Today’s Monday Blog marks my 100th post on the site. That’s a lot of pictures and stories and articles in 2 ½ months. There’s still more to come in 2012! For today’s blog, I decided to give a few Animus updates.

CONTENT NEWS

Funnies readers will have noticed that the Funnies format changed just as Todrick and Nektara were formally introduced. I’m happy with the current full page format. If I were ever to make a compilation book of strips, this format will work well. The early strips will need some editing work of course. My Funnies buffer goes all the way to the end of January, but I’m having too much fun drawing the Funnies to stop so the buffer isn’t shrinking. The Funnies are taking longer to draw though as I’m getting braver and trying different poses and panel compositions. The character designs are simple enough, but some just take longer for me to draw. I can knock out a Todrick, Zoë, Barnaby or Red Rich pretty quickly. Cyran’s goggles, Sass’ money pouch, Big Oonch’s hat and Nektara’s hairdo are still proving to be a challenge. Also, after just finishing a short storyline where Sass wears a different outfit (due to show up on the site in late January), I understand why cartoonists keep their characters wearing the same clothes all the time!

I’ve still got a few stories to publish on the site. The “chapters” are super short I know. Nobody’s reading them (yet) though, so it’s not like I feel the need to publish them any faster! If you DO read the stories, you’ll find that I didn’t write closed endings for them. I wrote what I wanted and left the door open to continue them later on, with priority going to any story that gets multiple requests for a follow-up.

I’ve started writing the script for the Age of Animus – Fun ‘n’ Fantasy crossover and it’s already looking like a daunting project. I was originally envisioning a 25 page story, but I’ve already got like five or so pages of dialogue and the two groups are just starting to interact with each other (a crucial part of the crossover concept). Panel composition is going to be tricky because word balloons take up a good chunk of panel real estate and a lot of my humour is dialogue-based. And yet, I don’t want the panels to be TOO big. So I have no idea what the page count will be before I’m done. If it’s 50 pages or more, then I’ll break it down into several “issues”. What I’m thinking right now is that once I’ve written and drawn the first issue’s worth of strips, the pages will be offered on the site at a rate of one per week, meaning that the first issue (which could be between 25 and 49 pages long) would take half a year to appear on the site. I’d also put the issue up for sale on hulu.com for those who want to consume it more quickly (or who just like reading comic books in, you know, book form).

MERCHANDISING NEWS

I cannot tell you how awesome I find it that I can offer merchandise of any kind for something I created. I have to reiterate though that my actual expectations are small. I’m not delusional!

As I wrote a week or so ago, the Age of Animus Cafepress store is growing. I added a Christmas design too late for anybody to actually order it in time for Christmas 2011 but super early for Christmas 2012! It’s an homage to the final scene of  A Charlie Brown Christmas. The picture is also posted on this site.

I was asked about signed prints of the digital drawings (no, really I was). I consciously avoided putting prints for sale in the store for cost reasons. The one print that I DID put up for sale on the Cafepress store is pretty expensive (it’s framed) and there’s no way for me to sign it without ordering it from Cafepress myself first, signing it and then sending it out myself (thus adding to the already high cost). I wouldn’t feel right charging anybody for a printout from my printer. I’m looking into how much nice prints would cost from the print centre at Bureau en Gros. If I can get them done for under $5 a piece and they look good, I’ll make them available for those interested. I was worried that the low PPI count on some of the drawings would make them look “cheap” but I ordered some magnets featuring my digital drawings and *I* think they look really nice!

I haven’t made much progress on Kerfuffle Shuffle since my last preview update. The character cards and the location cards are designed. They’re just missing the artwork. The bag o’ tricks cards have no artwork, so it’s a matter of creating a template and then cutting and pasting the text. As for the scuffle cards, I’m not satisfied with the icons I designed. I need a red sword, a blue shield, a green arrow, a yellow star and a purple fist (cue the Lucky Charms jokes). Anybody willing to work pro bono (i.e. for free) would get a hearty thank you and their name on the box cover and in the rulebook! Once that’s done and the card backs are designed, then I’m ready to print a prototype to start play-testing.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

In closing, when I decided to create this site, I thought it would be cool to have other people play in a world I created. I wasn’t super explicit about it before, but I’d love it if people would send in their own drawings of the Animus characters (or their own Pelarian characters) or stories featuring their own Pelarian characters. I’d post them up on the site for everybody to see. Granted, stories at this stage are still tricky as I’m still writing articles describing the world. If you’d like to know more about something specific, you can email me atcarja@ageofanimus.com and I’ll see to writing an article about it for the next Wednesday update. You can send your art and story submissions to the same address.

I’ve been drawing for a long time. I’ve never had any formal training, it’s always been a matter of me taking pictures or drawings I liked and reproducing them. My “style” therefore is an amalgamation of different things I liked about other people’s drawing styles. I think it’s safe to say that that’s who most artists develop.

One of my first drawing memories is of me taking my “He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown” book and record set and drawing Snoopy in his WWI Flying Ace getup that was on the cover. I must have been six or seven at the time. Later, I remember drawing the cover to Star Wars comics, issue #4 (the one with a giant Vader reaching out for Luke, Ben and Leia). That would have been at the age of twelve or so.

In high school, I would draw my own comic book, filled with one page gags, featuring amongst others, an alien character called Zurbert who wanted to kill everybody. I can’t remember any of the other characters though, only that they (and the comics themselves) were all pretty bad.

I also remember finding it cool that my English teacher, Mr. Gallant, would doodle during school assemblies. His stuff was a lot more abstract than what I was doing, but he liked to draw. Just one of the many reasons why he was my favorite teacher.

Also in high school, I would draw a LOT of Star Wars and Peanuts stuff, again more mimicry. During my university days I discovered manga and anime and that too influenced my drawing (big expressive eyes and all that).

I once again tried my hand at drawing comic books in the months prior to getting my job at the tax centre. Fun ‘n’ Fantasy was a parody of my roleplaying group. I think I managed to draw and post seven 25 paged issues of that online before I lost the drive to continue, which was sometime after I started working. Fun ‘n’ Fantasy was my first prolonged attempt at drawing my own stuff, rather than just drawing established characters.

I remember Fab telling me that a couple of his artist friends told him that Fun ‘n’ Fantasy was a good comic but that I couldn’t draw. It was the first time someone who was not a friend or a family member gave me any kind of criticism. Don’t worry. It didn’t hurt my feelings. I’ve always known my style is pretty limited. Most of the strips were frontal views from the shoulders up. I’m okay at comic portraits, less so at action poses. Backgrounds and objects? Forget about it!

Fun ‘n’ Fantasy was over ten years ago and I didn’t draw much after that, until I started working on Age of Animus. It feels good to be drawing again. It’s different now since I mostly use a drawing tablet. Mechanically it’s very similar to the pencil and paper method, but there are some differences. Having to look up at the screen instead of down at the paper being chief among them. I’m still learning how to exploit the tools at my disposal and I find myself experimenting a little more.
My Red Rich picture on this site is the piece I’m most proud of so far.

The Animus Funnies are designed to be drawn quickly. As such, they’re much simpler drawings than what I’m normally capable of. Even then, I normally draw at least two strips per weekend and it takes me over three hours total. I was heavily influenced by Order of the Stick when I designed the characters.

I wouldn’t expect those same friends of Fab’s to say I’m a good artist, although I would hope that they would recognize that I’m better than I was then. Maybe? I hope. Well, so long as they don’t say I’ve regressed!

Here’s the blog I had originally written for Monday:

So here I am. It’s Sunday and I figure I’ll write up my Monday Blog early…only I don’t know what to write. I could just skip a week, but once you start down that path, it’s too easy to skip updating altogether. So no! I need to come up with something! I guess today I’ll settle for a potpourri of topics.

Yesterday I went to the local comics and collectibles store, Zone 51, as I like to do on Saturdays. There, in addition to my weekly comics, I found a trade paperback called Grimm Fairy Tales. As I said last week, I’m on a fairy tale kick, so I picked it up even though it was volume 4. From the back cover, it seemed like the stories would be self-contained. Well, not so much. There’s an arcing storyline throughout the series and Volume 4 actually marks the end of the series in that form. So now I know how it ends and I have an idea of what the basic premise is, but I’ll need to visit the earlier volumes to really get everything. It’s another dark take on classic fairy tales. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it for the younger folk out there.

After buying some rechargeable batteries for my Skylanders Portal (I have the PS3 cordless version), my buddy Frank and I played Skylanders last night. It’s good simple fun. The portal and toys are genius. It’s fun to switch characters in the middle of a level to use one that has a particular skill, like Eruptor (I renamed mine Magmar) who lobs fireballs in an arc rather than shooting them straight ahead. Useful for getting baddies who are on an elevated plain. My overall favourite character to play is Trigger Happy (renamed Gun Nut). He comes with the basic game and he’s got good ranged attacks. He shoots so fast that baddies generally don’t have time to get in close. I’m looking forward to the second wave of figures being released so I can try them out. The crafty developers have found my unhidden weakness: cool collectibles. The game is good family fun and easy to pick up. Both Kayla and Frank had fun playing along with me.

Other than Skylanders, I’ve been putting a lot of time into Batman: Arkham City. It’s not quite the family friendly game that Skylanders is (not by a long shot), but it’s entertaining nonetheless. I think I’m close to the main storyline’s endgame, but I’m delaying going through with it to go through the side quests and picking up the hidden Riddler trophies. It’s sad to think that this will most likely be Mark Hamill’s last time voicing the Joker (he’s said as much). He and Kevin Conroy are the definitive voices for Joker and Batman for a generation of fans, like me, who ate up Batman: The Animated Series and its followups. If you’re at all into superheroes and haven’t watched Batman: TAS, then you owe it to yourself to check it out. Like now. Just come back to the site for a break every now and then. 

Well, I’m tapped out for now. I’m off to play some more Arkham City. Here’s to hoping that my football picks are better this week than last week!

Peace y’all!