This will be going on this week check it out and maybe droup a couple of bucks...it would be greatly appreciated.
X-Post
This will be going on this week check it out and maybe droup a couple of bucks...it would be greatly appreciated.
X-Post
OK so i had an idea to do a Halloween special for AtA. Something that really wasn't a part of AtA. I wanted to illustrate a Edgar Allan Poe type poem I wrote a long time ago. I thought this would be a fun thing to do but sharing the poem with one of my friends made me realize something. Even though I think it's hilarious, and in the spirit of AtA, it's kind of not.
AtA is pretty light hearted. This poem is, while funny, pretty dark. And in some places pretty gross. My friend said go ahead and do it because it's my comic, and while this is true, I'm actually starting to get some fans and i don't want to lose them over something that wouldn't be a direction change for AtA...it would just be something different for one week. Though since she was pretty grossed out by a couple of the parts of the poem she suggested putting up a disclaimer. i thought that this might be a good solution because I would warn about the gross bits, and also point out that this is not a new direction for AtA. Just something different to amuse myself.
Poll? thoughts? Opinions?
AtA is pretty light hearted. This poem is, while funny, pretty dark. And in some places pretty gross. My friend said go ahead and do it because it's my comic, and while this is true, I'm actually starting to get some fans and i don't want to lose them over something that wouldn't be a direction change for AtA...it would just be something different for one week. Though since she was pretty grossed out by a couple of the parts of the poem she suggested putting up a disclaimer. i thought that this might be a good solution because I would warn about the gross bits, and also point out that this is not a new direction for AtA. Just something different to amuse myself.
Poll? thoughts? Opinions?
man, i wish shit like this had been around when i was in High School & Jr. high. I did a lot of art back then, as compaired to now when you guys only get sporatic updates. Of course looking back most of my art form back then sucked...and 99% of it was comic book fan art...but still I would have been posting every damn day.
OK I really need to get some art done to post up in here so you guys don't forget about me.
But don't take my lack of art here as a slack attack on my part. I've actually been really busy. Kind of. I've been trying to learn PHP so maintaining the Abducting The Aliens Website doesn't overwhelm me in the future. combinde that with keeping up with the AtA comics and 3 other projects I have in various stages of completion...it's been kind of hard to find the time to work on something to post here...
Soon...hopefully.
But don't take my lack of art here as a slack attack on my part. I've actually been really busy. Kind of. I've been trying to learn PHP so maintaining the Abducting The Aliens Website doesn't overwhelm me in the future. combinde that with keeping up with the AtA comics and 3 other projects I have in various stages of completion...it's been kind of hard to find the time to work on something to post here...
Soon...hopefully.
I got my first hate mail for Abducting the Aliens today! it was for this comic:
www.abductingthealiens.com/ata…
The hate mail:
"I like how you guys totally ripped of an Strong Bad email today by using 'the system is down' lyrics in your cell to make fun of techno music. You didn't even bother to credit the guys over at homestarrunner.com .
Respectfully,
--------------"
First off...I have a short retort on ATA now, and I now have a link to Homestar Runner as well as links to Alkaline Trio & Rise Against.
So here's the deal: Artist who work on comics do small things to amuse themselves, and provide a small inside joke for their fans. Todd McFarlane constantly put Felix The Cat all over his Spawn & Spider-Man comics. frank miller had a character named Weevel in Sin City who Marv constantly bullies and looks exactly like another character Miller is famous for drawing: Wolverine.
the fact of the matter is this. the techno song in the comic is irrelevant to the joke. I Intentionally put sound effects to represent all the parts of Strong Bad's techno song. I said "DJ SB is spinning..." I all but called Strong Bad by name. Why did I do all this when the song was irrelevant to the joke? To amuse myself and to put something in there for anybody who reads my comic who also watches SB E-Mails.
Should I have put a link up in the first place? Out of courtesy probably. Did I have to? No. I would have thought that most people would read that and get a laugh out of it and say "Oh he watched SB E-Mails too."
Damn. Ease the fuck up people.
www.abductingthealiens.com/ata…
The hate mail:
"I like how you guys totally ripped of an Strong Bad email today by using 'the system is down' lyrics in your cell to make fun of techno music. You didn't even bother to credit the guys over at homestarrunner.com .
Respectfully,
--------------"
First off...I have a short retort on ATA now, and I now have a link to Homestar Runner as well as links to Alkaline Trio & Rise Against.
So here's the deal: Artist who work on comics do small things to amuse themselves, and provide a small inside joke for their fans. Todd McFarlane constantly put Felix The Cat all over his Spawn & Spider-Man comics. frank miller had a character named Weevel in Sin City who Marv constantly bullies and looks exactly like another character Miller is famous for drawing: Wolverine.
the fact of the matter is this. the techno song in the comic is irrelevant to the joke. I Intentionally put sound effects to represent all the parts of Strong Bad's techno song. I said "DJ SB is spinning..." I all but called Strong Bad by name. Why did I do all this when the song was irrelevant to the joke? To amuse myself and to put something in there for anybody who reads my comic who also watches SB E-Mails.
Should I have put a link up in the first place? Out of courtesy probably. Did I have to? No. I would have thought that most people would read that and get a laugh out of it and say "Oh he watched SB E-Mails too."
Damn. Ease the fuck up people.
I think one of the time consuming parts of drawing AtA is the backgrounds. I do them seperately from the main characters because I've taken a page from a few other webcomic artists and blur them. I like the way it looks, I think it give AtA more of an animated feel.
But it's a pain, I do consider the back ground when i draw the panel. You can't not to that. To only draw the character with no consideration of the background only weakens the art. But I build the backgrounds out of basic shapes and colors, and that's hard for me.
Some times I cheat and "trace" over a photo. Or if I'm really lazy just blur the photo itself...though i don't think I've gotten that lazy with AtA yet.
So the point of my rant...no reason.
Abducting The Aliens --->www.abductingthealiens.com
But it's a pain, I do consider the back ground when i draw the panel. You can't not to that. To only draw the character with no consideration of the background only weakens the art. But I build the backgrounds out of basic shapes and colors, and that's hard for me.
Some times I cheat and "trace" over a photo. Or if I'm really lazy just blur the photo itself...though i don't think I've gotten that lazy with AtA yet.
So the point of my rant...no reason.
Abducting The Aliens --->www.abductingthealiens.com
ugh...
Anybody else feel like there aren't enough hours in the day? between keeping deadlines on my comic and cleaning the apartment this weekend when am I going to have the time to slack?
Anybody else feel like there aren't enough hours in the day? between keeping deadlines on my comic and cleaning the apartment this weekend when am I going to have the time to slack?
- Listening to: "I Gotta Pee" - NOFX
Either you guys are finding some spots where you can jump from network to network and vote of me, or sombody's actually reading my comic. I broke into the top 100 on www.webcomicslist.com Thanks guys! Lets see if we can push me into the top ten now!
Abducting the Aliens has been up for a week now! (well a week tomorrow) and to celebrate, (really because i think I fixed my jump menu problem) I'm putting Monday's comic up early.
heh. Go check it out.
www.abductingthealiens.com
heh. Go check it out.
www.abductingthealiens.com
I would like to thank everybody for pushing me over 1000 hits!
Thanks.
Wow, that's kind of redundent huh?
Thanks.
Wow, that's kind of redundent huh?
OK, the first Abducting the Aliens strip is up! I plan on updating every Monday and Thursday. I hope everybody has as much fun reading this as i have making it. Also in Beggar's Corner on the AtA page there's a couple of webcomics lists that I'm registared with. if you like AtA please vote for me. you can vote once a day. Also, if you like AtA spread the word, because I want to share the funny.
www.abductingthealiens.com
www.abductingthealiens.com
OK. Abducting the Aliens can go online as soon as I can get the web page designed. I'm thinking I'll be updating it twice a week, though I would like to do 3 times. Unforunately, I'm not sure i can update 3 times a week so twice it is for now.
I think I need to try to find a figure drawing session. Maybe start playing with more traditional media again.
I'm blown away by a lot of the digital colorists out there, and I want to lear how to improve on my digital coloring. But I can;t help but think I need to get my basics back up to speed again. and that means more life drawing and less cartooning, well at least more life drawing.
I need to keep the cartoon skills up as that's a distinguishable style...in other words I just need to quit slcaking and work...
I'm blown away by a lot of the digital colorists out there, and I want to lear how to improve on my digital coloring. But I can;t help but think I need to get my basics back up to speed again. and that means more life drawing and less cartooning, well at least more life drawing.
I need to keep the cartoon skills up as that's a distinguishable style...in other words I just need to quit slcaking and work...
I'm going to inking so much this weekend it's not even funny. I've got 2 dawing pensiled this weeks, I like how both of them came out so far, but we'll see how they come out. They're both actually pieces I'm doing for somebody else to see if we want to collabotate further, OK the first one is really more for myself.
With these 2 pieces I'm actully going to be trying some new techniques too. Kind of trying to do a more comic book style with my signiture grittiness that I apply in my cartoons.
Taking a break now before I start a new piece.
With these 2 pieces I'm actully going to be trying some new techniques too. Kind of trying to do a more comic book style with my signiture grittiness that I apply in my cartoons.
Taking a break now before I start a new piece.
I had a comment recently on my latest photo manip (Untitled...) about it being very professional looking. I'm not going to argue that, in fact I've very proud of it and I wholeheartedly agree. but here's my frustration.
There really is no professional market for that art. In the illustration commisioned relm at least. Thanks to photoshop it's far too easy to create something professional looking in that mediaum. Yes it takes a lot of skill to create something special like Dave McKeen and Eric Dinyer do, but if a publisher just wants something like that for a book cover they can just as easily got and buy some stock photography and then have one of their graphic designers smash them together and come up with something decent looking. And doing it that way is a lot cheeper than hireing someone like me to do it.
That's why I haven't been posting too many of my photo manips up here lately. I haven't been doing too many. I've been trying to work more on my cartoonish illustrations (Shaun of the Dead, Fist Full of Boomstick, Buffy) because that's far more marketable.
I've been at this for 4 1/2 years now, I've had the more Photo manips published than cartoon illustration, but I just found my illustration style about a year ago. And the photo manip stuff had been for a small magazine.
My Cartoon Illustration has gotten me far more recognition lately, it got my foot in the Door at a major indipendent record lable, and was the style that the Directory of Illustrators was encouraging me to advertise.
So I'll try to do the photo manips to keep my skills up, but really they are just Fine Art pieces, and there's nothing wrong with that, unless you're trying to build an illustration career off of them.
OK enough of my rambling that nobody else cares about.
There really is no professional market for that art. In the illustration commisioned relm at least. Thanks to photoshop it's far too easy to create something professional looking in that mediaum. Yes it takes a lot of skill to create something special like Dave McKeen and Eric Dinyer do, but if a publisher just wants something like that for a book cover they can just as easily got and buy some stock photography and then have one of their graphic designers smash them together and come up with something decent looking. And doing it that way is a lot cheeper than hireing someone like me to do it.
That's why I haven't been posting too many of my photo manips up here lately. I haven't been doing too many. I've been trying to work more on my cartoonish illustrations (Shaun of the Dead, Fist Full of Boomstick, Buffy) because that's far more marketable.
I've been at this for 4 1/2 years now, I've had the more Photo manips published than cartoon illustration, but I just found my illustration style about a year ago. And the photo manip stuff had been for a small magazine.
My Cartoon Illustration has gotten me far more recognition lately, it got my foot in the Door at a major indipendent record lable, and was the style that the Directory of Illustrators was encouraging me to advertise.
So I'll try to do the photo manips to keep my skills up, but really they are just Fine Art pieces, and there's nothing wrong with that, unless you're trying to build an illustration career off of them.
OK enough of my rambling that nobody else cares about.
I officially have a cover for one of the NOFX 7" records to be put out this year! I got the email yesterday. I've been asked so, I don't know if there's a way to buy only one of the records (Hell, I don't even know what month I have.), but here's a link for the subscription: www.nofxofficialwebsite.com/7i…
Yea! 100 page views!
...that is all.
...that is all.
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