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!)

Brighty, shiny dayzzzzzzzz...

Ah, vanity. You are a raging, abusive bitch! I had my teeth whitened yesterday, and it was quite the hellish incident. Note: THIS WAS NOT MY IDEA! This was a "gift" to me. Woohoo!

To describe the process involved, imagine A Clockwork Orange but moved four inches down. They hold your mouth open, pack it with gauze, paint over any exposed pink stuff - because it will BURN otherwise - and apply the super whitening gel. Then the head must be held still for 15 minutes as a bright light of laser death cooks the coffee stains away. Then we repeat it! Two. More. Times. AAAAHHH!!

Screw vanity. I'm content with being a quirky artist without the need for a perfect body. I bring the sexy with a real, all-unique personality! The goal is for you to develop rose-colored glasses for everything else. Fall under my spell!

Oh yeah, and the *best* part of everything is what happens AFTER the procedure. See, the teeth are super dehydrated after the whitening, so they need to get the water back inside. And that is accomplished by way of BLINDING PAIN! The dentist calls them zingers! It's like a bunch of tiny men with a bunch of tiny rifles (and mini cannons!) reenacting Gettysburg in my mouth. Most of the time they're just firing guns into my teeth, but every so often that cannon goes off and, BOOM, I scream!

But, hey, at least I'm pretty.

Anyway, I've spent the entire day in bed medicating the pain away. I *was* going to get Saturday and Sunday done for Precocious, but instead it looks like I'll be fighting the clock on that one. I'm still in sleepy mode, ready to nap for another 18 hours. That seems like a plan!

Back, with a loving family!

Hey, y'all, the blog's back up and running! To commemorate my return, I present to you the *almost* final version of "A Loving Family."

The camera needs to painted, and a few places on Harvey needs a second coat, but I'm about one night's work away from having this done. I had thought of going pink with the background, but I have no pink paint. Since I wanted it to be uniform, I went with pistachio. It might not look it, but it's really hard to "draw" characters in paint, so I'm looking forward to going back to painting my modernist pieces.

Let's see if I can keep this daily blog going again. Also, let's see if that hiatus left any readers...

Time out

As hinted at in the last post, I'm going to spend this week in DC focusing on spending time with my family. Precocious will keep going, but I am going to take a break from blogging and skip this week's Copper Road. The next Copper Road should be up next Monday and I'll start blogging again once I have enough free time to work on something to post!

For those not in the know: My grandmother's heart just gave her a hospital trip. My grandfather has advanced Alzheimer's and requires full care, most of which has been handled by my grandmother. My mother is here to help for a few days. My brother gets back tomorrow. On Thursday, my aunt and her partner are coming to visit. There's going to be no free time! I'll barely be able to keep up with the comic. (Tonight and tomorrow are for working ahead!)

Family always comes first.

Copper Road Rage

It has been a stressful day. Grandma is out of the hospital and back her to mischievous ways, so that's good. Still, all this craziness has not been conducive to making a humor comic strips. I have Precocious strips up to Wednesday, and I should be OK with keeping that up - it's Copper Road that's killing me.

See, when I decided to switch up my storyline and integrate Copper Road into Precocious, I wasn't just sacrificing one strip. I was sacrificing two! I had two Copper Roads scripted and ready to go - and then I wrote myself into a hole! Since I extended the revolution an extra week, the tie-in Copper Road strip now can't appear for another week. Once again, I am left on Sunday night without a vote incentive. I really REALLY hate missing deadlines.

Problem is, I have nothing. I am drained. I have to focus on my family right now, and I can't sit around for scripting and drawing. There is no time for it. I'll try to get something up, but I can't make a guarantee this week will have a Copper Road either. I'm sorry.

Do not want!

It was a good day. It was TERRIBLE night. I debated not blogging at all, but I'll just say things are not fun right now. I hope good news comes tomorrow.

I'm still trying to be productive, though. I need to get myself ahead. Living deadline to deadline is not healthy for me or anyone around me.

On the road again

I'm in DC again, and will be for the next 10 days. That means it's time to set up the new studio and get back to work!

I still have a work overload - not the best time to run a extra-large Sunday - but I'll get it done. The big scary monster in the room right now is scripting. I'm four strips and a Copper Road short of where I'd like to be - and ideas aren't coming freely at the moment. No time to sit around and pout, though. Saturday is going to be very hectic, and that's without the Sunday strip construction factored in. This is the hardest test I've had yet to keep Precocious up to date, but I'm up for the challenge!

Reshuffling chaos

Now that I've changed my story around, I have the suffer the consequences. Tomorrow's strip will be up JUST IN TIME, and Copper Road remains missing. I'm loosely scripted until the middle of next week, but most strips are still in process. The timing of all this couldn't be worse, with my DC trip and all, but I'll try to fight through it.

Anyway, forgive me if all my bonus stuff is on the light side for the next week or two. I have a lot on my plate and the comic comes first.