Happy Bastille Day!

In honor of Bastille Day (or because this was my first comic & I happen to read the paper yesterday) I am proud to present you with my attempt at humor. Crits & comments are welcome as always. I think it's decent, I'm happy with it, but I still see where I can improve in many areas. See what you think: Marie Antoinette

*Edit* I don't know why but I'm not getting the FOV that I had when I exported the toon in TBS. When I export & preview it looks how I want it(zoomed in slightly further so the top lef corner & right edge of wall are not visible), but then when I upload it to photobucket it shows these areas anyway. I'm fairly certain this is due to a stupid mistake on my part, but if anyone can let me know what exactly I overlooked please fill me in. I'll leave it alone for now, even though it shouldn't be visible, getting a glance at the awning behind the wall without the glass in front of it almost makes the glass effect better anyway. If nothing else you get to see it with & without the glass for a comparison.

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Comics Coming Soon

Hey all, just a quick note to say I should be releasing weekly comics in the near future. Blatantly stealing from my buddy Rob Campbell, I think that weekly comics will help generate more return traffic to the site. As it stands, who knows when I'll have an actuall animation completed, & I can completely understand how a site with no content would get boring fast. Hopefully the comics will keep it interesting. I think it will end up being a rather eclectic mix, as I've got some ideas for a series of father/son fishing related stuff, and I've agreed to do the artwork for a neighbor who has a bunch of ideas for single panel strips sort of in the Far Side style. I have a couple finished, but I'm trying to hold off releasing any until I'm pretty well ahead of the game, I think 6-8 weeks should cover the inevitable dry spell. But stay "tooned" I promise to produce something soon.

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When creativity strikes

Well, I haven't posted anything substantial lately, & that's for a variety of reasons. Mostly I've been tied up with renovations & odd jobs around the house, which is a valid excuse, but only to an extent. I've had time to draw & such but I've been using it to go fishing myself instead of making toons about it (maybe I should start doing both at the same time, could probably hammer out a few drawings when the bite is slow). Lastly, I work at a University, so since we've been on our summer "down time" schedule, it's a bit tougher for me to find a corner to hide in & draw at work. During the summer all three of our buildings operate out of one spot, so there is an overabundance of chiefs & relatively few indians, & while there's not much to do, you always have to look busy...

Anyway, today I got hit with a creative spark that I haven't felt in a while. I can't say what brought it on, but I hammered out rough sketches for 8 still panel strips! Some 3-4 panels & some just single's. They are VERY rough right now, but it won't be too much work to tighten them up when I get home. The important part is I'm pretty happy with all the gags, & I may have deveolped enough of a concept to make a series out of with a couple of them. While it will also be loosley about fishing, I've got a few strips focusing on a father/son duo in which the father, while mostly a responsible parent, finds great ameusement in teaching his son all about the things he can get away with when mom's not around. It won't be entirely dedicated to father/son stuff, I've already got a couple just involving Dad & his buddies, but I think it will be a theme that pops up more often than not.

I've been wanting to do some still panel strips for a while now, & I'm glad I finally started. As I've learned from my pal Rob Campbell, still panel strips are a great way to get frequent content on our sites & are much quicker to produce than even a short animation (especially for us one man studios out there). This helps bring return traffic to our sites, which is always a plus, keeps fresh content available, and working on a couple still strips can even be a nice break from several hours of key framing :)

All that said, I'm excited that I actually started creating again, & I will have a fair amount of stuff to show in the near future. I haven't decided how/if I'll space out the releases of each toon, but I'll worry about that when I finish them. Anyway, keep checking back, I promise there will be fresh material soon!
Cheers for now

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