Precocious is five years old!

Forget this New Year stuff! The most important thing about January 1st is that it's Precocious' birthday! Five years, and around 2000 comics between the archive, deleted scenes and the book bonus stories. Not too shabby! (Thanks to Isabel Marks of Namir Deiter for the gift art!)

(Want to celebrate the occasion too? Now's as good a time as any to check out all the goodies in the Precocious store!)

When I started, five years was my goal. From all my reading of dailies, I saw year five as when artist competence and character development come together to bring a comic into a golden age. Well, every year I've done this has been precocious to me. Year one of Precocious was fresh and new and exciting. Year two built upon a strong foundation and expanded the universe. Year three is when I took a major level up and committed to the goal of making Precocious my JOB and not just a hobby. Year four is when I pulled out all my tricks. Year five... this was the year I took for myself and drew what I wanted to draw. The stories from the past year were so much fun for me to write, and it was so gratifying to see so many people coming along for the ride. I told myself I'd reassess the comic at year five, and I can't imagine stopping now. I'm not done. I have so much left to tell and so much silliness to share.

2013 was a great year for the comic, but not so much for me. A toothache I thought would be a one-week inconvenience turned into a botched surgery and a year of medical hell. As the year comes to a close, I'm still in doctor limbo, dealing with chronic pain and fighting all the side-issues that come up when lengthy medical issues happen. I've been double sick for weeks thanks to a cold caught due to being in so many doctor waiting rooms, and my drawing hand is in a cast because I aggravated and old finger injury due to me playing too many video games while stuck in bed during pain downtime. (Yes, this means I'll have to be clever with next week's updates, as my buffer doesn't cover the full cast stretch.)  I am so glad to see 2013 go. It was brutal. BUT I DIDN'T MISS AN UPDATE! In you face, 2013!

Here's hoping 2014 brings me health, and chances to do all things that I wanted to do in 2013.  Book 3 is coming, and the preorder looks like it'll start in February right now. (It will be in color, and thus VERY expensive to print, so I'll really be needing your support!) The other plans? We shall see. I'm a one man operation, so I can't put in the extra work needed until I'm healthy enough. My convention schedule is likely to be scaled back, again due to health.  I'm confirmed for Fur The More, Furry Weekend Atlanta, Anthrocon and Mechacon. I'll try for SPX. Not sure about any others.

Thank you all for reading Precocious. Keep coming back. Keep contributing. Keep spreading the word.

Hey, Pokemon players! (And Tumblrfolk!)

JANUARY UPDATE: Not that most people scroll this far down, but I'm still taking friend codes.  Drawings got off-track due to an 18-day (and counting) cold. Because of course I get a devastating COLD the one year I get a flu shot. The universe has a cruel sense of humor. Oh, and I can't make up those drawings soon too, since I got my drawing hand put in a cast. Cruel sense of humor. Told ya.

Hello, I am abusing front page news posting!

For those too lazy to check out all the links on the sidebar, I'll point you to my Tumblr page. It's become a place where random sketches end up, when they should be on the sketch blog - mostly because I can mirror the post to Twitter and get more than 10 people to see them. This month I'm doing a Pokemon challenge, with a new Pokemon drawing every day. It's a fun bit of drawing warm-up for me and gives me something to share.

For you Pokemon players, you can see my friend code up there. I've got enough room to add a bunch of you, so if you're playing Pokemon and want access to my fire-type Friend Safari - which does have Autumns/Braixens - let me know your friend code. Easiest way to do it is to add my code, then put yours into my Tumblr ask box. (I also accept actual questions!) I'm looking for a few Pokemon in particular, by the way. Looking for Steel (someone give me easy access to Magnetons!) safaris most of all. Grass, Fairy and Normal safaris also loved.

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.

Guest art everywhere!

It's a SpiderForest collective lovefest today, featuring two pieces of guest art by me and the one above, by Nick Perkins of Cooties. This one was part of a Secret Santa art exchange, so apologies for just sharing this amazing piece now. Cooties is the story of a bunch of kids dealing with an alien invasion. Check it out!

As for the stuff I drew, head on over to Spare Keys for Strange Doors to see my guest art contribution. Stick around and read the comic too! It's a brilliant collection of cute and fun supernatural short stories, making for easy reading and great entertainment! Oh, and congratulate her on her babytimes, and maybe draw her something cool too!

Finally, here's *my* contribution for the SpiderForest Secret Santa, a guest comic for Silent Pirate! When I entered that draw, I admit that I was totally hoping to get Silent Pirate, as it's so cute and unique! I got what I wanted, and rewarded Ahmed with a comic that RUINS EVERYTHING. That's how I show love.

I got some special fan art!

Every time someone makes fan art for me, it's awesome - but when another busy comic creator takes the time to draw something for me, it's really special.

Ok, so I kinda asked for this one. Mark, the creator of Autumn Lake, wanted to draw something and asked for ideas. I told him to draw Precocious fan art. Instead of e-slapping my arrogant face, he did! Check it out!

This makes me happy, as Autumn Lake is one of my favorite webcomics. There's something very classic about the feel and execution of Autumn Lake, and it's that sincerity that is so appealing. Mark and I share many influences, so of course it pleases me to see another out there aiming more for timeless than trending topic. It's special, and it really needs to have more eyes viewing it. For those scared of the archive size, I suggest starting with the epic Lonely Robot saga.

Code Name: Swordplay

The lovely Darc of Code Name: Hunter asked me to do a commission piece of her character, Max, with a sword. I am happy to oblige!

I put off sketches until after my big batch of commissions were done - and they were done today. (I'm now looking for more commissions, btw.) That meant it was sketch time! For some reason I decided to go against all forms of logic in my sketches tonight. Not only did I work in ink - using a fancy new Fude pen - but I tried to up the challenge by drawing Max, a character who is not mine, from memory. I had two monitors in front of me, both with a CN:H page open for various reasons (we were actually skyping as I sketched), and yet it was TOO HARD to look up! I ended up drawing eight pages of Max. These are the only results that are not completely horrific.

Do you know what happens when you try to find sword action via Google image search? ZELDA. So many pictures of Link in action! Well, heck, let's copy that! This one was based off art of Link jumping forward and slashing his sword. While I fudged the stance a bit, the big change was the free arm. Link carries a shield.  Max... apparently he flips the bird?  I believe it was supposed to be a "come closer" hand motion, but that doesn't make that much sense with the pose either.  Man, what does one do with unshielded arms?

And then I wanted to go silly. The original sketch was just Max, upset that he broke his sword AGAIN.  But our conversation had recently touched upon a chicken in the Hunter story.  I wanted to imply Max broke his sword doing something silly... and chicken murder seemed obvious after that!  I'm sorry.

It should be noted that this sketch was originally drawn with extra limbs. Once again, I ran into non-sword arm trouble.  The first attempt, with the arm raised, looked like he was disco dancing.  I also had to excise an extra right leg.  Saddest part:  All those extra limbs were drawn, yet I didn't bother to add his tail.

I gotta say, sketching with that pen is FUN - but it's no very smart when dealing with too many unknown elements.  I'll have to spend more time with sketching before things are solid, but it's a start!

Darius Love!

Because I've been ill, Tiff Ross from The Cyantian Chronicles was a sweetheart and began working on a teenaged Tiffany watercolor.

Because she just had a birthday, I had to give a gift of my own! Here's an oblivious Darius about to get surprise snuggled by the darling Sheana!

Awww. <3

New Copper Road! - 2/11/12

Vote here to see it! It is totally historically accurate! Except not at all.

I'd like to see more challenges like the one Kaitlyn attempts in the comic. I know I plan to do more in the future. Maybe it could be a thing for me.

I'm certainly not original in using Wikipedia for a challenge, but oh well. Here's my proposed rule set. Go to the page. Hit the random button. Draw a comic inspired by your landing page. You are allowed three "re-rolls" if the content is excessively uninspiring - my test roll just now got me a New Zealand politician from the 1940's - and hitting a stub or super-tiny article is a free re-roll. Remember: If you pass on a page, there's no going back. I just passed up on the promising "Astronomy in Serbia" on my last roll to get this. Now I have to make a comic about that! The original plan was to do that and post an example, but I'm running behind today so instead I'm going to CHANGE THE SUBJECT!



Look! It's a Bud badge! This piece of art comes from Ceiling Cow, who is tabling with me at Furry Weekend Atlanta. (March 15th-18th. Be there!) If you're planning on attending FWA and you'd like to commission her for a badge or something, go give her a shout!

My Little Chrispy

Yesterday Darc suggested I draw myself as a pony, and I can never say no her! So here you go: Chrispy the unicorn! (Because unicorns are the best!)

My cutie mark is a newspaper-style comic strip, because I've been obsessed with the things since I learned to read. (Because comics are the best!)

So... who is getting an awkward portrait tomorrow?

(Because awkward portraits are the best?)

Buy more prints!

This haunting piece of fanart was done by the great Roman Wunderlich of B-Movie Comic, via reader John Cuellar. HOW CAN YOU SAY NO TO THAT FACE?

Chrisp-Cola: One step closer to being real.

Getting fan art in my mail is ALWAYS excellent. Getting fan art from beloved friends is double excellent! Much love and thanks to Andrew and Jessica of Boolean Union Studios for this sodalicious design! Go check out their site! It shows off their animation AND pokes fun at Jack Chick tracts. What more can you want from a site?

Vote for me!

While we wait for my website to come back (I don't know what's up with SpiderForest), how about heading over to Code Name: Hunter site and voting for my entry in the art contest!

Back to the site outage stuff. I will be very upset if this down time goes beyond midnight, as I have yet to upload tomorrow's request week strip. So if you check the Precocious site in the morning and see no comic, that's why.

Also, I'm still taking suggestions for request week. I'll entertain ideas until all seven strips are made.

More birthday girl fan art! (Belated edition)

In continuing my Savannah socializing follies, I am the doofus who decided to back Twitter for my social media of choice while all the cool kids went Facebook instead. I can go a week without checking Facebook, and that means I miss important things. Important things like the birthdays of awesome people!

Last week was the birthday of the inspiring Sarah "Pickles" Dill, of Distillum. To celebrate, I thought I would whip up some much-owed fan art for her. Here we have Rob and Kavitha, looking very young and rather ridiculous, because I drew them and I am not one tenth the sequential artist she is. But it's the thought that counts, right? (Maybe I'll have to take her out and buy her lunch to make up for this... Whaddaya say, Pickles?)

Some fan art for a birthday girl!

Today is the birthday of the lovely and talented Darc Sowers, of the excellent Code Name: Hunter. To commemorate such a grand occasion, I am fan arting as best as I can!

Here we have Ruby and Max about suffer the consequences of angering Gadel. (Something I assume happens hourly around the offices.) I can't tell you how intimidating it is drawing someone else's characters - especially if it's someone you greatly admire, who is also a FAR superior artist. (Oh, Darc, I wish I could have done better for you!)

Anyway, much love and positive vibes for you! May this birthday be truly excellent!

Shane! Come back, Shane!

Well, he's been drawing my characters enough, so I'll return the favor! What we have here is my drawing of Al S. Romero's character Shane, the dingo. I wish my scanner handled colored pencil better, but that's the price I pay for it working so excellently on the comics. Anyway, enjoy it, Al!

I have toys and I'm dangerous!

I had a half hour until I headed over to Dana's. I had watercolor pencils. I had no will to work on Precocious. I had Twitter open. Recipe for disaster!

I wanted to play and asked the twits what I should draw. Tiffany Ross, of The Cyanthian Chronicles (among a dozen other titles) joked about me drawing something for her website. Well, that was the only request, so I drew a little treatment of my favorite character of hers, Chatin. (In her younger days.) Maybe it's not home page material, but it's not bad for about 20 minutes of work!

Uplifting

I love it when people do things for me - especially since I rarely do things for other people! It means they care enough to overlook my jerkass nature!

Today was a Metric day. When I'm down, I listen to Metric's "Fantasies" and rock the frak out. Track 1: "Help, I'm Alive!" Track 3 includes the line: "I'm not suicidal, I just can't get out of bed!" And, despite the seemingly dark stuff, it's all in electro-pop, inspirational rockitude. It really gets me pumped up. "Every living thing/pushed into the ring/Fight it out to wow the crowd/Guess you thought/You couldn't just watch/No one's getting out/without stadium love." Meaning: Suck it up and fight on through!

So a sluggish day began looking up. My trainwreck interview with WCRI was posted and Tom of Alone in a Crowd drew me some fan art! That gets the spirit going.

Now, I leave you to go work on the strip. Maybe. (I'm still looking at that magnetic bed...)

Sobriety is such a problem

As you may know, I have promised the awesome Briana for Rune Master a piece of fan art for her coming hiatus. It's the least I could do after she, y'know, built my new PHP site!

I vowed to make an informed piece of fan art, so it was archive conquering time! She's another mad producer, which means I had 665 strips to get through to formulate and produce my art... by August 1. For those of you paying attention, August 1 is in two and a half hours. IT TOOK A WHILE TO GET THROUGH THE ARCHIVES, OK!

Going though, I thought I had a good idea of what to do for her. For the first 2/3 of the story the main character, Diyero, is a drunken fool. All my ideas went after the easy funny. (He casts magic with runes... is there a rune combo that makes a glass of booze keep refilling itself?) Then, today, I went in to finish the archives.

*insert record scratch here*

He quit drinking! It's a redemption arc! Hey, good for him, BAD FOR MY IDEAS! This is why I wanted to have read everything, though - because RM is such an epic that it could go in any direction.

Now I have to figure out a new direction. Typical character portrait? A more clever gag? What if I draw her characters in *my* style, such as the pic above? Too self-absorbed? I have until midnight to get this done. I joked with Briana that it might take me until midnight Hawaii time to get it done... and boy, that might be right.