Category: Work-In-Progress

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Falling A Twee Bit Behind on Some Things…

here's a picture of an art piece in progress. The 11 inch by 17 inch paper has a monster depicted whose body is mostly made of leaves. Next to the canvas is a tin full of colored pencils.

I want to talk a bit about how to set goals to be…more realistic. Because I have fallen a twee bit behind on a few things.

First, I wanna’ talk about this piece, pictured at the top.

Right now, the title is (tentatively), “Cryptid of Leaves.” I started this piece all the way back in 2019. So…it’s been A WHILE. I worked on it, then set it aside, because those leaves ALONE took effort to draw. And then I thought, “Let’s color this with colored pencil! That’ll get the look I want to achieve!”

And past me thought I could have this done in a month. On top of everything else I have going on. Which…(insert laughter here).

I have only worked on this in my free time, when I have the urge to do it. So I’m shifting the goal for this piece: I want it finished by…the end of October.

Why so late? Because I still have KickStarter rewards to fulfill and other books to put together. Speaking of which…

Second, I want to talk about the PDF for The Legend of Jamie Roberts, volume 1.

For KickStarter backers, I had said, “Oh this should be delivered to you by the end of May!”

It’s June 1st now. The PDF still needs put together. Oops.

To be fair, May was a big transition month. I quit working at NeverEnding (long story), and shifted back to freelancing full-time. Still, getting my freelance sea-legs back can only explain so much. All I can ask is please, continue to be patient. The PDF should still get done by the end of June. I’ll go more in depth about the process in a KickStarter update tomorrow.

Third, The Legend of Jamie Roberts.

So…I’m out of buffer. The month of May had some unexpected events that prevented me from keeping up with my usual production schedule. That means right now, I’m making the next updates as the story is going. That’s not a place I like to be in.

Does this mean that The Legend will get a temporary hiatus? I don’t know. But I’m tempted to have a short, two-week break from regular updates just so I can build the buffer back.

…Maybe I’ll just do that. Expect a more solid decision tomorrow, with The Legend’s usual Wednesday update.

I’ll end this here before this post gets too long. Thank you for stopping in! And thank you for your support.

You. Are. Awesome.

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A New Horror Story Collection?

monster madness horror sketch art, showing an eyeless, hunched-over, horned monster with a large grin laughing and pointing.

You read right – Fantasyville Productions (the company I run) is working on a new horror short story collection.

My good friend Sean McGavin wrote these stories last year, and I said to him, “Holy banana pants! These stories are good! Let’s get these printed!”

Couple things:

  1. I had never printed a book of prose before. And it turns out – the self-publishing world of prose? VERY different from comics. Because,
  2. It’s tricky to find printers for these kinds of books who are NOT Amazon. And
  3. It’s expensive to hire an editor.

I’m handling the book cover design because I designed all the covers for my books. It’s one of the skills I’m really good at, to be honest.

For an editor, I hired Melanie D., a friend of mine from college who’s very good at what she does. Shout-out to my readers who backed The Case of the Wendigo on KickStarter. They voted to have the leftover funds from that campaign go towards paying Melanie to edit this anthology. (And also go towards two different charities. More info about that can be found in this KickStarter post).

Where will this book be printed? Well, I’m going for Lulu. Unless you have a different recommendation. But when I did my research, Lulu had what I was looking for. (And I’ll go into THAT in a different post).

When will this book be available? Stay tuned on my email newsletter for updates.

Sorry to cut it short, but that’s really all I have for now. Thank you for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Designing a Print for RathaCon, Step 2: Pencilling

After much discussion and user feedback via Instagram, the votes trended towards THIS design shown up top. So I drew it.

RathaCon is host to a LOT of nerdy events, from tabletop gaming rooms to belly dancers and Quidditch. I wanted this design to incorporate the many scenes that RathaCon has played host to.

I even squeezed in some gears for the steampunk elements, because there’s a steampunk contingent that appears every year. Magic: The Gathering cards and comic books will fill up some of the spaces around the edges. Plus the GhostBusters logo is to homage the local GhostBusting team.

There’s still some details to fit in, but so far it’s off to a great start. Don’t ya’ think?

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So I Might Make a Game. Maybe. Possibly…

validation webcomic panel
This panel is from Validation (written by Christian Beranek, drawn by me)

I like games. Video games are cool, but right now, my love is for tabletop games.

If you want to understand why I love tabletop games, especially Dungeons & Dragons, so much, I highly recommend you watch this TedTalk about why D&D is good for you, and this Cosmonaut Variety Hour video about Dungeons & Dragons.

Of course I’ve played other tabletop games, too: Evil Baby Orphanage, King of New York, Settlers of Catan, We Didn’t Playtest This At All, Quelf, and Pathfinder are all games I’ve trod the table for. But Dungeons & Dragons is my big favorite right now, especially 5th edition. 5th edition is really the best beginner’s version of Dungeons & Dragons that’s out right now (aside from the Starter Pack).

With that said, I’ve been wanting to make a new game for quite a while now.

Not just a new D&D 5th edition campaign (I’m already in the process of brewing one). But a new tabletop game.

Christian Beranek and I have been throwing around the idea of finally making Tiny Unicorn, which is a game mentioned in our comic Validation. That’s great. I don’t mean to discredit that.

No, I mean, making a new game.

The idea I’ve had for a little while is something based on the world of Charlie & Clow and The Case of the Wendigo. In my mind’s eye it would run off a D20 system, partly because I’m most comfortable with that, and partially because…

Ok look, I know there are games based on existing comics, movies, TV shows, etc that generally favor the Fate System as a root to base the game on. But I’ve looked at the Fate System and I just don’t like it. It’s too complicated and nonsensical, especially when it comes to how characters in the game take damage. While there are aspects of the D20 system that can make a game easy to break (by overpowering characters, spamming certain spells, etc), I still find it preferable to the mess that is the Fate System.

So anyway, yes, I’m thinking of brewing a tabletop game based on the world of Charlie & Clow and The Case of the Wendigo with the d20 system as its base.

I’ll be updating here on the blog if I finally get the chance to start this thing.

Thanks for reading!

You. Are. Awesome.

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Thoughtful Dinosaur’s KickStarter Run is Done

thoughtful dinosaur comic panel promo

Oh. My. Holy. Banana. Pants.

Thoughtful Dinosaur has been fully funded for its first print run, and we got way over our initial goal! So now backers will get not only the books, but they’ll get KickStarter-exclusive postcards and buttons (or pins, if you prefer to call them that). Pretty. Darn. Sweet.

Further updates regarding Thoughtful Dinosaur will now be happening over on the KickStarter page, and the updates will be public – for the most part. Of course there will be backer-only updates with information that regards them in particular, but everything else will be available for the public. That means you’ll see updates on how the book printing is going, what the buttons will look like, and lots of other fun stuff!

Again, be sure to check the Thoughtful Dinosaur page for more updates.

In other news, I have a timeline in mind for leaving the day job (yes, I have one. If you want to know what’s going on, read this post). It’s not immediate, but the goal is to be able to leave there and get something new going by April 2017.

What’s the plan for work after the day job? Right now my mind’s on freelancing full-time, which means saving back money until I can make the leap, but nothing is set in stone (yet). I want to stay open for new possibilities!

One possibility is doing more gallery work – Patrons on Patreon know I’ve been working on some new illustrations and paintings, as they’ve been getting snapshots of my works-in-progress. There’s a local gallery looking for new artists, and the deadline to submit a portfolio is December… or possibly January. One of the members there told me it changes depending on the weather, literally.

PLUS! I’m getting The Case of the Wendigo ready for launch within the next two weeks! Stay tuned for more updates.

So there’s some excitement on the horizon! Be sure to check back again by Tuesday.

Thank you for reading.

You. Are. Awesome.