Contest Results!

With the grand prize being awarded in the comic's costume contest, that means I can announce the results of the costume contest involving you readers! (See the big costume art gallery here!)

And your winner is...

As you can see, I disagreed with Ms. Monster. Creeping her out is what I call a bonus! Congratulations to Steven Towne for thinking up this wonderful idea.  This one did hit all the right notes. It played into the character's strengths, was super clever, helped inspire some great gags and it was far better than anything I could have planned for Bud! (I actually had no idea what his final costume would be, so thank goodness for clever readers stepping in!) Steven, you win an art piece featuring Bud's costume in action! (More details will come to you via email.)

There is another prize up for grabs too! All those who suggested ideas got put on a list, and I used a random number generator to choose that winner. And the winner of the draw is.... Steven Towne! Again! Hey, I never said winning the grand prize disqualifies you from this draw. Random fate loves you too, Steven! A book, or an art card from the store is yours to enjoy.

Here is a rundown of the story's reader-inspired costumes, in order of appearance, noting the brilliant mind behind the idea. (Costumes not mentioned on this list are from *my* brilliant mind.) Some ideas I seized and drew as is. Others I tweaked somewhat. Some people's ideas matched up with ones I already had in the script, but they still get credit!

Yvette as an invisible woman - Samuel Morehead
Bud as a Muffin of Doom - Samuel Morehead again.
Quincy as a Ghostbuster - DRB
Roddy as a Number 2 Pencil - James Rhone
Dionne as Marie Antoinette - Nefaria
Tiffany as Mothra - Seth Latter
Max as Indiana Jones - Christopher Trumbour
Bud as The Chef Special - Steven Towne
Kaitlyn as the On-Hu Ball - KZero

Congratulations to all above, and thank you to all others who suggested ideas. I feel terrible that so many brilliant suggestions didn't make it in, but this has been a wonderful experience. I hope you all enjoyed reading the Halloween story as much as I did drawing it!

The Costume Contest Gallery!

First off, much thanks to everyone who participated in the contest, be it with text answers or with the art. You gave me so many good ideas to work with! As you can see in the gallery below, some of the best didn't make it into the story - but not for lack of imagination or talent.

Here I put lots of lovely artwork on display, so all can love and praise it! (If I missed uploading your entry, please contact me so I can add it to this post. I tried to file my emails properly, but some may have slipped through.)

Jacob and Tiffany as Fiona and Cake from Adventure Time, Autumn as Black Widow, Vincent as the Pokemon Stoutland and Yvette as the Cheshire Cat, all by Rachel Edwards:

Chef Special Bud, by Steven Towne:

Dionne as Harley Quinn, Autumn as the Red Queen, Vincent as a Rainbow Dash Brony and Bud and Tiffany as witch-hunting Hansel and Gretel, all by Ismael Becerra:

Dionne as a vampire and Roddy as Luigi, by Jonathan Sullivan:

Jacob as a Shark, by Leafpool (you didn't include your name!):

Kaitlyn as the On-Cue Ball, Tiffany as a Christmas Tree, Autumn as Autumn, Bud as Ronald McOven and Roddy as the Silver Surver, all by KZero:

Ursula as a pirate, by DRB:

Autumn as a rebel pilot, by OwenDaHusky:

I'm so grateful to all of you. Contributions like these do so much for motivating me! I know what an effort it is to make something special, and I appreciate it so so so so so much!

The Precocious Costume Contest!

It took five years, but Precocious is finally getting a real Halloween story! To celebrate, I am having a contest that lets you get cool stuff AND shape how this Halloween story unfolds.

The fun of Halloween comes from the costumes, and this is where you come in. Submit your ideas for what the kids should dress up as this year, and you have a chance of seeing your idea pop up in the comic! What makes this contest extra interesting is that I've left the ending of this story open, because one good suggestion could fuel some creativity. I'm relying on you to provide inspiration!

(After my weekend trial run, I've update this post to make it clearer and fine tune things. Make sure you read it all!)

What you need to know and do to enter:

-While most entries will be in text form - which is perfectly fine - I'd love to give this contest a fan art aspect. If you can include an image of your costume idea, that will certainly make me favor your entry.  I don't require finished art - sketches like these are fine - but I need to see enough details to understand what you're proposing.  I'm really looking forward to showing off a gallery of costume submission art, so if you have any art chops at all I encourage you to take the time to whip something up.  Submit your text ideas ASAP, and make are if you want to or can.

-The costume I choose for the grand prize gets their idea incorporated into the Halloween story, and I will draw the submitter an art card of their winning suggestion. See the witch Yvette illustration in the banner for an example. (Oh, and I am putting her art card in the store if anyone wants to grab it! Cards are alphabetical, so Yvettewitch will be at the end if she's there.)

-Everyone who enters will be part of a drawing for a second prize. That winner has the choice of a signed copy of a Precocious book, or an art card from the store.  (If the winner is outside of the United States, you must choose an art card due to the high cost of shipping books.)  There will be a third book/art card prize that will go to one who submits art, provided enough entries appear.

-The entire class is in play for suggestions. I have *my* list of costumes for the kids. Your goal is to give me something even better. Have fun with this!  I wonder who will get the most suggestions - and how many will get none? (I hope I get enough entries to have lots of choices for everyone!)

-Check out the contact page for how to reach me. Send your entries to my email.  Just so I can keep track of stuff, I'd prefer you put all your suggestions into a single entry if you're doing text-only entries. While you can do more, aim for around five costume suggestions. Edit your ideas down to the best ones!

-As this is a time-sensitive thing, you are free submit your ideas in text, then make and send drawings for your entries later. I want to make this an easy contest for the artists out there, so I shall be flexible!

-I'm looking for a costume idea, not a script or suggestions on what to do with the costume.  I want the image if you have one, and a description along the lines of  "(character) as (costume)." You can include a description, and maybe a link to explain any reference your making, but don't write a lot to sell it.  Anyone offering their own joke suggestions gets disqualified. This contest doesn't change my policy of not accepting joke ideas. It's possible to submit ideas for costume sets, with multiple characters coordinating, though I'd like the grand prize winner to be a single costume idea.

-I don't know how many suggestions will make it into the final story, as part of this contest is to let your ideas guide me. I could choose the best or the worst ideas for the story - whatever inspires me to write a joke!  The most clever entries might not have an opening for them.  That's why I'm sharing the cool entries on the front page too, because clever stuff deserves to be celebrated!  The earliest possible date for a costume suggestion to appear in the comic is October 24th, by the way.  (Well, there's at least one comic before then with a costume idea that someone will surely suggest, but it's an obvious one and was in the script before this contest was announced.)

-Again, I encourage artwork, and I'll favor the art entries.  Doesn't matter how skilled you are. I like to see the effort! (Blackmailing artists friends to draw for you is good too!)

-You have a better chance of your idea being chosen the earlier it shows up. October 23rd is likely the latest date for you to submit ideas and have a chance of seeing them used, though I won't disqualify a good idea that comes later. Still, if I can get a script out of a good idea sent early, a great idea sent late will be bumped out because I lack the time to write it in.  I'll be traveling to FurFright from the 24th to 28th, so I need comics for those days finished before I leave. I'll accept art all the way through the end of the Halloween story, because I can still show it off even if it's too late for scripting.

-I ask that you not share your ideas and contest artwork with others until after the Halloween story is over. If I do choose your suggestion, I don't want other readers expecting it.

-If your suggestion doesn't make it into the comic, or a similar idea to yours is chosen instead, please don't get upset. As mentioned, I'm going with what gives me the best scripting potential, not necessarily the strongest submissions. I won't know what's right until I see it. Could be highly clever. Could be basic and simple. I could put in a dumb idea to make fun of a kid in a dumb costume! That's the thrill of it. You are the inspiration I don't know where it'll go yet!

Email me with any questions or concerns. If any new notes/edits need to be made, I'll update this post.

Putting the pieces together

Happy Halloween!

My day tomorrow will be racing to color the background before Halloween expires! For now, enjoy a few mock-ups of how it might look.

Still not happy with how the houses came out, but there was no way I was going to devote the time and tech pen to do a super-detailed and perspectively-perfect neighborhood. It *will* look a lot better with color added, so please imagine it. Also, the blue aura will have some transparency in the final.

Now the mock-ups. The oval one will fit best in a wallpaper, keeping it smallish so the image doesn't conflict with desktop icons. The wider shot looks nice, but it may not fit well with wide-screen monitors. There's also the question of how the neighborhood drawing looks at that larger size. We'll see if color fixes everything, eh?

Stomping grounds

Here's the sketch for the doomed neighborhood that is soon to succumb to the Halloween Tiffwitch. I'm not satisfied with it, but time is running out. This will be stressful to ink, as I'm not sure what level of detail I should use. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow. (Or tonight, if I end up having no life.)

The colors are wonky because the sketch is in no-copy blue - something my scanner normally filters out.

When in doubt, add color too!

Things did not go well today with the wallpaper, but I did color the Tiffwitch. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

I wanted to see if I could add the other Precocious kids into the foreground and have them running away in terror, but perspective was not allowing it. I think I'm stuck with drawing her storming through the neighborhood.... which itself is a perspective nightmare. Gotta get it done tomorrow! Ack!

When in doubt, trace!

Work on the wallpaper is underway! Step one: Trace the design everyone liked. No reason to reinvent the wheel here.

I'm going to try drawing this piece in parts, using photoshop to combine them later. This is one time when I wish I had a tablet and manga studio to work with, as it makes stuff like this easier. (Not that I have the skill to use those programs.)

Breaking the image up also allows me to pick and choose what I want to show - which is good because I'm not sure of what else to include at this point! I'll have to sketch a bit more tonight to decide.

Tiffwitch for the people! (Eventually!)

Oooh, I'm gonna cut this one close. Today was a comic and Copper Road day (it'll go up soon!) and no time for wallpapering appeared. At least this bought me a few days of freedom that will allow me to wallpaper it up! (In theory.)

The *other* Halloween project

Hey, guess who forgot he was also doing a Halloween Copper Road? If I was on the ball, it would have been up today. I am not on the ball, so expect it on the 1st.

I'll start work on the wallpaper tomorrow - hopefully. It looks like the giant TIFFWITCH is the winner., but there's still time for the other options to rally!

Choose your wallpaper

After checking the calendar, I see time is running out for me to get this wallpaper done. That means I need a final direction, and for that I turn to you!

Thanks to everyone who suggested wallpaper ideas! Now it's time to choose. Look over my recent posts and tell me what you'd most like to see, and how I should expand upon those ideas. Did you like Tiffany as a witch? The campfire stories? Supervillains? The horrific Rocky Horror mistake? (If so, what is wrong with you!?) Let me know what you want!

Hey, know your vote will count. Not many people will be giving feedback, so your voice could push one idea to the front of the pack! If I see a clear majority, I will follow it. Otherwise, I do what *I* want... which totally defeats the purpose of asking you guys, so SPEAK UP!

Also, I apologize for not getting to every suggestion. Some proved a bit harder to sketch than anticipated and others just got cut for time.

It's witchcraft

After yesterdays horrific sketching accident, I decided to play it safe today and go back to the Tiffany witch idea. This time I twisted her shrinking spell. That's fun and all, but what if we went the other way? GIANT TIFFWITCH!

I'm going to have to settle on an idea very soon if I want to get the wallpaper done by Halloween. Time to look at what I've done and narrow the choices down...

Rocky horrified

It only took one sketch before I realized this classic game of dress up was just not suitable for 9 and 10-year-olds! Hot patootie, bless my soul...

Costume Fantasy Tactics

Here we have a tribute to my favorite of games: Final Fantasy Tactics. (Pick any from the awesome series.) Bud is the ever-mysterious black mage. Tiffany is sweetness and light as the white mage. Autumn is the spiffy and spunky red mage. Jacob... Jacob is a moogle. Kupopopo...

(Click the image for embiggenation)

Give us the candy and no one gets hurt

One of the suggestions for the Halloween wallpaper was to have the kids rely on their supervillain identities. A villainous ploy to procure candy? Sounds about right!

Here we see Dr. Oven sorta playing Dr. Octopus with his many arms of doom-bringing. Just give him the candy, people. You have 30 seconds to comply.

I didn't get around to drawing the others, but I can see The Scarlet A wielding a super soaper (filled with who-knows-what) and Chaotic Butterfly... oh, man, I have no clue. All I know is Target Man (or mild-mannered Some Guy) must do all he can to keep them in line. (Or at least keep them out of the back of the police car.)

I'm probably not going to use this idea for the wallpaper, mainly because I'm planning on using something like this for the Halloween Copper Road. That reminds me, I need to get scripting on that!

Nesting dolls

This idea takes on the Et swarm in costume, with my choice of having them depict Russian nesting dolls!

I struggled to find an idea for what the doll design should be, and then it occurred to me: Themselves! It doesn't come across well in sketch form, but I want the designs to be simplistic, painted versions of their normal attire. If I pull it off, it can be cute!

What do you guys think about including the top parts of the dolls? I included two to show how it would look. The other tops can always be put in the background.

A good witch or a bad witch?

Man, I nearly forgot to post this in time! I did the sketches early, thought "I can make some more" and then got distracted by shiny objects for the rest of the day.

Anyway, this is based on an idea from Alan, in which Tiffany goes witch and curses her friends. I had trouble figuring out what curse would work, but I think shrinking them works well enough.

The other sketches are me trying to do costume designs without checking source images! Autumn is a Swiss Miss type and Bud is, duh, Superman. Note to self: Next time USE THE SOURCE IMAGES! I am powerless unless I have a reference!

Campfire stories

Here's the first idea sketch for the Halloween image!

A la Treehouse of Horror, we have the children sitting around telling stories. Bud, naturally, is the devilish storyteller. Jacob and Autumn are horrified by the things coming out of his mouth. Tiffany, naturally, has been there, done that.

Maybe I should drawn them in some traditional costumes for this idea. I dunno. It's hard to draw them in full costume while sitting down. I'd have to settle for telling hats or something. Then again, in a larger format, the details would be easier to tackle.

Costume change!

Still taking ideas for the Halloween Precocious wallpaper. I'll probably start the fancy sketches tomorrow! For now, let's review what ideas we have (and what my brain did to them.)

- Al's suggestion of making Tiffany dressing up as the scariest thing possible turned into the sketch you see above.

- Daniel, I'm taking your Dr. Ovens idea and splitting it into two: The Doctors Oven dressed as various doctors and the main Precocious cast dressing up as Rocky Horror characters. Both angles could be fun!

- Alan's idea of dressing up the Et swarm is great. Imagine them lined up as Russian nesting dolls or something!

- Darc suggested a take-off of The Simpson's "Treehouse of Horror" episodes, or maybe just having the kids telling scary stories around a campfire. If I can pull it off, that would look great in color!

- Samuel suggested something where Jacob, poor guys, has to wear a lame costume, while everyone else rocked something awesome. As a bonus, this tangent twisted in my mind into a Final Fantasy games theme - which can also be fun to do.

- Odd1 used Halloween as an excuse to get the kids in their supervillain gear. I am ALWAYS down for that!

Anyone else feel inspired? I must confess that I *like* having my week's blog entries planned out. Saves me an 11pm panic attack!

Help me with Halloween

So the current Precocious storyline will probably take me through Halloween, meaning I won't get to play dress-up in the strip. I can't just let this go without some fun! That's where you all come in!

I'm thinking of making a Halloween-themed desktop wallpaper, and I'd like to hear some ideas from you. (Clearly, I must promote that this blog is back in order to get replies.) You can give me costume suggestions or suggest a situation. Whatever makes you happy! If I get enough replies, I'll use next week to show off sketches for the ideas. Then we can vote for the best, and I'll make the wallpaper!

You can reply here, on the Precocious site or via email. We're informal here, over at the Sycophant.

(Oh, and this means the orchestra wallpaper is further delayed. Sorry, Daniel!)

Last day of filler posts!*

#3 of the character Halloween costume swaps! This time: Dionne and Suzette!

You know what, Dionne looks rather awesome mocking Suzette. Conclusion: Overalls are always cute?

Suzette, on the other hand, looks like something out of an ironic horror movie. There wasn't much to work with, but I tried. Yes, Dionne's standard outfit has slacks instead of a dress. I figured Dionne does wear dresses on and off, while Suzette would never wear one. The out-of-character factor won me over. For now. This may change. It's likely I will abandon this middle ground look and go for the standard heart shirt look or go full pageant garb.

Anyway, I should be home later today*, so if anyone wants to hang out and hear me whine for a while...

*My laptop found an unsecured network in the neighborhood! This allows me to edit this currently-upcoming post to say I may be staying in DC past Saturday. Earlier, I mentioned I had enough clothes to last me until Saturday. The reply I got was, "We can do some laundry." I may never leave! (Not that it's a bad thing...but I only had three days of posts stored!) Maybe I can find another unsecured network on Sunday, log in and...uh...describe** my sketches and (potential) paintings. Whee!

**To edit my edited post before it appears, I'll point you to the post below as a reminder that I can indeed post images while in DC. A post for Sunday is all queued up and powered by webcam adequacy. Don't worry - I didn't do a video. I *totally* would have, but no way I am trying to upload a file that big over this weak of a signal.