whole thing in your browser if you want to get to the end and see exactly what rotten slander1 I’m slinging by the end of this. I’m not “good” at remembering to write these things. I secretly think people like it this way though.

Here’s what I’ve been up to for the past 4-5 months.

Well2.

Minor eyeball trauma aside, I spent a pleasant week in Toronto and Montreal, visiting TCAF3 and catching up and hanging out with friends and former colleagues4, having good times, big laughs.

On returning from Canada I took delivery of a new machine. If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ll probably know that I flipping love a new bit of equipment to play with. I got a Carvera Air - a desktop 4-axis milling machine5. If you have no idea what that means, it’s kind of the opposite of a 3d printer that also makes ‘3d prints’. If that makes no sense to you, it’s a very fast drill that can nibble away at things you put under it to “make shapes”. If that still makes no sense I am out of sensible descriptions and you are on your own.

I got this so that I could extend the working lifespan of my elbows and hands6 by handing off parts of the production of the blade pen to the machine. For the previous few thousand7 pens I’d made, I was doing the rough shaping cut for each nib by hand. This takes a fairly high physical toll on my hands. I’d end the day by dunking them in ice water and stifling big snotty sobs. Now, I set the robot to work and a few minutes later it’s cut almost twenty of the nibs perfectly each time. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this has changed my life for the better. I do not get sick of watching this thing work for me. The cuts, unlike the cuts I’d make with my jeweller’s saw have no burrs and are smooth, so there’s a stage of demurring and smoothing that I no longer have to do8. I’m very pleased about this. Here’s footage of one other the early test cuts I did;

In order to get to this stage though, I needed to model the shape of the pens in Fusion so that I could then create a fixture to hold them securely in place9 inside the machine while it cut them. That meant I needed to dust off my rusty 3d skills.

It took some trial and error to get this right in Fusion, but I settled on a 2-part design that sandwiched the pen bodies between them. It’s made from 10mm aluminium plate, which the machine complained a little about having to cut, but it managed nicely after I took it aside and gave it a little pep talk. The lower plate had threaded holes so I could fasten the whole thing together with a few countersunk M5 hex bolts. It was fascinating, learning how to set up the tooling paths in fusion, making sure everything was approached in the correct order and wouldn’t destroy the machine.

It isn’t as aesthetically pleasing as I’d like, but it works really well. I position all the pen bodies, tighten the screws, get it secured in the machine and then set it going.

I got all this in place just in time for tariffs to kick in on exports to the USA! I think shipping to the USA is mostly “OKAY10” now, just a little more expensive to cross the Atlantic.11

If you want one of these pens, it might be an idea to get an order in soonish, I’m expecting a bit of a rush for Christmas. To be on the safe side, an order in October/November should give me enough time to get the pens made and shipped in time for the gift-giving season. I’ve got the piston and dip variations available!

In August, I had a stall at the Drawn festival in my hometown of Shrewsbury. It’s nice to do a show so close to home. I had a fun time at Drawn. I made a bunch of framed originals that made me laugh. Inexplicably, “Pretty Baby” and “I Love Your Hat” did not sell12. Triplets sold damn quick.

I also did more D20 drawings, where I draw people’s portraits, but I use a D20 to figure out the cost of the drawing as well as how much effort I will put in. This is always a lot of fun, but exhausting. I drew almost solidly from 10am until close at 7pm. Good times. I turned up with a projector, little camera on a stick and a Raspberry Pi that I’d set up to show the camera feed automatically when it all got plugged in. What I was drawing was projected on the wall behind me and it turned into a kind of spectator sport.

Here’s a video posted to instagram of me drawing the fellers running the bar on the stall next door.

I also submitted a couple of drawings to the Secret Artist Sale here in Shrewsbury, a charity event where loads of artists submit A5 pieces, and they they all get sold for £50 a piece. People were camping overnight on the street in anticipation of getting some sweet, sweet original art.

If you look carefully, you’ll notice that they unplugged the chest freezer to plug in their amps, so in the second picture they have to clean up the defrosted mess13. Both pictures sold, but to different homes. Maybe one day they’ll be reunited, who knows.

I’ve been working away, drawing the next book with David Gaffney. I’ll post more about that soon enough14. Until then, here’s a shot of my studio looking cosy and not hideously untidy.