New Copper Road! + Friend Code swapping!

It's the first of the month, so here comes your update! Last month's Copper Roads are now in the archive, for your re-reading and commenting pleasure, and we're starting off a new month of voting with a new comic! Vote here to see it, and keep Precocious high up and visible, making it easier for potential readers to find the comic!

Recently, I have been having a real rough time with my health, and I've been very limited in how much work I can get done. When I get like this, I need something to take my mind off the pain and frustration, so I pick up a video game. This time, my mission was to finally complete my Pokedex in Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. It took far less time than expected, thanks to me having so many past games to steal from - and it meant running two games at the same time. Aww yeah! Rather that wallow in shame, I made a comic!

And there are geeky ulterior motives here. I'm still not doing well, so I'll be Pokemonning a little bit longer. Now that I'm active on two units, I realized I messed up my Friend Safaris. My 3DS' safari was already pretty weak, thanks to so many who never got online when I was (probably because those were Animal Crossing players), and now my games with that safari are banished to the 2DS, which has almost NO FRIENDS. Pokemon players, I call upon you to fix that!

Get on your DS, add my friend codes, and then drop your codes into my Tumblr Ask Box so I can have them in the same place for easy access.  I'll add you, then leave my games sitting online in hopes that you're doing the same. If you're a Pokemon Master and we're online together, that means our Friend Safaris get the special third resident - and hidden abilities start appearing!  (Especially if you have Smeargle, Pancham, Ninetails, Magneton or Sneasel!)

My 3DS friend code: 4596-9566-6514
(Safari bonus: Braixen! It's a Pingo clone generator!)

My 2DS friend code: 2337-4877-7383
(Safari bonus: Heracross!)

Since it's in the archive, above is a handy link to the bonus comic for the current class picture day story! Click it to go the archive page.

New Copper Road + Saturday Stream!

I threatened to do this. And then I did it. Doctor Who returns, Doctor Hu returns. (I guess I should have been more specific with my tease...) Anyway, vote on TWC to see this new comic! If you missed yesterday's Copper Road, let this be a lesson to you. Read Precocious and vote for Precocious every day! Comics keep flying around!

And, yes, I did totally break the "Oh, ____!" chain for this impulsive Doctor fun. I'll draw and post that one next week sometime.

New Copper Road! 6/6/12

Last week, I made an Avengers-themed comic, even though I haven't seen the film. This week, let's do it again with the Hunger Games! Vote here to see it! Bonus: Fan fiction.

New Copper Road! 5/23/12

If you've been following along with Twitter and the blog, you'll know I'm Trekking again. (I'm almost done! So sad!) This Copper Road is for you Next Generation geeks out there. As for the rest of you? Go watch all seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. Then this comic will be funny.

Anyway, vote to see the fun!

Your webcartoonist has evolved!

When writing the most recent news post in the site, I wrote the line in the title. I quickly deleted it, but the thought got in my head. "What kind of Pokemon would I be?" I had to find out!

And so began a sage of putting too much thought into something silly! The sketchbook came out and the ideas started flowing. As an intense Pokemon player and insane nerd, I put a lot of care into all the little details. The result...

Meet Pokemon Chrispy!



The first step in Pokemon creation was choosing my type. I quickly settled on dark, as it both fits with my sense of humor and reflects on my tendency to harp on the negative.

Next up, I needed to figure out what form my Pokemon would take. I figured a kitty pokemon fit best because I wuv kitties, I draw kitties and, well, it meant my evolution could be based on a Savannah cat! (See below.) It all fits!

And now the over-analysis begins. I got conceptual. What kind of Pokemon role player would I be? Well, I'm a impulsive type who can do wonders when I get going - but I'm hardly durable. Hitting me back hard makes me crumble. It seems obvious to me - a glass cannon Special attack sweeper! I hit the battlefield, throw everything I have at the opponent and hope to hell they don't survive it, because one good hit will do me in.

Now for some details. Every pokemon gets a nature and special ability. For nature, I chose to go with timid. Not only is that me, but in-game, that means I get increased speed at the cost of physical strength - it's the most common nature of actual special attack sweepers! For ability, I knew this one going in: Defeatist. Not a positive reflection of me, but recently accurate. In-game, this a pokemon with a defeatist ability is a juggernaut - right up until things get difficult. If their HP gets reduced below halfway, the pokemon "gives up" and only fights half as hard. A pokemon can also carry a held item. I could pessimist here and give myself a ring target, which means every attack always hits me, but I'm going to highlight my potential and give myself some wise glasses, which slightly powers up my attacks. (Plus, yanno, I'm wearing glasses.)

What moves would I have for the unevolved Chrispy? He's a dark type, so he needs a dark move. Night Daze seemed the best fit, due to the general sleep cycle of a cartoonist. I also threw in Nasty Plot for good measure, which is perfect for the wannabe looking to break through to top tiers. I'm an artist, so it seems only right I get to use the move Sketch. (The bonus here being that, in competitive pokemon battling, me having sketch and decent base stats would make me highly sought after! It's nice to be desired!) Finally, I had to go with the move I use the most in real life: Withdraw. Withdraw boosts one's defense up one level - which is useless for a defeatist pokemon as all it means is that the opponent gets one free turn to disable you. So, yeah, it fits.

But this isn't all about sadness and sucking. I SAID I EVOLVED, DAMMIT! I've become new! I've become better! I've become... Chrisperior!

This grand evolution adds on a new type: Fire! Because I'm on fire! Get it? Get it? Uh... moving on.

I get new moves! Energy Ball not only symbolizes my new productivity, but it is a GREAT move for a dark/fire type pokemon! Overheat utilizes the new fire typing and hints at how easily I could burn myself out if I push too hard too fast, as the move sharply reduces my stats after I use it. Focus blast is another great competitive move that can also represent my struggle with ADHD. Focus blast gets the job done great... when it hits. It's, unfortunately, not that reliable. Yeah, that fits.

It's time upgrade my held item from one set of glasses to another. Enter the choice specs, which limits you to one move but makes that move super-powerful. Let's face it, that's my best-case scenario as a cartoonist. I'm not that versatile. If I can make sure the one thing I *can* do is done well, that's a win for me.

I'll let the defeatist nature stay for now, as the threat of relapse constantly looms. Knowing how quickly things can turn south, even when one is the Mary Sue of the Pokemon world, can hopefully keep alert. The second I start slacking off and taking things for granted, the bad habits get back in. There is another ability options, should a dream world Chrispy appear: Moody. Moody means I'd have wild mood (stat) swings every turn. Good for painting me as unstable, yet functional, but it's also a WAY overpowered ability in the long run when game play is concerned. I'm not that conceited to give myself any credit like that quite yet.

So, yeah, I put in WAY too much thought here and spent WAY too much time on this one gag. Whatever, man. It was a fun thought exercise and I'm quite pleased with the results.

I am not Commander Riker

Growing the beard does nothing to improve my life, appearance or the general quality of all things surrounding me - yet I keep growing one anyway!

Why? First, because I am profoundly lazy. As I am decidedly non-wolfman, my beard doesn't grow with any aggressive speed. There's not much beard change from day to day, so it's very easy to shrug my shoulders and say, "Meh, I'll tackle it tomorrow." As time went on, the beard procrastination time grew longer and longer - until I actually had a REAL. FRIGGIN. BEARD. That was unexpected.

Compounding my laziness is my bathroom's plumbing. For some reason, the water in the sink takes a long time to heat up. So every morning, when I would plan to shave, I would stumble over to the sink, turn it on, wait a minute, give up and return to bed for a few more precious minutes of sleep. I decided to go with the crazy beard thing in Savannah. It makes me look like a proper art student! I even grew to like having a moderate amount of facial hair.

But the thing about hair is that it grows, and nice beards look nice for a limited time. Sure, I could buy a beard trimmer and just use that - but implies I am committed to having a beard. Even though I've rocked facial hair for most of the past year, I still don't consider myself a bearded dude. All cartoon Chrispys drawn by me are clean-shaven! No, my beard will only exist as a sign of laziness and insanity! I'll let it grow until it become truly hideous, shave it off and start the cycle anew.

A few weeks ago, the time to shave came. Like a true lazy person, I shrugged it off and said I'd do it the next day. There was only one problem: THE HOCKEY PLAYOFFS STARTED THAT DAY!

It's a tradition in hockey to grow a playoff beard while your team is in the playoffs, and I was going to partake in that tradition this year. If I shaved after the playoffs started, that would jinx my team. But... but I REALLY needed to shave!

Well, seeing as my team is the Washington Capitals, who are known for choking in the playoffs year after year, I figured that problem would take care of itself. And if they succeeded, DUDE, MY TEAM IS WINNING! A crazy "I'm homeless and unstable" beard is TOTALLY worth that! Sure enough, the Caps knocked out their first round opponent with relative ease. Go beard!

And then round two began. Loss. Loss. Loss. The Caps are still alive, but things are as bleak as they could be. You know what, guys? You don't need my beard's help any more. Shortly after the game ended today in heartbreaking fashion, I walked to the bathroom and grabbed my razor. I am done with you, playoff beard!

Despite my massive jinxing of my team, I will continue to root for the Caps to pull the miracle. They don't need my beard to succeed - THE MAGIC WAS IN THEM THE WHOLE TIME!

(Yeah, they're gonna get swept and it's all my fault.)

I'm so excited! I'm so scared!!!

Look! Look! A page of sketches! It's not much, but it's more Precocious stuff than I've drawn in a loooong time.

What does this mean? It means I can do some light drawing and not DIE. What does THAT mean? It means nothing until I can prove that I can handle the drawing load that all my grad school make up work entails. That is where I'm scared. I'm already 5 days behind in my plan to catch up, and I'm not entirely certain I can handle this yet. Whatever. All I can do is try!

I'm starting out my road to recovery with simple stuff, like sketchbook work and Precocious. (Yes, compared to grad school, Precocious drawing is super easy.) If I get my concepts thumbnailed and ready to go, then I can ease into the big stuff next week. Doing the math, I need to average a page a day. That seems crazy right now, but each day I hope I can draw a little more. For now, I need to get myself disciplined and DO SOME RESEARCH! What I'm saying is... my holiday season is over. Chrispmas is cancelled. It's time to work.

So, yeah. Excited to be drawing again. Scared to death that.... *ahem* THERE'S NO TIME! THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME!

(Oh yeah... like the photo? It was taken by my NEW MACBOOK PRO! It's so shiny and awesome, I don't know what to do with it!)

A pen and ink lifestyle

Instead of sketching today I watched Deep Space Nine DVDs. Ok, I also worked on actual factual comics, but that doesn't sound as pathetic. Or maybe it does, depending on how you value such things. So the bad news is today's post is rather boring. The good news is that you care way more about the comics than this blog, so the sacrifice is worth it! Work on this week's Precocious is moving nicely, and the next Copper Road is ready to go!

I had planned to finish up the St. Tiffany painting today, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. (I hope.) Truth is, I was too lazy to set things up today for painting. It requires me rearranging the room a bit, and some days that's more energy than I can muster. Tomorrow I'll redecorate, I swear! Crap, tomorrow I also have to get the Sunday strip ready to ship off to the colorist too! I swear! Damn, tomorrow I'm gonna have to work for real! I swear!

I also wasted a perfectly good blog title on a perfectly bad blog post. I swear...

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)

Cosplaying

Oh, Quincy, you are fun to use because you have no shame about enjoying your passions. Meanwhile, I whip myself and wear a hairshirt every time I play Pokemon. (My favorite part: The breeding! *hangs head*)

Here are some sketches I did for the next Copper Road strip. How much dorky dress-up can I fit in? I came up short in anime cosplaying. I don't know what's popular and well-known in anime circles anymore. Heck, I don't know what's going on anywhere with these kids these days. I'm old and useless! *sob*

Hey, free pen!

Today marked the beginning of a long and arduous journey that is my return to dental health. Unfortunately, I am cursed with pathetically weak teeth - They dissolve in water! - and this means I'm a walking cavity factory!

Today was my first drilling, with a cleaning on top! During this, I was introduced to a device that is shoved into my mouth to force my jaw open no matter what - with a suction device added as well. In sci-fi movies, this thing would DRAIN MY SOUL. To top off the sci-fi fun, I was flat on my back, with a soul-sucker in my mouth, looking up at a tv screen, wearing headphones playing the audio and two bright lifts (THERE! ARE! TWO! LIGHTS!) over my head. It was not unlike a brainwashing scene... if there was some evil conspiracy for me to memorize ESPN highlights. (I wouldn't put it past ESPN to do that.)

Anyway, I'm sort of in pain right now. I don't remember former drillings hurting this bad - and I'm out of druuuuugggggsssss. (Advil.) Eh, on the bright side, the dentist gives out freebies! ("Free" meaning "makes you feel better after the dental bill.") I have some magnets, some strawberry-scented lip balm and, woohoo, a new pen! Which I used to make the above drawings! It's a uni ball vision elite, and actually quite nice. I must steal another when I go back! They can afford to give it up, considering I'm such a cash cow for them. My face is a dental ATM.

I'm attacking the darkness!

This is it, the final sketch of the latest sketchbook to be conquered by my mighty pencil! It took forever to finish this bugger, since all my drawing time was spent on the comic, but that's a good thing.

As my life is so comic-centered, what you see here is prep work for next Sunday's Copper Road. It's clear to anyone who knows the signs what it's about. Gotta say, Vincent would be a terrible dungeon master, but sacrifices must be made if Quincy is going to play along to give Kaitlyn an introduction. Besides, RULE OF FUNNY! No questioning it!

Anyway, today is going to be a production day. (Assuming all goes as planned.) I have to finish this week's Precocious strips and start on the next batch. I'm out of Sunday scripts, so that may skipped over. Even when I'm ahead in the dailies (which hasn't been for weeks now) Sundays always get done last minute, so this is nothing new. This is why I have to work in batches. Creativity is not a constant stream, and even if it was it would not be homogeneous. A constant flow of creativity is sometimes mostly paintings, sometimes all about sketching, sometimes writing, etc. Time of low creativity can bring a flow of high grinding productivity, such as lining templates, lettering or a good focused inking session. I have to play it the best I can and go with the flow. I've wanted to ink for days, but creativity has been telling me to paint. I have one last day to be whimsical before cruel deadlines rear their ugly heads, but let's hope it doesn't get that far.

Drawing inspiration from strange places

I started work on a new large-format painting! Hey, after the bite-sized babies, 3'x2' is MASSIVE!

Why did I start painting instead of working on all the Precocious stuff I need to do? Blame my iPhone.

I was connecting it to charge when I looked at my current wallpaper. It's a dim shot of one of my bite-sized paintings. (This room has terrible lighting.) I wanted something brighter, so I searched the room for something well-lit. No dice. Maybe if the painting was bigger it would show up better... so I grabbed one of my giants from the other room and snapped a shot of that. (Lighting was still too dim, but it's a NEW dim wallpaper!)

Holding that massive work of art in my hands inspired me! I had some bigger canvases lying around and it was about time I started working on them. Screw Precocious, I want to paint circle-ish things! In Precocious I have to draw things I am rather unskilled at drawing, leading to unsatisfactory results. In painting, I can do whatever the heck I want!

It's a nice start, but I'm not certain where to go next with it. Oh well. It's not a problem as I'm sure I'll have something in mind by the time I can get back to working on it.

Now, back to drawing some Precocious strips! Dammit.

Oh, snap! I forgot Thursday existed!

Well, here's what I was GOING to post before I forgot that midnight marks the end of the day!

As you can see, I've been hard at work at making comics. I've also been hard at work actively goofing off with video games. (Final Fantasy VII, a decade behind the curve!) Add in a bit of geeky socializing and no need for a morning alarm, and you get a distracted Chrispy.

Oh well. I'll try to get another post together later. My daily blog streak has been broken, but I'll even things out by doubling up today!

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?

Voting for my site on toplists is way down across the board, and I can't help but think it's due to my lack of vote incentives. That, or EVERYONE HATES ME NOW!

Anyway, I apologize for the incentives becoming more sporadic. I've been scrambling recently and I figured the meaty stuff should get the most attention. I never want to miss a comic update, and it's a personal goal to make a blog post every day - even if the post sucks. (I'll try harder!)

So, fickle incentive people, I do vow to get the first Copper Road ready for incentivizing soon. I have to get back from DC, to a more work-compatible environment, before anything big gets done. I'm aiming for Monday the 17th as Copper Road's launch, but we'll see.

Until then, I'm aiming for two incentives per week - and that means I need one soon! Here's to hoping inspiration strikes!

More final fantasizing

Continuing the sketches of my kids as Final Fantasy VII characters, I up the ante with this jolly twofer. Cait Sith is a cat that rides atop a big, white, cuddly puppet beast. Well, hey, Bud has a big, white and cuddly father...

I'll confess: This sketch cracks me up something fierce. I keep giggling like a moron.

Old School Gaming

Despite writing a gamer into my comic, I'm not the gamer type. In fact, I am YEARS behind the curve. Gaming for tonight: PLAYSTATION ONE GLORY! We started off with Twisted Metal 2 and now we're making our first foray into the classic Final Fantasy VII - if Jacob as Cloud wasn't enough to clue you in. Yeah, we're just a bit behind the curve here.

I put on my robe and wizard hat

Edit: Hey, disappointed Googlers! Check out my comic strip, Precocious! It's far more entertaining than this post!

Rather than be internet social, which I must do if I have to beg for PHP assistance in getting the new website ready, I decided to go the other way. I started watching Battlestar Galactica again and sketched some outsider characters. Quincy is the strip's designated uber-nerd, so he seemed an appropriate subject. On that note, Quincy outgeeks me and it's rare that I can make a reference of which he would approve. This is why he's on the OTHER side of the classroom.

The bad, the ugly and the good

How NOT to take a negative review: A Chrispy Story.

I woke up today to find out WebcomicZ had posted a scathing guest review of my strip. It attacked pretty much everything, from the writing to the characters to the whole concept, and often did so in rather impolite ways. Now, I can take some negative - as a person who is generally unfiltered, I'd be a hypocrite if I had thin skin - but some of that review really threw me off. Dude said my naming sucked because I didn't give my fox character a fox-ish last name! A pingo is a mound of dirt and ice in the polar regions. Autumn was formerly a genius in public school who rose above the others and took a cold view towards the flatness around her. So, yeah, totally not apt at all. I think I like that name a bit more than Foxett McFoxfox. He also said giving my main character the last name of Oven was stupid because he wasn't even a chef. One of Bud Oven's characteristics is that, yes, he's an excellent chef. There was an entire intro arc written around how he got his name!

So, bleary-eyed, I went and did something stupid. I knew WebcomicZ had been looking to run a negative review - and that this was the first review to go up since then - and I expressed that I was shocked to be the one targeted. (I know, I know. Not thinking.) I followed it up by saying I reacted in shock and that the dude was entitled to his opinion - but I did this all publicly on Twitter. In stepped some defenders - whose points were all entirely valid, by the way - and suddenly I've caused an incident by complaining. It was a terrible way to react, and the regret level rose when WebcomicZ CHANGED THE REVIEW to something much shorter. The short review cut out all the pettiness and was more direct in why he didn't like it. I'm perfectly fine with it, since the points are fairly justifiable, but the way that review came about left a bad taste in my mouth. WebcomicZ claims he changed it because the author requested it, not knowing of the twitter debacle. Either way, the original is still up there if you check out Precocious' page on WebcomicZ, so I don't feel AS BAD that it was bumped. So now I've been slammed AND I feel horribly guilty about it. Way to go, me!

Some of the things leftover in the review are apt criticisms of Precocious. Having so many characters does break the rules, and I have to be careful in balancing them. Basing my humor on story and character requires the reader to play along and catch up. (This reviewer explicitly said he had no interest in doing that, which would explain the derision. He wasn't playing by my rules and I wasn't writing to his preconceptions.) My love of complexity can be isolating, and I still haven't learn the lessons of keeping it short term. This, however, is something I can control. It's my bad for no doing so.

Other quibbles are standard rookie fare. Precocious is only 6 months old, and sometimes that shows. I was too verbose in the beginning (and certainly still can be) and my writing isn't always crisp. Unfortunately, this is something I've learned only comes with time. You have to train yourself to *think* in comic form, and it's a slow process. He did hit upon a contradiction between my style and format. Story telling is normally reserved for eternal-punchline Mary Worth and not for humor strips, but I go against the grain. Depending on who you are, it's good or bad. I do it because in the webcomic format I can point readers to the start of a story - and the full archive is right there for you. In a newspaper format, storytelling like that would not be wise. I can understand the conflict of people getting to this strip with wrong expectations.

The same goes with the visual style. My characters do share the same general form. This is no different than the first six months of any other strip of this type. As time goes by, the characters will slowly become more distinguished. It's an organic process and I won't lose any sleep over it. Besides, I think it takes some willful ignorance to not be able to tell the characters apart. They may have similar forms, but each has their distinguishing features. I understand new readers getting a bit confused, but to claim the cast page doesn't help distinguish my kids seems to be more a reviewer problem than mine. (I do need to be better about having the kids call each other by name.)

What I don't regret at all is having the kids fail at evil. The reviewer was upset that the kids bogged themselves down with semantics during the water balloon fight, which it exactly what SHOULD HAPPEN with them. The first arc was about these brats playing evil, but not being able to cut it. I think failed evil offers far more storytelling opportunities than having every punchline be "these kids, oh, they're so bad!" What would be the dream, having every panel four just be an explosion? Granted, that *would* be funny - for about a week. After that, it gets stale. Dragging the characters back to earth gives me far more to work with and allows for a far richer strip.

The same rant goes for the "why is this not a comic about geniuses dealing with a normal world?" Because that's not the point! Ozy and Millie did it well enough, and I wish not to tred any more in DC Simpson's footsteps than I already am. The strip is about the foolishness of elitism, be it monetary or intellectual. These kids have twisted the definition of "interesting" to fit only themelves (and those convinient to them), rendering the rest of the world inconsequential. Also, to say the parents have no commentary on the kids' actions is baffling. There was, again, an entire INTRODUCTION arc written that shows the parents are just as cracked as the children.

I'm going to cut the ranting short now before I get out of hand. Also, it's because there's silver lining GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! My application for SpiderForest was accepted! This means I have a LOT of work ahead of me to clean up my website's code, but when I do - behold the power of a fully armed and operational webcomic! (If they don't kill me for being a techie moron first.) I'm really excited to be a part of Spider Forest and I think it's the next big step in making my comic a little more awesome.

You got your painting in my cartooning

No, you got your cartooning in my painting! Hmm...

Worlds are colliding! That's right, you are looking at Precocious as a painting! I've never tried to paint my characters before, so this could be a fun experiment. Aside from the Bud/Autumn painting, I also started work on a small Tiffany piece. You'll see it in tomorrow's post.

Will I be able to pull this off? I hope so. I'm so excited! I'm so scared! *pops caffeine pill*