Muffins... of DOOM! - Now in color!

I did it! I watercolored without screwing up terribly! I'm not sure my stroke quality is any good, and I can't stay in the lines to save my life - but those things are forgivable in watercolors, no? I declare victory anyway!

Watercolors are scary things, man, as one mistake could result in the entire piece getting scrapped. And I came close to that. As with all damning mistakes, this one came when I was 99% done with the piece. Everything was painting except for the "o" in "of", and that's when I decided to touch a spot in "doom." One hand slip later, I had a brown smudge across the "do." Fortunately, I was able to blot the paint enough to make it negligible.

Wish I could provide a better pic for you, but scanning faint colors seems to be the impossible task. I went to my good scanner, and everything light still came out as a pale cyan. Which really made Tiffany look weird.

Anyway, the next step in watercoloring is to double down on the difficulty and take on a new commission. Wish me luck, as this one will be a doozy.

Muffins... of DOOM!

I don't think watercolor test pieces are supposed to be this big (11"x17") or elaborate, but HERE WE GO! If I can pull this piece off, that means I can start taking commissions on watercolor pieces! Yay!

More background characters!

As I continue to script strips that require background characters, I continue to indulge readers by letting them take part in the process. Presenting: The latest sketches of proposed background characters!



This was a request for a fox, using a source pic of the reader running. I tried to match this guy's markings to the fox in his avatar. While he wore glasses in the pic, I think I prefer the sketch without them for the final version.



Since I ended up with so many fox requests, this poor soul ended up drawing the short straw and had to alter his proposal. A Yorkshire terrier was his fourth choice, but I hope it looks good enough to please him anyway. In this case, my favorite sketch includes the glasses.



I had a request for a calico cat, and those are always fun! Alongside our darling calico is a quick refresher sketch of Shane the dingo, a reader's character I've drawn before on this blog.



Turns out Siberian huskies lose a lot of impact when drawn with the gigantic eyes of the Precocious style, but I tried my best. (Unfortunately for this fan, my struggle also meant a less-than-prominent placement in Monday's strip.)



This one was inspired by a good, old-fashioned cat girl pic. I like the results.



The character behind this one is a robotic kitty with a drill for one of her arms. I had to strip that off, but I wanted to hint at the drill theme at least.



I put out the call on Twitter for volunteers to have their characters in the role of museum curators, and here's one of the luck winners. I'd say he's *another* red fox request, but his was actually the first of those to come in - and his has distinct coloring to work with - so this one wins.



Here's the other curator, a potentially unstable kitty!

Finally, this one wasn't actually a request. When I asked the eventual-terrier to choose something else, I offered to switch breeds of fox to gray or arctic first. He didn't go that route, but it did lead to me doing an image search anyway - and I found the CUTEST arctic fox pic ever! I just HAD to try Precocizing her! I dunno if she'll make it to a strip, but it was a fun experiment.

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...

Scriptpocalypse!

The past few days have been full of upheaval in regards to Precocious' direction. After a lot of thinking, I've decided to scrap a full month's worth of scripts - and that scares me! It wasn't that the scripts were bad - I quite liked them - but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was best to move in a new direction.

As planned, the current Uncle Mike saga was supposed to break into three parts. What I've done is excise part three, choosing to jump straight to the conclusion. This means a few big losses for me. Gone are the running gags of Jacob's V encyclopedia and Mike giving the kids coffee. Gone is a twist I had planned to set up over a few weeks. The big casualty of the change, however, is poor Sydney. Since she spends half of her time in the city, managing her apartment buildings and doing general businesswoman hobnobbing, this was my opportunity to drop in on her and show how she lives when away from family.

But here's the thing: Just because you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD. Bringing Sydney in would mean extending the city trip for dozens of strips - which is risky for a story that's already running long. Looking over the scripts, while I was having fun with her, it was clear Sydney's involvement ended up having zero impact on the story as a whole. No events depended on her triggering them, and she actually delayed some payoffs if I think about it that way. She's simply a fun character to write for and I wanted to use her.

My preferred method of writing is to set up a scenario and sit on it, letting its potential play out. This can easily lead to a "too much of a good thing" effect. I may write 20 good gags about the kids and Mike in a museum, but running them all risks joke fatigue. There's also the problem of pacing, should I devote a strip to every little silly detail just because I though I was clever for thinking of it. It's my nature to really be indulgent and revel in my stories, but this time I felt editing was the best option - especially considering all the indulgence I'd already placed in this story!

Now the questions is... what will fill that gap? I've had a story, set during summer break, that I could do. The timing would be right for it, and it will eventually rotate a few characters back into the spotlight. The downside to that direction is that I'll be subjecting the readers a long, drawn-out story again without giving them a gag-a-day break to cool off.

A second idea to fill the space is to create a series of one to two week vignettes that focus on some of the supporting cast, and ride those short stories through the summer. Those might be easier on the readers, but I'm not as prepared on my end to run them. At this point, I only have one solid vignette idea. There's also the problem of this idea bumping the summer story mentioned above to next year. (Which might not be a bad thing, in regards to long-term pacing.)

Clearly, I have to whip out my giant Word file of ideas and get some inspiration going again. The end of the Mike stories will come sooner than expected, and I must be prepared to move on!

Background characters, by request!

As hinted at in an earlier post, I asked readers in my forum to help design some background characters for Precocious' current big city arc. Now, the nature of background characters means they are, uh, in the background - which, due to perspective and whatnot, means they appear rather small. If I'm going through the trouble of creating this things for the readers, it benefits both parties to have something to show for it that doesn't end up 10 pixels high in the final product, so do enjoy these character sketches I made!



The next character that is needed for drawing the strip is a security guard. After reviewing the requests I had, it seemed obvious to give the Eurasian wolf request the job. I have two versions for you, the public, to choose from. Male or female?



Next up, we a Precocized version of a reader's former pet, a bobcat mix - wearing camouflage because he's a born hunter - and a less-threatening-but-still-lovable stubby corgi!



Two users wanted to use their avatars, which both happened to be unusually-colored felines (not that you can tell in pencil), so it made sense to make them a couple. (They are funly colored because they are crazy art students who dyed themselves. That work?)



Finally, I got a request for a lynx wearing something black, like a hoodie. Since I only had one background female (maybe two, if chick guard get public support), and this reader didn't specify, I decided to go lady lynx. The black suggestion made me think goth. That was the plan, at least. I started out by making the eyes a little flirty by accident, and then it all snowballed. My goth lynx in black became... kinda sexy lynx in white? Whatever, I kinda like it. (I'd like it more if my final attempt a tweaking hadn't derped her eyes up, but I'll live.)

Aside from the guard, who is popping up on Friday, I don't know where and how (or if?) these characters will pop up in the strip, but they are ready to go for when the time times! I'm still taking requests, so chime in if you want to design a petting zoo person and I'll do my best to accommodate!

(Note: Unfortunately for the first guy to make a request, I came up with this idea *after* his choice had been incorporated into a comic. But, hey, he got to be a foreground character in that one, so he get his time to shine!)

(Re-post) The Sycophant - growing the brand?

(Blogger's recent meltdown not only meant I couldn't post new updates - it also managed to eat one of my posts! For completion's sake, I'm posting it here again. My apologies to Facebook users who will likely get spammed with this repeat. Also, watch me look like a fool when the original post is magically restored down the line.)

So I just registered thesycophant.com. Suddenly the title of my blog means so much more! You know what this also means? I HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY PURCHASE! If I'm buying a domain like this, I'd better put it to good use. Cartooning side project? Oh, imagine the possibilities...

I've long since claimed my next project will be The Haters Club, a name which began as in-joke in my old social circle. I love that title. It's fun. It sets the tone for my humor right away. It's... common enough to be used by a few websites.

Well, then, I just registered a viable alternative... which is *also* based on an in-joke from that blissful time of my life. The Sycophant may not bring the hate as much, but it does make for a great title anyway - and I adore the implications that come from that word as well! Plus, when you google "The Sycophant," it seems I'm the first one to claim the title for his project. (Not counting some lame myspace account that somehow outranks me in Google's eyes.)

Now... what could The Sycophant be? It's prime for an observational journal comic, which is something I've wanted to try for a while now. It could signify a title character who bumbles through live in awe of everything around him. (Probably because he lacks viable talent and skill on his own.) I could take the name and use it to justify a site of nothing but fan art for people I admire! Yeah, that's not happening. Fan art is fun now and then, but making it your thing is the same thing as wasting all your artistic talent!

For now, the domain is set to forward you to the blog. (As I post this, the forwarding setting hadn't gone through yet, so those testing it out right away might not get the right result.) It'll probably redirect here for a while, as I've got a lot on my plate already - and there's also the problem of me not knowing the first thing about how to properly use a domain. Hosting? Servers? Site email? No clue how those things work at the moment. But one day, man. One day...

Oh, and I also registered chrisp.co, but I don't feel a need to justify that. That sucker was meant for me!

Progress, and the end of acrylics

As I continue my quest to improve, I have to face and defeat my old demons. SCAD intensity plus epic life tragedy meant a scrambled Chrispy who had to let things fall aside while he struggled to keep afloat. Now, with this time of peace, it is time to make amends.

It's been a long climb to get back to my old levels of productivity. For the first time in many months, I have a comic buffer. It's still small, but having it means I don't have to devote every single day to completing comics. I can go at my own pace, do the type of work I want to do, take a mental health day and, most importantly, turn my attentions to part projects that got pushed aside when my life hit the dark ages.

The most important project I dropped was my last commissioned painting. When SCAD became the dominant force in my life, work halted on the piece and it was shelved indefinitely. I kept vowing to set aside time to complete it, but week after week that time was not there. I would drag the painting and painting supplies with me whenever I traveled - just in case I had a free day - but those trips always ended with no progress. Even when my schedule opened up, my increased comic obligation and persistent mental funk meant I rarely had time to breathe, much less pay attention to other things. It's only been on this recent kick, which my productivity increasing, that picking this project back up became feasible. This week, my comic finally reached a place where I had a buffer of a few days. I was finally able to take one day and set it aside for other projects, and this painting was first in line.

It seems weird for such a simple composition to have caused so many problems, but that's how it is. I'm quite excited for it to almost be done. Finishing this piece and shipping it off will serve as the closing of the last, awkward chapter of my life - allowing for a fresh start on things!

I refused to take on any new commissions as long as I had outstanding work to do, but now that I'm almost done I can start looking ahead. I'll tell you one thing: Working with acrylics is OUT for now. Thanks to my painting class last quarter, I don't get as much joy from working with acrylics as I used to. That urge will return one day, but it's on to new media for now! I've started dabbling in watercolors, and I'd like to keep practicing that. I still have my large collection of good old colored pencils - and, if I want to combine it all, a nice group of watercolor pencils too! I want to see what goodness I can do with that stuff when I open up commissions again!

The Sycophant - growing the brand?

So I just registered thesycophant.com. Suddenly the title of my blog means so much more! You know what this also means? I HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY PURCHASE! If I'm buying a domain like this, I'd better put it to good use. Cartooning side project? Oh, imagine the possibilities...

I've long since claimed my next project will be The Haters Club, a name which began as in-joke in my old social circle. I love that title. It's fun. It sets the tone for my humor right away. It's... common enough to be used by a few websites.

Well, then, I just registered a viable alternative... which is *also* based on an in-joke from that blissful time of my life. The Sycophant may not bring the hate as much, but it does make for a great title anyway - and I adore the implications that come from that word as well! Plus, when you google "The Sycophant," it seems I'm the first one to claim the title for his project. (Not counting some lame myspace account that somehow outranks me in Google's eyes.)

Now... what could The Sycophant be? It's prime for an observational journal comic, which is something I've wanted to try for a while now. It could signify a title character who bumbles through live in awe of everything around him. (Probably because he lacks viable talent and skill on his own.) I could take the name and use it to justify a site of nothing but fan art for people I admire! Yeah, that's not happening. Fan art is fun now and then, but making it your thing is the same thing as wasting all your artistic talent!

For now, the domain is set to forward you to the blog. (As I post this, the forwarding setting hadn't gone through yet, so those testing it out right away might not get the right result.) It'll probably redirect here for a while, as I've got a lot on my plate already - and there's also the problem of me not knowing the first thing about how to properly use a domain. Hosting? Servers? Site email? No clue how those things work at the moment. But one day, man. One day...

Oh, and I also registered chrisp.co, but I don't feel a need to justify that. That sucker was meant for me!

I WANNA FORCE MEMES!

"That advice dog is a pretty cool guy. I wonder if I can get in on his meme action?" This is the thing that popped into my head when I woke up early this morning. This is why I tend not to do the early thing.

Having one's creation abused in this way is truly a noble goal. I'd love to have a legion of fans filling my forums with these! As my forums currently constitute one of the saddest ghost towns on the internet, this is not going to happen - BUT A GUY CAN DREAM! One day, man. One day!

So igniting an internet craze isn't gonna happen. Doesn't mean I can't start preparing for one anyway! Enjoy these templates I quickly whipped up:

Concerned Jacob:

Optimist Bud:

Panicked Autumn:

Happy Tiffany: