Sketches – Tam Go's Art Blog

Reflecting on Cans of Beans (2012-2019)

The new cover I drew for Cans of Beans exclusively for Tapas (December 2025)

Cans of Beans was a slice-of-life dramedy webcomic that ran from 2012-2019, about a creepy-by-choice loner werewolf named Carl and his chill surfer-bro roommate Dude. I wrote, drew, and did all of the management of Cans of Beans–a one-woman show.

Aaaand about 2 weeks ago, I accidentally destroyed my own website by updating WordPress using an old version of Comicpress, a theme used by many webcomickers of that era, and now I have no choice but to upload my whole comic onto a mirror while I’m scrambling to fix the original site.

What an excellent way to force myself to revisit my old comic!

Sketchdump – 12/6/25

It’s been a minute since my last blog post! I have a LOT of art to share, but I will start with some of my favorite sketches out of my sketchbook. A lot of it is Chiara (and some Jonathan)–it’s exciting to see her evolution in my art as I draw her more.

All of these sketches are done with some combination of fountain pen, ballpoint pen, Blackwing pencils, Mildliners and Kuretake Zig Clean Colors.

Traditional Art Sketch Dump

Ooh, it’s been a minute since my last post! I’ve been on vacation in Seoul while falling back in love with traditional art, specifically watercolors and markers. At Seoul, I had the pleasure of going to the Hangaram Stationary Art Store and buying so many art supplies, but most importantly, I got a bottle of Platinum Carbon Black (a black ink that flows well in fountain pens and is resistant to water) and a couple more Kakunos, which have been my favorite fountain pen to draw with as of late.

Anyway, here’s the latest sketch dump.

I assembled a tiny Art Toolkit with my watercolors and swatched them all. I think I have a lovely little paint set here, although next. time I might change the Pyrrol Orange for something else.

Supernote Sketchdump 3/19/25

Lately I’ve been thinking more about my main antagonist, Marcello di Ferro. As a character, he’s been with me for a little over a decade, but the original story I created him for was a bit of a mess (who hasn’t created a terrible story in college before?!). Repurposing him for La Principessa as a rich newspaper mogul worked out so much better than expected!

Sketchdump 3/9/2025

Daylight savings time has me exhausted as usual, but I’m somehow reminded that I need to post some stuff out of my sketchbooks again (some of which I’ve neglected to post in a while… whoops). Mix of the traditional sketchbook and the Supernote this time!

sketchbook page of gesture drawings done with fountain pen

sketch of Chiara in her night outfit/underwear

photo of Nomad, headshots and thumbnail drawing

photo of Nomad, sketch of Chiara and Marcello

photo of Nomad, sketch of Jonathan saying "I am quite literally going insane, thank you very much!"

sketchbook page of Chiara in different poses, fountain pen

photo of Nomad of Chiara in a pirate outfit

End of January Supernote Sketchdump

Forgot I never posted these, more sketches out of my Supernote! It’s very Chiara-centric. What can I say? I love drawing this girl!

Supernote Sketchdump 1/25/25

I would describe this week as ‘low energy’ and ‘sad & tired,’ so these aren’t my best doodles by any means, but it’s good to keep pushing myself to doodle, even if I don’t really want to.

Supernote Sketchdump 1/20/25

I’ve been finding myself really enjoying how I designed Chiara, I think she’s the right mix of tomboy-ish but with a touch of fantasy.

Stassi Cola – Character Design Journey

I decided to design a different minor character from La Principessa, one who DOES show up more. The design below is the ‘final’ design of the head of staff, Stassi Cola (and let’s be honest, there is no such thing as a final design in a solo comic creator’s comic), but how I got here was a bit different than the main characters.

matronly woman in a dress with a half-apron. Various facial expressions.

Embrace

I have a lot of feelings about this one. Marcello as a character hides his real emotions under a lot of different masks. There was something cathartic about drawing him embracing Chiara here, and it led me to understand him as a character better.