Book Elves Blog

Archive upgrade

2008-04-30T04:39:00.003-05:00

Our incoming tech wizard at Keenspot pointed out a potential danger in my current archive script--and I still need a different set of features, anyway, so I put together a better system (for me, anyway).

The most timely change: text updates are no longer dependent on the existence of a graphic. Not having this has always been a nuisance, to me. Now, I can post a text story one day, and an illustration the next.

Another big improvement that you probably won't notice (or need to care about, really), is that I've un-dynamicked the URLs. Instead of looking at an archive page with a URL that trails with a question mark and PHP gibberish, the archive pages will simply share the filename of the file it serves. So if I name a file something descriptive, like '20080530-GlynhialGetsGun.jpg', the archive page will be '20080530-GlynhialGetsGun.php'. This will also be reflected in the archive directories, and will help make the archives more searchable.

Perhaps the most important change is that the pages are going to be output as real files. This means that some performance issues that have been reported should clear up. The archives will no longer be created "on the fly".

However, there are still some minor issues to work out before it goes live throughout the whole archive. Page titles aren't working, and I'm not sure what the best way is to serve the most current file to the homepage. Still, it seems to be working well enough to start using it for the new "fiction" archive.

Update

2008-04-07T13:50:00.002-05:00

Sorry, I was hoping to have more of an update on the site today, but there have been a few more problems. Last night, somebody nearby blitzed the area with heavy-duty pesticides, and half the house is full of it. It hit my roommate so bad he couldn't even sleep last night, and is currently doing a pretty good impression of a zombie.

But before that, I have to admit that I actually have hit a full-fledged financial crash. Trying to raise money for the electricity bill to keep the power on was just one symptom; after that, I was frantic to find some other alternate revenue, since I had rent and everything else coming up--far more money than I can raise doing just commission work.

I failed, which is why the site is kind of dead at the moment. But there's some good news--the bank where I sometimes work is finally scheduling again, and another comic book project that I'm part of is finally getting going, too, after being delayed for a few months.

But it's going to take most of the month of April to work my way back out of this disaster. I didn't mean to delay the commissions that I've been working on, but I'll have them going again soon enough, after the bank paychecks start coming in.

I'm off to work again, right now. I'll try to have some art or comics posted sometime tomorrow, but it won't be until late afternoon, as I don't expect to get home until well after midnight, tonight.

The big idea

2008-03-22T15:22:00.004-05:00

Bleah, sorry for the recent bout of invisibility. This kind of thing always comes at the worst time; a family apparently moved in with the family next door, and they are all 24/7 chain smokers. We're just downwind, and all of the smoke goes into our vents. We don't have screens on most of the windows, and it's a bad neighborhood, so it's hard to ventilate the place.

We've just been breathing it all week, but today I've got the front door standing open. It's not really safe, but I've got to get some oxygen! All week I've been feeling like a hospital patient.

But the injection of clean air is helping a lot. I'm rolling out a new plan, today, that will hopefully benefit both readers and me.

First of all, Elf Life (the old series) has been due for a revision forever, and I've been talking about it for almost as long. I've decided to keep the former name for the old part of the series, and keep Alfheim for the new adventures. That way, there will be less confusion (I hope) over updates of the original series. The old archive remains where it is, but a new archive has been opened in which we will start updating new material as if it's just a new, regular series.

The first part is a new introduction that I've been ruminating over, for just forever. But the passing of time has helped me condense and adjust it. It was too heavy, too overly dramatic, before. I have to remind myself that Elf Life is supposed to be more comedy than adventure or pathos, although those are certainly elements, as well.

Also, ongoing criticism of the art from outside sources always seem to center on the character design, and it occurs to me that nowhere in the series do I really properly explain that I'm not trying to present pretty humanoid elves with gently sloping ears, but rather the odd Rackham-esque elves that supposedly scampered about in the dark ages, causing mischief in medieval hovels and whatnot. These elves were more likely gnarly and knotted grotesques with beards. There were beautiful elves, as well, but they were typically depicted as evil sirens who lured men to their doom.

So the revision of Elf Life gets this out of the way right away, then moves on to a sequence that I've been trying to draw for some time: a dream of faeries, leading to a short period of time immediately preceding the discovery of the spy posing as Baughb's portrait artist.

After that, I would like to draw a few new sequences, including a better introduction to Baughb's shrine and a skirmish or two with the Cesspool elves. Later, a more involved sequence involves Baughb's trial in the Underground Kingdom, which was originally posted as a text adventure, when the computer died way back when.

Instead of trying to do it all at once (the big problem, before), I will just work on it occasionally throughout the year.

Alfheim will continue, as well. The idea is to keep updates coming, no matter what, and to avoid the confusion of loading different things that don't belong together into the same archive, just to get it on the front page.

I'm also hoping that this will let me make schedule adjustments on the fly without stressing you guys out so bad. I know I've got a stint at the bank next month and a comic book gig coming up at some point, for instance. If I feel like the quality of Elf Life/Alfheim will suffer because of unexpected events (like all week overtime), I'll be in a better position to add a new feature without disturbing the flow of the regular comics.

Site change coming

2008-03-19T10:10:00.003-05:00

I think so, anyway. I would actually prefer to keep special events separate from the comics archive. And I need a way to more quickly display everything that's been updated, all at once. Revenue-generating efforts (commssions, wallpaper, etc) need to stay on the front-burner without being an unnecessary distraction from the entertainment content.

I think this new layout is straightforward enough as a portal to compensate for not having the comic on the front page. The newest comic in the regular series will have a static URL, so folks who really want to can bookmark it instead, anyway, but they might miss out on other short stories and features coming up in the future.

I reconfigured some PHP last night to make this happen, utilizing the ComicGallery script I'm already using. The script finds the newest update in the relevant folder automatically, so I don't have to rewrite HTML every single day. That gets awfully tedious. Adding a new box for a featured section is also easy, so I'll have more incentive to do special event comics from time to time.

Special lights out offer

2008-03-17T08:33:00.007-05:00

UPDATE: Success! But there are still six slots open.

***
~~To keep the power on,~~ I'm offering to draw a pinup similar to the Lum, here--brush line, with grayscale watercolor shading, your choice of character--for the first 10 respondents.

Just Paypal $20 to carsonfire@gmail.com and tell me what character you'd like. I can probably do just about any character you'd like, as long as it's not an unusually complicated design.

In case the power is cut off too soon, watch my Twitter box at the top of the page for notice that the offer is closed. If I'm lucky, I have until about noon or so--three hours or so--but if I can raise the money before then, I can pay it and ask them to take me off the list.

Just in case

2008-03-17T08:18:00.002-05:00

Expected ad funds (such as they were) did not show up Saturday, and still don't seem to be forthcoming now, Monday morning. So it's starting to look like I'm not going to be able to do anything to stop the power from being turned off, later today.

Sorry, folks. I'll be back when I can.

Lum final for sale

2008-03-17T03:54:00.001-05:00

Finished the Lum pinup. It's brush and watercolor pencil on bright 9 x 12 Canson drawing paper. I'm offering the original art for sale at $60, or best offer.

Lum rough

2008-03-16T21:12:00.003-05:00

I've been throwing my brain at an idea for some other subject besides my own series. I've always been a fan of Rumiko Takahashi, so I thought I'd try a Lum pinup (the demon-alien romantic lead of Urusei Yatsura).

Here's the rough drawing. After this is done, either some kind of robot, or maybe Betty Boop. Maybe a robot Betty Boop!

UPDATE

Sharpened the pencils.

Commissions, again

2008-03-16T15:12:00.002-05:00

MM in the tagboard asked if I'm taking commissions, and the answer is a big YES. In fact, the way things are working out, I'm going to have to make this week a big "make art" week for new commissions, and some older that I still have outstanding. For instance, I need to finish an Akarnis pinup, and some art with Glee as a cowboy. And I now have a good watercolor system going that I can use to make the art even more special.

Commissions need not be limited to just Alfheim/Elf Life, of course. Please email me at carsonfire@gmail.com--ASAP!--if you are interested.

I'm in an especial hurry because the electric bill is past due, and it's scheduled to be shut off. That's why I've been pushing the wallpaper and print donations, but it's just not going to get there fast enough. I've got to raise the money to literally keep the lights and the computer on, so if you'd like to commission me for something, this is the perfect time--you'll be helping the series, and helping me catch up on all the other commissions and mailings I've had to delay.

Mermaids Five Art Auction

2008-03-10T17:00:00.003-05:00

UPDATE: I didn't really give anybody enough time to find this post. We'll extend the auction to 9am CST tomorrow morning (Wednesday, March 12)

---

The new art is finished! I'm coloring it now for wallpaper, but I'm also putting the original art up for auction, right away. I would like to start the bids at $60, and end at 9am CST tomorrow morning (Tuesday March 11), deviating only if there are no bids. Sorry to be in a rush!

Email me at carsonfire@gmail.com to bid.

You may notice that there are only four mermaids visible. The fifth is a new character, who I'm keeping under wraps, for now. Only serious bidders and donors (who get the finished wallpaper) will get to see her. As a reaction to the recent SA forum complaints, I have included a mermaid who is at least twice as busty as the others, a near-sighted bottom feeder who never knows what she's walking into or knocking over.

More art for art's sake

2008-03-09T13:57:00.003-05:00

Working on new mermaid art featuring Psekas the tiger fish, Prymno the eel, Thea the queen, Thoe the frog, and an unidentified bottom feeder. This will be ink and wet media on bright Canson paper.

I know, I know... not enough new comic updates. But I'm going to have to hustle and put together more new art faster and more frequently for sale and donations. The comics will have to take a back seat until I've made enough profit to support their production. I'm annoyed that I'm not able to work on the comic more, and the delays mean that I have to toss out more and more good material in order to keep the story moving.

I'm thinking what might be a good idea is to plan on getting more of a poster-making situation going by the end of the month. See, the problem is that revenue from the comic itself is meager to non-existent, which is why I have to ask for donations. We got off to a good start with our new ads in January, but the service is relatively new and popular, and apparently hasn't been able to keep up with the demand for paid ads. And so we're back down to making almost nothing, again.

But I'm more determined than ever to earn that revenue so the comic can get regular and stay regular, and also so I can take care of other outstanding obligations. Watch for more art to come.

Meanwhile, there have been many complaints recently about the mermaids from folks outside of the regular readership. Frankly, they fit right in to one of my earliest guiding principles, which was mythological creatures as attractive grotesques. Witness Baughb's strange face, for starters. None of my elves were meant to be stunning fantasy-genre elves, but the kind of elves you'd find puttering around peasant hovels in the dark ages. The mermaids, while fulfilling certain male fantasies, are of course too ungainly proportioned to be beautiful; they are proportioned in order to be sometimes confused with other beached sea mammals by sailors peering through the fog.

Depictions of mermaids have always been problematic due to changing social mores. I recall reading a year or two ago about some town that was struggling over taking down a mermaid statue for much the same reason: a bosom too big for public consumption. A 1940s-era Warner Brothers cartoon depicted two endowed mermaids--topless, yet--in a cartoon voiced by Mel Blanc, and got away with it only because it was a training film meant for the consumption of servicemen.

Still, some readers may find my highly exaggerated mermaids too much to bear. I had been planning on making them even more visible in this new run, but I'm not against spinning them off into a different storyline, if folks really do find them that distracting.

Art sale update

2008-03-09T01:22:00.003-06:00

The faeries have sold! The remaining art is Baughb and Filis for $60.

Do NOT Paypal me, but be the first to email me at carsonfire@gmail.com; I will respond with a confirmation that you were the first respondent, and then you can Paypal the money. I'll have the art in the mail for you first thing Monday morning.

Here's the art, once again:

Meanwhile, for all of you other starvin' artists out there, I see Hobby Lobby is going to have Copic markers on sale 25% off this week.

By the way

2008-03-08T18:28:00.003-06:00

I do appreciate all the hits from the SA forum, even if I am a little baffled at the inability of flamers to finish what they started (as opposed to just whining about what an awful, awful person I am, which is where that thread over there is going, now).

Having said that, I really don't mind being slammed and criticized. I have a thicker skin for that kind of thing than I used to . I just have a habit of fighting back, regardless. :D

So I would like to offer this one olive branch to my meager nemeses: go ahead and send me links to your comic sites, if you have any yourself, so I can put them on a links page that I'm overdue on putting together (I've had to redo the entire site after being offline for a year, then losing my old domain; right now I'm trying a CMS to help develop sections I'm missing).

This offer also applies to all regular readers, here, so there's no danger that this is just some kind of trick. I will just assume that all the link suggestions are coming from one big pool of "my readers". Even if you do tell me where you're coming from, I'll make it a point not to single you out in any way. And I'm not asking for a link back.

The kind of links I really like: it's easy to link to "big" comics, but I am always most interested in linking to comics that maybe don't get linked so much by other big sites. This site isn't incredibly huge, itself, but I might be able to help some. Buttons? I'm not sure if I'm going to use graphics, but it wouldn't hurt to point me to some.

Email me at carsonfire@gmail.com. The subject line can be anything. "Dude, linkage, please!" for instance. Just be sure to include a smiley face somewhere. :)

Art sale

2008-03-08T09:46:00.002-06:00

OK, this is a little embarrassing in the midst of a flame war about how awful my art is, but my auction fell flat. I set the price too high.

But I do still need to raise some cash quickly, so I'm going to cut the price of both for a quick sale, $60 for either. Not an auction, that's a set price. My situation isn't dire, but I'm trying to get ahead on a payment in order to stave off staggering late fees.

Do NOT Paypal me, but be the first to email me at carsonfire@gmail.com; I will respond with a confirmation that you were the first respondent, and then you can Paypal the money. I'll have the art in the mail for you first thing Monday morning.

Here's the art, once again:

Both are india ink, brush and pen drawings with intense coverage of Aquarelle pencil shading. They are not treated with wet media. Both are on 9 x 12 inch Canson drawing paper. Click on these thumbnails for a good view of the raw art; but CAUTION, the faerie art here, for purposes of inspection, is uncensored.

Something awful this way comes

2008-03-08T08:03:00.004-06:00

I have to admit--in school, I once slapped a bully. He was bigger than me, and he and his underling kept razzing me about my nose. It is a very large nose, indeed, and I was used to razzing of this nature. But, geez, it kept going on and on and on. Even though I was the little cross-eyed nerd kid with the big shnoz and glasses, I finally got so hot that I reached out and slapped him.

He could have easily pounded me into the ground--no one was there but his sycophantic underling, who looked just as shocked as he did--but instead he trembled, held his finger out at me, and warned me never to do it again. And, oddly--he never crossed my path thereafter.

So I guess I took away from that experience that maybe you don't have to just sit there and let the bullies keep digging at you. It's OK to stand up for yourself every once in a while.

Likely, though, the SA folks think that I'm the bully--after mercilessly pounding on me all week. Maybe I went a little far with the subject line and first paragraph of that last post, but, for the love of expletive, it certainly pales compared to their own typical vitriol and mean-spiritedness.

And I've seen this kind of abuse start at even more prominent webcomic sites--no doubt the kind of sites that are popular with this crowd--who goof on other cartoonists' work without provocation. Why would a cartoonist with a decent following want to start ragging on somebody who's struggling? "Look at how bad this guy sux, tee hee, tee hee!"

And the participants never see this as abusive as long as they get to take part in the abuse. I take responsibility for the critique I posted, and I would discourage anyone from simply piling on. Thankfully, the only abuse in the comments of that last thread is directed squarely at me. That's OK, I can take it. I know the criticism that is valid and the criticism which is just bile, and I'm open to both.

Just, eh, if you're going to start something, make sure you're not testicularly challenged in the "getting it back" department.

Something really awful

2008-03-07T11:38:00.009-06:00

Woof! Dude, you need SOMETHING to make you want to be a better webcomic artist.

Here are some tips:

* Skulls have sizable mass. You don't just draw a face with some hair on top. Your guy only seems to have a skull because he's wearing a hat; your girl has no skull at all.

* Ears are not located at the back of the head, but at the end of the jaw. Er, and the end of the jaw is not at the back of the head, obviously.

* You won't learn to draw hands by finding excuses to hide them behind other objects, only to make occasional appearances when absolutely necessary. Make yourself draw the hands to help the "acting" of your characters. I have to admit that one of my bad habits is "paw fingers", and I'm trying to remind myself not to do it, anymore.

* For your attempted style, learn to draw "side view" eyes. The shape is significantly different from frontal views.

* Learn to use width of line to add body and weight to your drawings; don't let them just accidentally thicken in concave spots. This is the line quality of cheap, crappy clip art.

* Use thinner lines for background objects, like that couch. This is an easy tip to employ, and you'd be surprised what a difference it makes.

* Try to suggest a little bit of texture, somehow... maybe draw in a little bit of pattern on that couch.

* It's hard for me to recommend against "Saturday morning cartoon" mouth, because I use that myself sometimes for comic effect. However, be careful using it, all the same. The girl's mouth in that last panel is arranged in a way that makes it look like her chin is falling into her neck. Except that her neck is kind of curving away in the other direction.

* The letter "I" is badly abused by many webcartoonists, and I'm not sure if it's Scott Adams' fault or Microsoft for their TERRIBLE ComicSans font. Professional cartoonists from way back would tell you that you only use a serif I when used as a personal pronoun. Check comic strip legends like Peanuts, and you'll see what I mean. I love Dilbert, but please don't emulate the crappy lettering. I recommend using a font from Blambot, which, unlike ComicSans, is actually meant for comics, and allows you to shift-toggle between the serif I for this very reason.

* I'm not sure if I should comment on the writing or not. Your female character seems to find self-worth at last by exposing herself to a crowd of leering males. This is actually quite demeaning and insulting. The anatomy and dress of my female characters might strike you as being exploitative, but they are people who have found self-worth in their own right. Thea struggled over a voracious appetite due to an unhappy childhood memory, which she finally conquered in order to save the lives of others and restore her own self-respect. Glynhial copes with the loss of power and influence, yet is obsessed with resurrecting the fortunes of herself and her people. Glynhial's preference for nakedness (which you tend not to actually see in the comics, but is merely suggested) is a symbol of her power; she doesn't need anything but herself.

Lord knows my art and writing aren't perfect. I'm much harder on myself than you and your uninformed friends at the SomethingAwful forum are. I consider a good artist to be not one who has achieved some level of perfection, but an artist who is constantly striving to be better, and who can show tangible results for that journey. And to be perfectly fair, you seem to have just had a particularly "bad art day". Through your archive, there is evidence of a good comic sensibility, you just need to work on the fundamentals.

I employ quite a bit of distortion in this particular series, but it's best that you learn some solid foundation, first, so that your distortions are credible. My faerie's face is odd because it is meant to be; she is more otherworldly even than the elf characters. Her teeth are small and delicate, which is why her attack on the apple is smallish. And, of course, the size and prominence of her profile was intentional, to highlight the line "no skin off my nose". It wasn't meant as a big gag, but a small incidental for regular readers who have commented before on her lack of nose.

Anyway, try Burne Hogarth's series of figure drawing books. He was a great teacher in person (I was privileged to sit in on one of his lectures, once) and in print. You'll never learn all he has to teach, but the solid foundations he will give you are invaluable, even if you are only drawing "cartoony" comics.

Hope you find some of this useful. I'm always here to help! :D

Art auction

2008-03-05T10:56:00.004-06:00

UPDATE: Two hours until the end of the auction, and a thunderstorm is blowing in. I won't be online and won't be able to communicate, so let's extend this until noon CST tomorrow (Friday).

---

Oops, still need to raise funds... we did extremely well in February, and raised over $600 in donations with our wallpaper incentives. However, the month was short, and there are already new expenses and bills. Some of the people I need to get money to are getting impatient with me being late every month, so I am going to have to continue trying to raise money, in order to get ahead.

I'm auctioning the original art for both of the recent wallpapers: Baughb and Filis, and the Three Faeries. I need to raise $200 bare minimum, so I'm starting the bids on both at $100 each. To bid, email me at carsonfire@gmail.com with "Auction" in the subject line. Bids end at noon central standard time, Thursday, March 6. This is a 24-hour auction.

Both are india ink, brush and pen drawings with intense coverage of Aquarelle pencil shading. They are not treated with wet media. Both are on 9 x 12 inch Canson drawing paper. I'm biased, of course, but I believe they look very nice in person.

Click on these thumbnails for a good view of the raw art; but CAUTION, the faerie art here, for purposes of inspection, is uncensored.

Work in progress - Killing School

2008-03-03T00:41:00.003-06:00

Our old, old pal Akarnis, in his younger days as an instructor at "killing school".

Paper Notes

2008-03-02T12:25:00.002-06:00

I've been babbling so much about watercolor and pencils and blending medium, that I should also make a note about the paper.

I used to stick to bristol pads. It's not an elitist thing, it's a comic book thing. Before webcomics, it was understood that bristol was the comic book industry standard.

So a great deal of Elf Life (now Alfheim) is on thick bristol paper. Even the art that sucks. Only recently did I try some experiments with different kinds of paper. For the "apocryphal" Babes in the Woods, I produced the comic in a sketchbook. For another comic series, I bit the bullet and switched to cheap copier paper. There seems to be a class of webcartoonist who seem almost proud to be using substandard material; I used it because I was broke. Buying the bristol for the earlier comics had always been a strain.

But bristol I bought. And now, my collection of old comics is in boxes. Heavy boxes. You amass a great deal of comics on bristol board, and storage becomes an issue.

When I returned to the present series, I was still broke; the only thing that changed was that I was finally back on a functioning PC, and back online. So I took the few comics I had done previously, and started adding sketchbook comics.

But then a more professional-type opportunity presented itself, and I realized that a return to better paper was necessary. No more bristol, though--the reason bristol is the old standard in the comic book industry isn't just the quality of the paper, but that the heaviness of the pages allows them to be passed through many hands relatively unscathed. There's the guy who pencils the comics, and the guy who letters them, and the guy who inks them, not to mention any number of assistants spilling coffee on them in between those jobs, and then the printer manhandling them.

The heaviness of the bristol isn't much help for wet media and washes. Bristol warps and buckles just like any other untreated paper. You just get very thick warps and buckles.

But a webcartoonist mostly handles all the jobs alone. And many steps are now optionally digital. So I don't really need the heaviness of bristol, just the quality. So nice drawing paper is the obvious solution. Comparable results, not to mention less storage space.

In recent weeks, I've tried two different drawing papers, both Canson. I prefer Canson paper in general to Strathmore, because Canson delivers more consistent results. Strathmore sometimes seems to slap their label on anything that even remotely resembles paper.

This is the pad I'm using, right now: Canson pure white drawing paper. It claims to have an "excellent fine surface" (which seems to be true), and it is very white. It's got a little bit of thickness, but is not board like at all. The current sticker price at Hobby Lobby is $4.59 for 24 (9 x 12 inch) sheets.

Right before that, I was using another Canson pad; it is simply their basic drawing paper, with a "fine tooth". It is cheaper ($4.99 for 50 sheets) and only slightly thinner. You'll find it with some version of Canson's trademark balloon on the front flap.

And it is not as white as the "pure white". It's almost too subtle a difference for the scanner; I had to tweak the following side-by-side comparison to bring it more in line with what I see with my nekkid eye. You may have to click to open the larger version, even, to see much difference.

Yet there was also a notable difference in the ability to take pens and ink lines. I find the "pure white" to be significantly superior in taking crowquill, but it is also better at exposing any thinnness in the lines of disposable pens and markers. So there's a trade-off there, depending on what tools and effects you're after.

What I may lean towards doing, then, is using the basic drawing paper for line and wash studies, and the "pure white" drawing paper for the pages, proper.

More detail views

2008-03-01T23:10:00.004-06:00

...if you want. I know that not everybody is interested in the "behind the scenes" stuff;, but that's what yer gettin' right now. :D

Click on these thumbnails to get a giant look at grisly details.

The watercolor/pencil test is going swimmingly. Since I am using blending medium instead of water, now, I do have to remember not to wipe the brush on my hand, like I sometimes do, in order to quickly adjust the wetness. I don't think I should be wiping chemicals on myself, even if the bottle does say "nontoxic".

I'm finding myself slowly breaking out of the "safe" shading mode that I had tended to use for the pencils. The pencil shading only suggested light and shadow, because I couldn't cover areas the way I can with the wetter mode.

I hate to call attention to Thoe's ample bosom, but the shadow it casts here is a good example. I think my only problem with this comic is that there's still too much of the "unrealistic" shading mixed in with the more realistic touches.

Still, I feel like I'm on the right track. And it certainly is easier dealing with the backgrounds using this technique. It's a lot easier to suggest backdrops with light gradients than hard lines.

Font update

2008-03-01T10:01:00.004-06:00

I had been hand lettering the comic, for a while, but I've recently gone back to adding the balloons and dialogue digitally. There's something to be said for both ways.

The new current font is a recent freeware arrival at Blambot called SmackAttack.

(Since I first posted this, I have also used several different Blambot SFX fonts, including DeathRattle and KillCrazy)

Meanwhile, for housekeeping purposes, let us also note that the current Alfheim logo is set with Echelon, a font that manages in portions to be both stately and silly, designed on a PDA by rockin' Ray Larabie.

Water, water, everywhere

2008-02-29T08:40:00.003-06:00

...but blending medium you'd best not drink! :D

Next comic will be Saturday, if not late Friday. I've returned to shading the comics by hand, and I'm experimenting with some more materials.

I went to a little more effort with Monday's comic (the poker tableau), and used brush and water to smooth the pencil shading. I've been using Aquarelles (watercolor pencils) to shade, and even when I don't take advantage of the watercolor properties, I find the pencil easy to work with. For a soft pencil, it retains a point for a decent amount of time, it doesn't smudge, and it allows a good amount of erasure.

And, if I decide it's warranted, I can slop on water for special effects, even late in production.

But that detailed pencilling is time consuming. With the next comic (where Filis and Airek fold), my aim was to cut out the middleman and go straight to watercolor, which can cover the paper faster. But I wanted it to look the same.

For this experiment, I dug up a bottle of blending medium that I've barely used (and even then, only for actual painterly painting). As I worked through the drawing, I found that I was not happy with the watercolor. Using ivory black, water, and the medium, I was having trouble adjusting the darkness level. It's probably worst on Airek's uplifted hand (in the first panel). On reflection, that makes sense--while the water lightens the black, it also undercuts the medium. I was working at cross-purposes.

Click on the thumbnails in this post for a closer look.

And I wasn't getting the look I wanted, at first. Watercolor is not at its best with careful, fine detail. It's best for big splashes, large gradients.

So as I moved through the panels, I played around with combining the pencil and the watercolor. The pencil was still better for getting that precise shapes I wanted, when shading in an interior area (that is, when not shading against an existing line). In doing so, I was "accidentally" applying the blending medium to the Aquarelle.

Well, it didn't occur to me that the blending medium would have much the same effect on the Aquarelle as it does on the watercolor. So I found that instead of slowly working out every bit of the shading with the Aquarelle, I could, in many cases, simply define the edges, scribble in some light shade, and use the brush not to smooth an area already carefully shaded, but to instead fan out the shading from the bit of pencil.

This is the best of both worlds, for me--the precision of the pencil, and something more like the quickness of watercolor. But with just enough drying retardation to allow smooth blending.

And an unexpected bonus: using the blending medium reduces the amount of paper buckle on the untreated paper. Less water! Look at that cape in the next detail--that cape of Airek's looks as wet as can be, but there is no uneven buckling, despite the fact that this is not even on heavy bristol, but 80 lb drawing paper.

I did find that for best results, I should have a bit of darkness already mixed in with the blending medium. Most of the tubes of watercolor I've got are pretty old, and even the ivory black was drying up a bit, so I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday and got a couple of new tubes--not black, this time, but Payne's gray and Chinese white. The deep black will be handled by the Aquarelle pencil, and I will use the gray and white paint for blending.

Lucky me, Hobby Lobby had the budget Van Gogh brand watercolor on sale at 25% off, and Aquarelles on sale at 30% off. I will not suffer anyone to abuse or besmirch my beloved Hobby Lobby! ;)

I looked over the model kits real good, too. They were on sale at 30% off. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to get a model of a ship similar to the one the gang are now aboard--I plan on making the ship itself a "recurring character" in this new series, and I really need the reference. I need to not only be able to draw the ship from a distance, but draw the cast traipsing around deck, in the hold, etc. Notice that right now, all I've drawn of the ship, besides the long views, is a doorway, a few wooden steps, and some bags and a crate.

Unfortunately, none of the model kits were quite what I was looking for, and I recalled that I am bad at putting model kits together. So I trudged off to the used bookstore and found something even better.

For $5 A book called simply Ships, presumably intended for the youth market. This one is even better than anything I'd found at the library, as it contains not just long views, but lots of detailed cutaways of the deck and interior. These details are crisply illustrated, details that are usually lost in images found on the web, low-res and corrupted with JPG artifacts.

These cutaways will help me get a better feel for what the environment should look like. Knowing what the different parts of the ship--what they are, and their function--will help me better develop the new ship as that "recurring character". This will also help me with other ships that will probably appear in the series, later.

Glad I found this. The model kit would have been much more expensive, and probably would still leave me somewhat befuddled about the interior view.

Keenspot buyout

2008-02-28T08:29:00.002-06:00

News from the Keenspot home page:

PR: CROSBY COMICS ACQUIRES COMPLETE OWNERSHIP OF KEENSPOT
Posted By Chris Crosby at 2/27/2008 07:00:00 PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CROSBY COMICS ACQUIRES COMPLETE OWNERSHIP OF KEENSPOT
Orthonormal Systems Sells Its 50% Stake in Webcomics Publisher

Cresbard, SD, February 27, 2008 - Darren "Gav" Bleuel and Nate Stone of Orthnormal Systems have sold their 50% stake in pioneering webcomics publisher Keenspot Entertainment to Crosby Comics for an undisclosed sum. The agreement gives Chris Crosby and Teri Crosby full ownership and control of the company. Orthonormal and Crosby founded Keenspot together in 2000 and previously shared equal ownership.

In a lengthy statement to Keenspot members, Orthonormal's Bleuel said "Thank you all for your support over the years, your inspiration, your good ideas, and for sticking with us, especially those that risked us in the very beginning and stuck with me until the end. I will miss this sickly shade of green terribly."

Said Keenspot CEO Chris Crosby, "I want to thank Darren and Nate for everything that they've done over the eight years since we founded Keenspot together. It couldn't have happened without their hard work, and we'll always appreciate that."

Bleuel and Stone have agreed to maintain Keenspot's techical aspects until July as they train others to handle their duties. El Goonish Shive creator Dan Shive has been named Keenspot's new Chief Technical Officer.

With the buy-out in place, Crosby has begun implementing major changes to Keenspot's structure and business model. "We're completely rethinking everything that we do," said Crosby. "Keenspot may be turning eight in March, but in many ways, this is only the beginning. Watch this 'spot."

That's good news, if you're not sure what all this means. Although it's sad to see friends like Gav and Nate leave, Keenspot has been sorely in need of a rebuild. Our previous business model was optimized for the internet circa 1999/2000, and this buyout allows the company to adapt to new circumstances.

Free poker wallpaper

2008-02-26T13:43:00.003-06:00

I promised some free wallpaper for February, and it suddenly hit me that the latest poker scene would work very well.

Click on the thumbnails below to open the full wallpaper image, then save to your desktop.

1024 x 768 (most common)

1600 x 1200 (high-res)

1280 x 1024

If you prefer 800 x 600, you can just grab the 1024 x 768 and let your PC shrink the image. Let me know if you'd like to see this in a different size.

Donor links

2008-02-19T12:52:00.009-06:00

These links are for donors only. You can click them, but you will need a password to access the folders. After a period of time, some older wallpaper will be moved into general circulation.

Glynhial as Pat Benatar

Baughb and Filis (lots of variations)

Mushroom Faeries

Five Mermaids

Donors should receive the passwords via email. Unfortunately, there are many pitfalls: spam filters, incorrect or old email addressess, and (of course) plain old human error on my part. If you haven't received info in a reasonable amount of time (12 to 24 hours), please email me at carsonfire@gmail.com.

Alternate donation info
Current free wallpaper
carsonfire@gmail.com