So then blog-pals, I'm going to Essen to the Spiel'11 boardgames festival thing tomorrow. What a thing to do! So anyway, I'm going for the weekend and coming back on Monday (ready for Battlegrounds) with Andy, Heather and Lea from Chimera Leisure, and the lovely Jen (who I'm rather attached to).
Now here's the trouble...I don't speak any german. At all. So I'm going to buy a phrasebook at the airport and see how well I do. Jen knows more german than me so we should be okay there, but it might make playing difficult.
So what am I looking forward to at the festival? Well, a weekend of games, good beer and good company really. It's a mini holiday and I'll take them where I can get them these days. I'll report to you afterwards and let you know how I get on.
Luff and peas.
K
20 October 2011
31 May 2011
New house, more time to draw...
Well, it's that time of the month again so I'm going to do another series of posts.
This one is generally news and housekeeping. FAWK #3 has been put on hold for a while. I need to finish Brown Bottle Bear #2 and I'd like to get #3 out there as well. I feel I'm going to a good place with Bear at the moment, although if you read #3 you'll see that Bear's going to a very, very bad place. Some of the art, especially on the later page, has blown my tiny little mind. I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but seriously folks! I really hope you enjoy it, I found it very difficult starting it and taking the story forward. I'm about 50% complete with it at the moment. Most of the pages have been drawn, not all of them inked though. I'm so excited, I'm going to show you page 1.
Also you will be please to learn that I am using my deviant art account. http://professorvod.deviantart.com. When I do con sketches I'll be putting them up on there, so take a look. Hope you enjoy them, and if you're intereted in the originals then yes, they are for sale. E-mail me and we can talk about a price.
That's it from me, for now. Take care.
K
This one is generally news and housekeeping. FAWK #3 has been put on hold for a while. I need to finish Brown Bottle Bear #2 and I'd like to get #3 out there as well. I feel I'm going to a good place with Bear at the moment, although if you read #3 you'll see that Bear's going to a very, very bad place. Some of the art, especially on the later page, has blown my tiny little mind. I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but seriously folks! I really hope you enjoy it, I found it very difficult starting it and taking the story forward. I'm about 50% complete with it at the moment. Most of the pages have been drawn, not all of them inked though. I'm so excited, I'm going to show you page 1.
Also you will be please to learn that I am using my deviant art account. http://professorvod.deviantart.com. When I do con sketches I'll be putting them up on there, so take a look. Hope you enjoy them, and if you're intereted in the originals then yes, they are for sale. E-mail me and we can talk about a price.
That's it from me, for now. Take care.
K
09 May 2011
Motivation and losing it
Sometimes I can be the most highly motivated person in the world. Other times I can sit about on my rump watching the clouds go by. This is very true when it comes to my passions outside of the work environment (where I'm all go all day). When I get home from working 9-5:30 I sometimes find myself going into somewhat of a malaise. I don't want to do anything constructuve or destructive. Just sit there. Watching. Waiting.
Let me focus this even further on my comics. Not too many moons ago I reached a difficult point with my comics. Brown Bottle Bear was taking an aeon to finish and FAWK #1 irritated me. I also couldn't make it to as many cons as I wanted to. This made life very difficult. I found that the further I got from the comic world the more difficult it was to keep my motivation for doing comics. Then it happened. I went to the last Thing in London and that was it. This absolutely bizzare feeling came over me and I wanted to draw again. Seeing everyone else's lovely works I knew I had it in me to finish Bear for the Bristol show. That's exactly what I did. I pulled my finger out and got it done.
So what's stopping me now I hear you say? Too much motivation.
Let me focus this even further on my comics. Not too many moons ago I reached a difficult point with my comics. Brown Bottle Bear was taking an aeon to finish and FAWK #1 irritated me. I also couldn't make it to as many cons as I wanted to. This made life very difficult. I found that the further I got from the comic world the more difficult it was to keep my motivation for doing comics. Then it happened. I went to the last Thing in London and that was it. This absolutely bizzare feeling came over me and I wanted to draw again. Seeing everyone else's lovely works I knew I had it in me to finish Bear for the Bristol show. That's exactly what I did. I pulled my finger out and got it done.
So what's stopping me now I hear you say? Too much motivation.
02 May 2011
My Comic Tale: Part 3
After trying and failing for a second time at making a comic, I decided to get on with my studies. By now I had started college (which for those of you not in the UK was between the ages of 16 and 18). I was free to learn what I wanted to learn and think what I wanted to think. At this point music was becoming quite big in my life, as I had recently discovered heavy metal and a notion that I looked good in black. Something I still believe to this day. So after trying to become a rock god, and failing in a further 2 bands, I left college creatively drained. Everything I'd tried I'd failed at; Homer Simpson was right.
So with college out of the way I started university, my creative fluids well and truly frozen. I'd continued this way until my 3rd year, which was a placement year. During this placement year my days would alternate between support and web development. I was always busy during the web development days, but support could sometimes be a bit of a bore. I'd also recent met someone who would become a good friend: Angel Von Krum (to use her really sharp, jabby-jabby pen-name). At a friend's birthday party we met and spoke at length, whilst completely piddled, about geeky stuff. She mentioned that she self published her own comics and went around the country peddling them at comic shows. The next day at work I decided to take a look. I was blown away by them. I instantly found her on MSN and struck up many a conversation, becoming an active part of the culture scene at http://www.thefallenangel.co.uk.
The pieces were in position. AVK had just finished putting up High Maintenance #2. #3 would be weeks away. AVK needed some filler, and quickly. I had time on my hands. I decided to draw a sample page of the Adventures of Kristian, involving me trying to get hold of a copy of the next chapter. It ended up being 4 pages long and up on the site in the interim. I was amazed. I'd drawn something, it had gone onto the internet. I caught the bug. More paper was brought into work and I tirelessly worked on pencilling, inking, scanning and cleaning those pages and sending them off to AVK. Jen was a great help in telling me if my stuff was any good, and Ms. Von Krum would always tell me if something was crap (one of her best qualities, and that's not sarcasm).
Then trouble struck. I finished my placement year half-way through making the comic. No trouble, right? BIG TROUBLE.
To be continued? Certainly will!
By the way, at this point I would like to say a big thank you to Mal for helping get into the world of comics. I am eternally grateful.
So with college out of the way I started university, my creative fluids well and truly frozen. I'd continued this way until my 3rd year, which was a placement year. During this placement year my days would alternate between support and web development. I was always busy during the web development days, but support could sometimes be a bit of a bore. I'd also recent met someone who would become a good friend: Angel Von Krum (to use her really sharp, jabby-jabby pen-name). At a friend's birthday party we met and spoke at length, whilst completely piddled, about geeky stuff. She mentioned that she self published her own comics and went around the country peddling them at comic shows. The next day at work I decided to take a look. I was blown away by them. I instantly found her on MSN and struck up many a conversation, becoming an active part of the culture scene at http://www.thefallenangel.co.uk.
The pieces were in position. AVK had just finished putting up High Maintenance #2. #3 would be weeks away. AVK needed some filler, and quickly. I had time on my hands. I decided to draw a sample page of the Adventures of Kristian, involving me trying to get hold of a copy of the next chapter. It ended up being 4 pages long and up on the site in the interim. I was amazed. I'd drawn something, it had gone onto the internet. I caught the bug. More paper was brought into work and I tirelessly worked on pencilling, inking, scanning and cleaning those pages and sending them off to AVK. Jen was a great help in telling me if my stuff was any good, and Ms. Von Krum would always tell me if something was crap (one of her best qualities, and that's not sarcasm).
Then trouble struck. I finished my placement year half-way through making the comic. No trouble, right? BIG TROUBLE.
To be continued? Certainly will!
By the way, at this point I would like to say a big thank you to Mal for helping get into the world of comics. I am eternally grateful.
28 April 2011
Oooh, new toy!
So my brilliant ladyfan bought a new shiny thing the other day. Now get your mind out of the gutter. It's a Wacom Bamboo, and it's lovely! We've plugged it in, turned on GIMP, and given it a test draw. By the gods, it's good.
I'm still trying to get used to it, but when I do I'll upload the stuff to my Deviant Art site, which I think I still have kicking around somewhere.
If anyone has any tips, etc. for using a Wacom please let me know, as I've just started and the whole notion of looking at the screen whilst my hands do something else is alien to me. Well, after writing that I can think of one thing that requires my attention being on the screen whilst my hands do something else. I'm talking about TYPING of course. Filthy minds, the lot of you.
I'm still trying to get used to it, but when I do I'll upload the stuff to my Deviant Art site, which I think I still have kicking around somewhere.
If anyone has any tips, etc. for using a Wacom please let me know, as I've just started and the whole notion of looking at the screen whilst my hands do something else is alien to me. Well, after writing that I can think of one thing that requires my attention being on the screen whilst my hands do something else. I'm talking about TYPING of course. Filthy minds, the lot of you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)