Crazy times, but amazing times!

If you've been paying attention, you know things haven't exactly been smooth for me lately. My ever-escalating illness was making it harder and harder to work, and bad medical advice only made things worse. I was flying by the seat of my pants, and it was highly stressful. I was giving more than my body could take, and trying not to let that strain bleed too much into the comics.

It didn't work. People complained and I couldn't do much to fight back. (I don't blame the complainers at all - eveb uf I don't agree with their assessments. I've spoiled you guys for years, so any lapse seems like a betrayal at this point.) After tearful pleas, I finally got my doctor to write me a new prescription for painkillers. Those drugs did more to help me that the months (and thousands of dollars) spent on treatment did.  They weren't a solution by any means, but they bought me 10 days of being able to function at a semi-normal level. I used that time to its full potential, grinding out 16-hour work days so I could get everything perfect. It was not ideal, but I had set up my files to make success possible.

Still, having only this small window during a long illness meant weird timing.  My buffer had run out and I was already through my emergency scripts. I had my work done, and it was ready to get the Kickstarter going. I took the scripts I had and planned out some meta jokes (that, of course, drew even more complaints) that would tie it all together in retrospect. I submitted my campaign, but time had run out. I had to begin the promo week even though the campaign wasn't approved yet.  (And I will NEVER regret the promo week tradition. I am a very small comic, and this is my livelihood! If it's cute and funny and helps, it's the right thing to do.)

It was all in motion. There was no going back.  The plan, before all the sickness improvising, was to lead with the "It's Alive!" comic and do a standard promotion.  Editing turned it into a preview week, and that was cool too. I would simply run the "It's Alive!" comic when the campaign was approved! (Well, I quickly realized that wouldn't work, as the week delay meant I'd be opening up my preorder while I was traveling to a convention and away from my computer. Timing, in accordance with the recent trend, was destroying all my planned cleverness.)  But then I got nervous. Kickstarter only says "a few days" - and so I asked some other friends who did Kickstarters how long it took them.  "It took over a week for me.  I've heard it go up to two weeks before."  WHAT!? That is not a "few" days! What have I done to myself now? The complaints would be deafening, and right when I needed support the most. All the sacrifices I'd made - all the good will I had tried to build up over the years - I was about to throw it away. It's a sad reality.  Make 1500 comics someone enjoys?  That's great. Make one comic they don't, and that's all it takes for them to delete the bookmark. Such is the nature of the beast.

So it was time to improvise again! I drew up this alternate comic, just in case Kickstarter was dragging its heels. The "We now return to your regular programming, already in progress" joke would still have followed, but it would have been more an admission of failure than a clever joke. (More complaints! People love complaining.) Fortunately, Kickstarter was on time and I got my approval Thursday night. I was finally able to set things up and know I was covered.

It wasn't pretty, and it took a lot of grief and pain in the process, but that's how life goes sometimes. Behind the scenes, I put my all into this stuff, and I made sure I had everything PERFECT. I put my priorities in the right places, and it was just bad timing that resulted in poor optics. I had the plans in place, but I was simply so ill I couldn't do anything about those plans. I don't regret the comics I made, just the order they were presented in. I can't regret not keeping people up to date on my suffering, because it wouldn't have changed anything - and I had no idea it would continue getting worse until after it had already happened. The doctors blew the diagnosis, and why wouldn't I have trusted them?

It was tough, but I got through it, and it's all be amazing so far. The Kickstarter is going great - c'mon, folks, let's get those artist collaborations unlocked! - and good will is returning.  It's been a crazy, rough road getting here, but things are looking good again!

I'm in no way recovering yet. The meds are gone, and I'm back to getting the full brunt of pain again. It'll be a while before I can see the best doctors, who will hopefully get me on the path to recover, as they're in demand, but at least I don't have multiple major projects going on as this happens.  I can keep the comic moving with the few good hours I have - maybe even tossing in the occasional Copper Road.  Things are still tenuous, and any setback longer than a week puts me back in scramble mode, but I have hope. I'll beat this, and I'll be able to thrive again.

Chrispmas Giveaway #2

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. Merry day off to those who don't celebrate it, but are taking advantage of the holiday. Merry overtime pay to those working tonight. Merry Precocious update day to everyone else. Let's all get away for a while, escape from reality and read some comics!

Today's comic annoys me, as it was drawn while I was in a lot of pain and because of that the quality isn't great. So I ask you to distract me! Make me smile! There are two approaches you can take:

1) Share a cute story about Precocious in today's comment section. It could be how you found Precocious, why you keep reading Precocious, about your shrine of Precocious goodies, how you lost your swag bag Tiffany pin and later found out it somehow derailed a train... whatever!

2) Cute pet pictures! (Yes, you can share a short story on why the pet is cute too.) You get a bonus entry if the pet is pictured with Precocious stuff! (I'll accept a monitor displaying the site in the background.)  These can be emailed to me if you want to avoid the comments section.  If you do want to post your pic in the comments, let me help you. (This graphic can always been found in the site's FAQ, by the way.)

Each person only gets one entry - and only one bonus, when applicable - no matter how many times you post stories or pics. You must post with a valid email attached your comment, so I can contact you.  The window for entries is from Midnight to midnight, eastern time. I will compile all pics submitted and post some at a later date on the blog so I can show 'em off.

As for Monday's winners?

*drumroll*

Winner #1 - Jess!
Winner #2 - Emi!

I'll send you both an email! Congratulations!

As for the rest of you, grab some pets and a camera?

Intervention Review

I only got one pic of our group's full setup that actually had some of the Precocious table in it. Enjoy. That's Becca of Nattosoup on the left and Emily Kluwin on the right.

My original goal with Intervention was simple: This was a DC-area con, which meant a lot to me. I want a "home" convention, where I can be happy and successful and have lots of friends and contacts around me. Precocious is a weird entity. It's not comic enough for comic cons. It's not furry enough for furry cons. I have no idea how anime cons will look at it, as I'm so distanced from anime culture at this point. It's a webcomic, but how many webcomic conventions that help out those with moderate fan bases exist? How many are viable options, when travel and hotel is factored into cost?  Intervention was an interned-themed convention. If it was weird and geeky, it was welcomed. This sounded like a place anyone online could call home, and I was hopeful.

I never expected a big sales windfall. This was a small con, and I was coming off experiencing the cruelty small cons can have. (I did, however, mentally make this a test to see how a general population would feel about my work.) What I expected was moderate sales with enough free time to go around and play with the other dealers. I love talking shop with dealers, because they *know* how it is, and I can learn so much from them as well as, of course, make some excellent friends. This was a convention at which I had someone I knew and could talk to on nearly every aisle. I've felt like such an outsider during my furry con circuit, so this was very comforting. I had SCAD friends, fellow members of the SpiderForest Webcomic Collective, bros from my TWCL days, webcomics I had read or advertised on, and, yes, a furry exhibitor making a crossover I could chat with too. So that was it: Socialize and sell enough to justify my existence!

It became very clear on Friday that half of my plan was about to crash and burn. It was dead in the dealer room. A large number of dealers (many of which I assume came last year and knew what to expect) skipped Friday completely. It felt like the vast majority of those who came by my table were fellow dealers or dealer assistants. This was socially good, because dealers don't usually get time to mingle. I had a great time just hanging out with them - but the realization that I had paid mightily to do so stuck in the mind. Dealer sales are bittersweet. It's great to be appreciated by others 'in the biz' but you know most of them are in the same situation as you. The industry can't sustain itself if it's the same $20 bill flying around the room.  To sum up Friday, I had a blast going around the room and chatting with folks for an hour - before I realized I still had my cash box key in my pocket, which meant no one could cover any sales while I was away. It turned out not to matter. I made some sales on Friday, but the grumbles had already started from the tablemates I  had convinced to join me on this adventure.

Socially, however, the con was great. No traffic meant lots of dealer playing. I got to catch up with Rascals, Rogues and Dames crew, Becca and Heidi, I left behind when I moved away from Savannah. We hooked up with local SCAD grad, Emily, to finish off the foursome. This was my first chance to talk with fellow members of the SpiderForest collective, including the awesome people of Riven Sol, Snow By Night, LaSalle's Legacy, Apple Valley and Adrastus. I got to finally meet buds from my early days of comicking, and long-standing members of my recommended reading list, Mark of Autumn Lake and Dave of Slightly Off-Topic. I ended up chatting a bunch with my neighbors too. Mookie, of the long-running Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire gave me lots of insightful advice. Deanna of Kindling and La Machina Bellica was totally my corner buddy, as we kept each other entertained (at least, I *hope* it went both ways) during lulls. Which were often. Across from the other side of our table was the lovely Duae Designs duo of Eric and Cat, who were selling the cutest amigurumi (figures knitted from yarn) I have ever seen. Our group left with a bunch of them, and now all I can think of is what Precocious characters would look like in Eric's style.

Eric and Cat also made up part of our after-hours drink and draw group - which is noted for having minimal drinking and almost no drawing, just lots of awesome conversation.  Joining this group was also Julie Wright and Darrenn E. Canton. This is where lack of work was great. I've always had homework at cons, or been too tired to play much, so just hanging out and sharing silly stories is something I've never experienced. It was the most fun I've had in a long, long time.

And this is why I'm so conflicted about the con.  It was the highest of highs paired with some dismal lows. It is a marvelous social con, but largely bad for dealers... but my socializing is with dealers, so I need them to not give up! I want to make Intervention a yearly thing for me, but the crowd has to pick up or my friends will start disappearing when I come back.

The con is only in its third year, so growing pains are anticipated. Onezumi, the con head, is amazing at marketing and focusing all her energy on willing this con into existence - and that is both awesome and her curse.  At this point, we *expect* her to pull off miracles, because she's done 'em before.  She managed to pull in guests and dealers well above what the con probably deserved - and I hope that trend continues - but all these great efforts are wasted without people to actually come into the dealer room and buy things!

In two of its three years of existence (maybe all three - I wasn't paying attention last year because I was in Savannah and not actively conning then), Intervention has gotten smacked a bit by the great convention, the Small Press Expo.  As you can tell by the name, SPX is a dream con for someone like me.  I will do all I can to get in next year.  With two cons happening so close (even on the same weekend the first year), the audience buying power is diminished - and, naturally, it all goes to the higher-end con. From what I hear, SPX was a huge success for nearly everyone involved this year. Intervention success stories happened, but they were rare. Onezumi has already taken action to move Intervention away from SPX's might, which should improve things for next year.

Right now I see Intervention as a social con, with dealers as an afterthought. The reason a group of us chose to exhibit at the con is because all this good news was coming out about it. Pre-registration had doubled! The hotel block sold out three times over! People were coming! This con might double in size!  All these signs said the dealers room would be better, but I was told foot traffic was about half of last year's. Ouch. There needs to be something bringing the dealers back into this growing social con.  I understand the point of Intervention is to provide an umbrella to cover all the internetty things, but maybe more focus is needed. Imagine a theme to each year of the con. What if next year the theme is "The Power of Webcomics" with a major push that will cover and build up half of the dealers room!  The year after can be "Fandoms Unleashed" or "It Came from YouTube" or whatever.  Giving a specific internet theme to this internet con could benefit all. You'll get themed cosplay, themed panels, dealers would be able to focus their wares and people will KNOW what to expect.

For me, I will be back next year - probably with a table again - but I will have to take some major cost-cutting measures to do so. This year I was full of guilt, because my endorsement of Intervention brought in three more people that wouldn't have come otherwise. It was big investment for them, and the great socializing doesn't always offset a loss of hundreds of dollars per person. I felt responsible for costing them money, and I won't put myself in that position next year. Next year I will show up Friday morning and leave Sunday afternoon - saving two days of hotel costs. I could even stay with my brother and take the Metro in, but that means I miss some after-hours fun. I will still need sales to improve, but I can hope the con gets better.

I have faith that this convention can be willed into greatness. All the parts are coming together for that. It has been built. People just need to come.

Moving: Take two!

Behold: The original art for my Copper Road contribution to The Webcomics Tarot Project! There will be one for Precocious too, but it's a major arcana and I intend to make it spectacular! Unfortunately, spectacular requires art supplies that are currently in Savannah. (And I do want these to be spectacular, as I'm thinking of putting the originals up for sale.)

...Which leads me to the next topic! Tomorrow I make an attempt to rescue my stuff and bring it up to Virginia! It will be a daring adventure, as we'll arrive in the dead of night, grab the truck in the morning, load it up and attempt to leave around lunchtime. Grueling hours, but if it means I will FINALLY have my stuff, it's all worth it.

What does this mean? Well, obviously, my lack of a studio has ruined all planned August productivity. Once the studio is back and set up, I will have to lock myself in it and hammer out some Precocious strips to give me some breathing room. (And, of course, the preliminary plan had me drawing double strips. I may be rewriting those.) Stuff like portraits are on hold. (Which really sucks, because I fell ONE portrait short. It is nothing personal, portrait dude! Just bad luck!) I won't post the last portrait sheet until all four are completed, but you can find the ones already done on my Twitter account.  The tarot card mentioned above will also be pushed back slightly, although it does have high priority.

The rest of the big projects? Pushed back as well, or at least not getting full focus. Instead of launching some special projects early September, I think I'll wait until after I get back from Intervention in DC (see me there Sept 21-23) before making a splash. (I still might try streaming a bit, though, since the new webcam is already here.)

In a week, I will have a much better sense of what my new schedule will be. I don't want to make any new promises now, because the house I'm in now needs A LOT of work and unpacking/cleaning/sorting is draining. I hope to catch up with everything soon!

The Experimenting Continues

There's a reason I'm not charging anything for drawing portraits. I gotta work out the kinks first.  I knew this one was gonna get me, because my test sketch for it was pretty good. For the rest, the sketches were atrocious - just ways to block out the space. You don't want to waste artistic goodness on the early stages. You only get so much per piece!

This one also got botched in the scan, unfortunately. The flesh tone appears to have been completely eliminated, only leaving the shading.  Well, ok, whatever. Scanner, you are mean. (And this is the *good* one doing that!)

The scariest part of doing these portraits:  Discovering where the gaps are in my Copic collection.  Maybe for the next one I'll get creative with the coloring, just to see what happens.  I'd rather the "artistic" approach succeed than see my bank account take another hit as I order more markers.

So, who will the next victim be? Step up! At best, you get a cool pic of you. At worse? No one will recognize it's you anyway!

Chrispy has left the building

I have returned from FA:United a day early. While I met many wonderful people and had some great conversations, foot traffic in the dealer's room was dreadful and sales were brutal. We decided to cut our losses and bail, and we definitely were not the only dealers to do so. Oh well, a lesson is learned.

...and much good did come from this journey! The artist edition book sketches are done, and mailing begins on Monday! Yay! It was so much fun doing all these sketches, and I hope all who get them enjoy them!  For those who are jealous, start making plans to visit me at Intervention and/or Midwest FurFest! You can purchase an artist edition at the table, or bring your copy and get me to upgrade it to superawesomecool!

I'll try to give you another update on how moving/buffering/whatever is progressing next week. Because of the chaos, there will not be a Copper Road on Monday. Sorry! (Vote for me anyway, because I need to feel loved!) The week after will be filled with lots of bonus guest art and comics incentives though!

Wen again

First off, my apologies to the two folks who are still owed commission sketches. I know I promised them tonight, but I lost track of time with my Precocious inking and now I can barely keep my eyes open. I'll sit down and do them as soon as I'm functional tomorrow.

I did draw these sketches earlier in the day, so I'll share 'em. I was asked to make a few more Wen sketches, and I was happy to comply.

This one has him as the football thrower instead of the receiver.

I was asked to show him unable to catch the football, but the "ball flying just over one's reach" is more of a baseball thing, so I drew that instead.

Side note:  Since I used photos of athletes to draw these pics, the Wen I drew came out looking like a teenager instead of an 8-year-old.  I had to do a LOT of Photoshopping to get his limbs to a reasonable level of stumpiness. Gotta watch myself with that in the future.

I need some magic in my life

So here's another color attempt to figure out a composition for the big project. I'm not sure I'm any closer to a solution. For this one, I took a basic idea of her walking and magic trailing behind her... then improvised to see what worked and what didn't. I overdid it on the magic, which hurt any background potential.  It would probably be better to have her walking through an aisle of flowering bushes instead - which is possible if I shrink the magic stuff.  If this is a night scene, that would mean much of the foreground would be very dark. That could look pretty cool if accompanied by a dark night sky on top. I haven't put that much thought into the colors, so anything can change.

I dunno, man. I dunno.

I hate the night

This is a "back to the drawing board" post, but it does serve a purpose in proving that I am working on older projects. I've been struggling with this piece for months, and I just can't seem to hit upon a composition that works. Today I decided I'd try making colored pencil mock-ups and see what would happen.

In this one, I tried an overhead shot of the character in the garden at night, illuminating the scene with magic. I... I have no idea how to pull that off properly. I lack the artistic chops to do something like this, and I feel awful.  I have another composition idea to play with, but if that doesn't work it's back  The whole night idea will probably have to be abandoned, as it's rather insane to try it in colored pencil.

So, yeah, very disappointed in myself, but I am working! I haven't forgotten about you big commission guys!  This is why I'm doing small commissions now.  There's a limited complexity to them and much less pressure for precise treatment.

What is color theory?

Here's the Ms. Bard watercolor as it stands now. I made the mistake of diving into the piece without planning. One part of my brain told me a gold bikini would look good. Another part of my brain wanted to try using only cool colors in the piece. The result is a mishmash that I'm not happy with. It's going in the con portfolio, but I'll probably redo it for the actual commission piece - this time with some color tests done first.

As a test, I desaturated the image and upped the contrast. When *that* looks better than what I made, it means I should start over. Darn it.

New commission sketches

Forgive me for the relative quiet on the blog. I've had a baaaaaad drawing week. Combine that with me focusing so much on buffer building, and you get a barrage of Precocious news posts instead of zesty content!

Buuuuut, I have two new commissions to work on now, so let's TRY to get this pencil working. Usually I offer many sketches for new projects, but today I only offer one and a half for you, because that's all that was remotely showable. Clients, feel free to send me back to the drawing board and/or offer up some more suggestions.



Edit: Here's a second Autumn possibility, by request!



The first commission is to show Autumn asleep, dreaming of blackmail. I chose to show her napping against an Ottoman, clutching her beloved binder.

And here we have a fun one: Bud and Ditzy Doo (or Derpy, if you please) enjoying muffins together! Despite liking ponies, I do not draw ponies unless prompted - so getting a good Ditzy was really hard. Forgive me for the quickly-sketched Bud. He's mostly there to show how the composition will look. (I drew too close to the page's edge and couldn't fit a proper-sized Bud in anyway.)

Heeeeeerrrreeee's Quincy!

And the first batch of watercolors is complete. I'm ready for a second batch now!

The reason you only see Quincy and not Yvette is because I totally forgot to take pictures of them before shipping. Yvette was already gone by the time I realized it, but Quincy was still sitting around in an envelope. I ripped it open, snapped a photo and taped it back up again! Hooray for absent-minded artists!

(Oh, and I saw your request, Slick Kat, and gave you a reply. )

Struggling with commissions

I haven't been the most professional artist of late, and that kills me. I've abused the kindness of some clients who gave me no deadlines for work, and the weeks have flown by with little progress due to business stuff, illnesses and general burnout. Mix in some temperamental artist antics and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Over the next few weeks, my goal is to wrap up all the loose ends I have so I can finally move on to new projects. Up first: A commission that's been driving me batty.

The theme here is to expand on the newscaster from strip #822 and show the kids invading his studio. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to compose that image, and it sat around in its early stages for far too long. So I'm throwing it out and starting over!



This sketch was based off the old idea, where the newscaster was freaking out at his desk as the world around him erupted into chaos. In this attempt, I threw all the kids at the news desk, with the regular anchors bound and gagged in the background. It's rather static and boring, so I tried to think of ways to increase the action.



The new idea was to have the guy dragged away from his news desk. I like this dynamic a lot more, but now I'm struggling to figure out what exactly goes on in the background. In this sketch, I'm still clinging to the idea of Autumn taking over as the anchor. It amuses me. Not shown is an idea to have Tiffany take over as weather girl. I like both ideas, but there's only so much background space to go around... and me zooming out would both minimize the characters and double my work as I'd spend all my time drawing difficult background elements that would add nothing to the piece.

The easy solution would be expand to a larger paper size, but that's not the piece that was paid for, and it would cause a lot more pain in shipping to the UK. Plus, a larger piece would extend the client's wait even longer.

I need to make myself use space better instead. If I want Autumn at the desk, I have to fight perspective to make it look right, or fudge it a bit. In the above sketch, the news desk is curved in the wrong direction. It's one of those odd situations where wrong looks more right than right, since the incorrect curve helps move the eye around the piece. I'll likely face similar issues with the backdrop to the news desk if I keep this perspective. I could always turn the desk and the background more towards the viewer, but that would confuse the direction of the kids dragging off anchorman. Ugh. Why can I not lay this out properly? And this is all without factoring in Tiffany's location! With what I have now, I only see two viable options: Have her climbing the sets in the background or her have atop a camera rig.

So, yeah, back to the drawing board for me. I hate hate that time keeps ticking by with this, but I want to make sure I get it right!

Brains never cooperate

What you see here is the very first concept sketch for the main character of a comic that I will likely NEVER DO. It is awkward and awful, but that isn't uncommon for first tries. Don't judge me harshly over it.

So why am I sharing? Because I can't get this damn thing out of my mind! I know I don't have time for it. I know I don't have the drawing chops for it (yet). I don't really have any idea how to go about writing it. I'm not sure I care enough to bother finding out. BUT MY BRAIN REFUSES TO BACK DOWN FROM A CHALLENGE!

It started as a thought exercise. I looked at a genre I've avoided like the plague ever since I first started crafting stories in my head and asked myself, "Can I pull this off if I tried?" In this case, the genre was... high school slice of life? With teenagers? And relationship drama? Dude, have you checked out Precocious? Not only does it feature only one teen (who is rarest of rare in character appearances) but it's not big on relationship gobbledygook. The kids are too young for that and the parents are all locked into stable, happy relationships. Looking back over allll the stories I've composed in my head over allllll these years... VERY FEW TEENS. Even when I *was* a teen, all my stories involved adults.

I thought this would be a quick exercise, as I drew a complete blank on how I would approach something so foreign to me. Then frigging Alanis Morrissette came on my iTunes playlist with the song "8 Easy Steps." In the past, I had fun matching all the personality flaws listed in the song with characters from a story I've had in my head since I was a teen. This was a fantasy tale, with every main character over 18. But what if... what if I used those long-established characters and turned them into awkward modern high schoolers? It's a plan so stupid that it... worked? I was seeing characters I've known for half my life in an entirely new context, and it was fun figuring out how their fantasy story quirks would translate. Suddenly my mind wanted to ride this wave and see how far it could go.

Of course, there's still the problem of composing a story. Just as my thought exercise into trying to write a superhero story yielded the promising concept of The Utopians, this exercise also gave me just enough mental rope to hang myself. The Utopians is going to stall forever unless I bring in a friend who knows their supers to help me get some basic concepts and pacing down. This idea is also going to languish until I settle on my storytelling angle - and that's not even factoring in the art requirements of this concept being far more than I can currently handle! But my brain is too stubborn to admit defeat.

AND IT'S ALMOST CERTAINLY NOT EVEN WORTH THE TROUBLE! *bangs head on desk*

Stupid brain.

Oh, right. I have a blog.

So I'm sitting here, putting together the donation packets for mailing tomorrow when I realize I HAVEN'T SHARED ANYTHING I'VE BEEN WORKING ON IN DAYS!

What can I say, I've been immensely self-absorbed. (Also, much of my work wasn't blog-worthy.) My solution to the recent funk was to lock myself away and ignore everything else in the world. Not the brightest thing to do, but it's working!

So here's the final version of the Skull Mountain commission. (At least, I hope so.) That's my first offering. To make up for my slacking off, I think I'll have to blog nonstop for the next few weeks. (Yeah, we'll see if I can pull that off...)

Splashdown

Apologies to all again. Still in a work funk, but I'm slowly trying to catch up.

Today's offering is the next step of the Skull Mountain commission. I blue lined the initial sketch, went back over it in blue pencil to flesh out the details and then did a pass with ink. Using this, I will then employ my lightbox to trace the final images in colored pencil and begin the coloring process. I want to have this whole thing done by Friday, since this is a time-dependent piece.

If you're wondering about that other sketch I wanted to have done the other day - it's still in limbo. I've got it about 60-70% figured out, but I'm not satisfied yet. Not happy that I'm dragging on this stuff, but that's how these funks go. As soon as I get some momentum back, I should be able to pull ahead again. Such is the temperamental ways of the artist.

To hasten my return to glory, I think I should shelve the other commission pieces for a few days and grind out some Precocious strips. I'm down to my last week of buffer and the anxiety to keep ahead is overtaking the sense of security that started my productive movement. I already have next week's strips inked, so they only need lettering and coloring. The real pressure is coming from the week after that, because that is when I plan on having Bonus Comics Day. That means I need 21 strips done for then instead of the usual 7. Scripting on those is done, and pencils have begun - so my work load is not nearly as scary as it seems. I just have to, y'know, spend my days working. I keep forgetting that.

Fighting with the paint demons

When I first thought of today's comic, I immediately went on Twitter and announced I had an idea that was completely unusable due to the effort involved. And then I somehow tried to do it anyway. I'm not sure if that was the best idea.

My inspiration for this strip was to have the characters find themselves depicted as demons in a painting reminiscent of the hell portion of "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch. The catch was, in order for the gag to work, the final panel had to really look like a painting of that style. That meant figuring out the most time-effective way of pulling off something that could pass as a detail of an oil painting.

The first attempt was a 12x12" canvas with acrylic paints. I didn't get far in before I realized the layers of paint needed meant a lot more time going into it than expected - and that I lack the tiny brushes (and skill for detail) to pull this off. Rather than give up, I switched methods. This time I whipped out my watercolor pencils and drew a version of the scene I wanted. It wasn't looking great, but I thought I could fix it - so I brought out the REAL watercolors next and started dumping more layers on it. Eventually, I worried the piece was getting muddy, so I went in and used a black tech pen to sharpen some edges. The result was the piece you see above.

At this point, I was committed. I had put most of one day's work into one panel of one strip for a gag that iffy at best - but I was not about to throw it all away! The brush stroke effect wasn't really there, the composition was too hokey and the background colors weren't deep enough. To fix that, I turned to Photoshop. Right away, I suffered the consequences of leaving the entire piece too light, as every little tweak drained the lighter details away. I tried a few filters to make it look more painting-like, but got mediocre results. The final version ended up with me throwing the watercolor filter in over my original watercolors and adding some shadows. I'm not sure how effective the result is for the final strip, but it's all I could do with the piece I created.

Maybe I should have gone with a throwaway gag about the gallery coffee shop instead...

Ha! Ha! I'm drawing background characters!

With the current Precocious storyline, I'm starting to push myself artistically. By moving characters outside of the standard environments and into the big city, I can no longer rely on simple color schemes to indicate the settings - I need to draw some backgrounds! And once I draw those backgrounds, however simple they may be, I must then populate them with bystanders! Needless to say I am both excited and terrified. I need the challenge. I need the practice. I need to make sure I get strips done for every day. SO NO GOOFING OFF!

So far, I have put zero planning into what background characters looks like. I jump in with my pencil, scribble a body and fill in details on a whim. That works ok, I guess, but maybe I should try to do something will all these extras? I suppose this is a good time to hand out cameos, but I draw cartoon doggies and kitties. That greatly limits who I can show off. (Although I'm willing to furrify a person, if asked.) There's also the fact that my style is so simple, any cameo renditions would be largely unrecognizable - especially when those characters end up only being 10 pixels high in the final comic. Eh. Who knows?

You know what, this blog totally sucks. Blogger's constant glitchery has totally thrown me off of what was a rather weak idea for a post in the first place. I'm posting it anyway (assuming Blogger works) so it can count towards my blog quote, but I'm gonna feel bad about it. I'll need to make it up to everyone later.

At least this awful post is the product of lots of non-awful work and progress!

A great idea, for more capable hands...

So last quarter I took a painting course at SCAD. It was a class of 15 senior painting majors - and me, a SEQA major whose painting experience peaked at painting 102. It was... brutal. My classmates had no desire to welcome anyone new, especially an evil outsider. My professor, while kind, was frustrated to have to deal with someone with so little painting experience. And, of course, I met this challenge with a full-on melt down due to this coinciding with the loss of my grandparents.

Come midterms, I had to show work I knew was weak and, boy, did they let me have it. It wasn't just pointing out that the work was bad, but they treated me as hopelessly ignorant. I wasn't a real painter. To them, I was someone coming into their territory with the arrogance that I could do their job better without any training. They were out for blood.

My reaction to this critique? A big ol' SCREW YOU to everyone involved! You know what? Cartoonists aren't inferior beings! They have every right to be displayed on gallery walls, and I was going to make sure that happened! Not only was I glorifying myself to taunt them, but I designed my series to allow me to use (the horror) store-bought canvasses I already had on hand. (In this class, if you didn't shell out the crazy money and spend all those hours of effort with construction and gesso, you weren't a real painter.) Any questions were hand waved by me claiming it was part of the concept - and concept is king in the art world!

As malicious as my motives were, this isn't a bad idea at all. It would be fun to be the painter who set out to paint portraits of webcomics' best and brightest. I was thrilled to be able to paint portraits of cartoonists I know and admire!

There was only one problem: I was still in a major funk. The reason I've held off from sharing these paintings until now is because, frankly, they aren't strong enough. I care about the people in these pictures and I wanted to do the best for them, so anything short of perfect would not do! I'd really like to see what I could accomplish with a redo and a mind with more clarity. Maybe, one day, this webcartoonist project could be resurrected and become something after all.

If you think I'm doing the typical self-loathing artist shtick here, then consider this merely the pendulum swinging back. For the second half of my painting class, I pretended I was nothing but gung-ho about this series. I put on my best BS face and enthusiastically explained how every mistake and bit of awkwardness was actually deliberate execution of my concept. For my critique, I put a smile on my face and talked boldly - even going to the point where I replaced my proposed sixth portrait with a tiny "to be continued" sign that was meant to mimic the end of a comic issue. (Note the arrangement of the portraits loosely resembles a comic book page.) While they frowned upon the fact the "to be continued" piece was clearly done the morning of - it might not have even been dry when I hung it - they bought my reasoning! Even though it was clear to everyone that I wasn't very good that quarter, my "conviction" salvaged my grade.

And, you know what, I do have conviction about this project. It SHOULD Be awesome. I just needs a better painter behind it. (And maybe, one day, that better painter could be me.)

Since you're dying to know, here are my subjects:

Top-left: Isabel Marks of Namir Deiter

Top-right: Jimmy Misanthrope of Agents of the Endtimes

Mid-left: Sarah 'Pickles' Dill of Distillum

Mid-right: Yeah, that's me. It was the prof's idea and I went with it.

Bottom: Irene Pitcairn of The Elves of LlueGarnok

Much love to all of them for allowing me to paint them. Much apologies to them for coming up a bit short. YOU WILL BE AVENGED!

Curse you, cartoon animals!

(I'm gonna *try* to get this blog going again, but I make no promises about regular updates yet!)

When I first conceived of what would become Precocious, my characters were all human. They stayed human in my mind in all the years between inception and when I decided to give the strip a go. Then, suddenly, CRITTERS! What made me change?

First, I'd always had an affinity for what I called "philosophizing animal" strips. I thought that adapting animal forms would add a level of cuteness to the strip that would help me out.

Second, and I'm not sure I should admit this, it was a practical choice to get my cartooning earlier. Let the record show I was/am a rather inept cartoonist. I've never had a natural talent for it and I'm only where I am now because passion overrode the shame of poor drawing skills. The thing about cartoon animals - the human eye is WAY more tolerant of them. Think of all the cartoon mice you've seen - they all look completely different from each other, but we readily accept them as mice. Anthropomorphic animals aren't real and we are more likely to accept the artist's vision. When it comes to drawing humans, we all know what humans look like. Looking at humans drawn by an artist with a shaky, unformed style (like me!) draws the eye right to all the inaccuracies and errors. It takes the reader out of the moment and doesn't create a pleasant reading experience. By going with cartoon animals, I was able to launch the strip much earlier in my stylistic development that if I had chosen humans.

Finally, I chose animal forms because it create a separation from real life. It let me craft my own world, with its own rules, in which my characters could play. My goal was to create something universal; something that could be read decades down the road and still be understood. By keeping my universe to itself, I could avoid taking easy shots at topical humor that might not be remembered in the eyes of history. It was a good idea at the time, but it's gotten me into a heap of trouble in practice.

First of all, I clearly haven't avoided topical humor and real life references completely. Ignoring reality completely is a great way to limit one's storytelling potential. So here I am, having my cake and eating it too - praying no one thinks too hard about things. "But if everyone here is an animal, does that mean those famous people being referenced are animals too?" AAAARRRGGGHHH! I fully intend to never address it, but is sweeping it under the rug really an acceptable solution? It *has* to be.

Cheap as it is, I have to go with the "it's just a comic strip" excuse. If I think the gag is good, I invoke the rule of funny and go with it. It's sloppy, but freeing. If I *didn't* rely on this principle, I would be paralyzed. While, ideally, I ably handle both, I'll always focus on humor more than continuity.

Using animal characters just makes things worse for me when it comes to these issues. Sure, I can say over and over they are merely meant to be cutified humans and are thus treated as humans - or point out my choice of dog/cat depiction was mostly an attempted ship-sinking visual cue on character compatibility - but I put that issue out there and I have to deal with the consequences. "Dogs can't eat chocolate!" "They are eating pork! Did they murder an anthro pig?" "Why won't you introduce some bunnies to the strip?" "Why can't a dog marry a cat?"

*head explodes*

For me, the animal thing was just another twist on standard comic surreality. The main characters almost never change their outfits! No one ages, yet they (sometimes) retain memories of past years' events! Little details constantly shift around to best fit the joke! If we can accept that (and, yes, some of us can't) then we should be able to gloss over the animal thing. After all, aside from two regrettable strips acknowledging that they have tails, have they EVER mentioned anything about being animals?

I hope this doesn't sound too much like complaining. It's more of me rambling to get my thoughts out. The reason people ASK these questions is because people CARE about the comic - and that is the most important thing. I will gladly frustrate readers with my animal creations, and suffer the consequences, if it means I have readers! It's also my fault for playing both hard and loose with continuity. Some elements of the strip are locked into place. Others, which I don't deem as important, can change from day to day. That's lazy cartooning on my part, and I apologize for it.

The motivation behind the creation of this essay comes from my struggles with Monday's strip. In this arc, I am taking the kids to the "city." I've never given the city a name, but for all intents and purposes it's Washington DC. I'm struggling with how much reality to allow into a highly fictional comic. Do I include the highly-recognizable monuments? Do I make lots of DC references? Do I name drop the museums they might visit? Every time I add in a real-world reference, I open myself up to the "so... how does this jive with animals?" scrutiny.

I wish I had a good solution, but right now I'm set to cruise forward with a "don't think too hard" message - which kinda conflicts with a comic that (in theory) praises intelligence and intellectual curiosity, doesn't it? I fail. :-(