Comments For Page 267

I'm feeling much better today and I think it shows in my art work.

I'm going to have to move the story along or this story will take forever to tell. Expect more action and drama on Friday and through next week as I get to the meat of the story.

Comments For Page 266

I'm not feeling very well today. I'm running a fever and can hardly move. As a result, todays page isn't very good. I mean it's not bad, I just wish I could have filled out the details a little better.

I'm going to bed early tonight. Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning.

Comments For Page 265

Here is more of the story about the original goddesses. I think this page looks a little better then the last.

I'll have time to work on the next page, so I think I'll have Racheal interupt Terra so I can get back to my regular style of drawing.

Our computer lab has finally gotten new computers and I'm typing on the first test model right now! It's a Cord 2 Duo with 2 GB Rom, 1.86 MHz processing with 150 GB memory. Not top of the line, but still pretty sweet. It's going to be great when everything is up and running and I can start animating on these babies. 3D with Maya 8 should look pretty cool and the rendering speed should be a lot faster now with less chance of crashes. I'll try to throw something together sometime so you can see that this program can do.

Comments For Page 264

Well it's the first part of the revised origin of the goddesses. I hope you like the style I'm using for these scenes. I'm sure my art will improve as I keep practicing. That's one of the reasons to shake things up like this. I'll have to come up with reasons to change the style again later on, so I can keep improving my overall drawing abilities.

There is a lot of work to do but nothing I can't handle. I just need to keep pushing ahead and not get behind and let it over whelm me.

Let me know what you think of my new style. My email is Dungeonwarden [at] msn.com (replace [at] with @). I'd like to know what you think.

Comments For Page 263

Starting Wednesday there will be a whole new storyline as Terra tells the true story about the origin of the animal talimans (or at least the version that Horese told her). I'm thinking of changing the art style for the flashback scenes. Both to give me a break from the full shaded images I'm doing now and also to practice drawing in a different style. It's always a good idea to try something different once in a while to keep yourself from getting stale.

I've caught up on most of my back log of work now, so I just have to worry about getting my projects done. I hope I'll have time to work on my 2D animation since I don't want to lose what I've learned and I want to get better as well. John K. put up some new assignments on his blog (http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/) that I want to do as well. There is just too much to do and so little time to do it. Keep the support coming, I need it.

Comments For Page 262

This page took a lot longer to create then usual. I'm not really sure why, but I really need to keep things simple so that I don't waste time that is better spend elseware.

There is a lot of self-directed work this term, and a lot of group work. I really need to keep organized in order to avoid falling behind. I would like to have a job when I graduate and so I need to prove that I can do the work. My artwork needs to improve, so I will keep regular updates on the comic, but I need to work on animation as well. All I can do is keep plugging away everyday and try to avoid getting distracted by non-productive activities.

Post some messages to let me know what I'm doing well and what needs to improve. I'd love to get some feedback so that I know if I'm on the right track or not. Help me out, okay.

Comments For Page 261

I knew I'd be late posting this if I didn't get an early start on it last night. I might have to do what some people do and have my art work done on the weekend, so that I just need to color and clean up my work the day before it's due. I suppose it's alway good to stay ahead of the game; however, I have so much work to do I can't justifly spending a day just drawing. Then again, I'm not doing any more work then I'm doing now. I'll have to think about this some more.

I have put some sketches up on my website and I hope to get a few more done before the end of the day. There are a few nude poses, but the lines are not clear enough to show any real detail. Maybe I should rate them PG13 or something. Most of the sketches are my attemps to copy other artists' styles. I did a pretty good job on some of them.

I'm putting my best work up on Deviant Art. I put the link in the bar to the right. There are only a couple of drawing so far. I'll put the rest of those up soon as well.

My new Video

Fairy Nice

This is my animated video from last term. It took awhile, but it's finally done. I hope you enjoy my latest masterpiece.

Comments For Page 260

I think I'll start putting Monday's and Wednesday's pages up early (if I can) and put up Friday's page a little later. This is because Mondays and Wednesdays are pretty heavy days while I have a lot of free time on Fridays. Tuesdays are pretty busy as well, so I might have to do some juggling to get that page up on time. I though getting Friday's page up last term would be a struggle, but I managed it, so I should be able to get Wednesdays pages up as well. We'll see.

Not much to report since Friday. I've been pretty lax this weekend, but it is the first week back. I should have my last terms animation up soon. Only a couple of scenes left to color.

Free Will

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw
back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and
splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence
moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's
favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. ...
(W. H. Murray in
The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951. See http://www.goethesociety.org/pages/quotescom.html )

Scott Adams recently posted a blog, I can't stop myself, about a scientific article posted in the NY times, Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t.

The first question that needs to be answered is "What is free will?" Is it the ability to make decisions? If so, we all have free will since we all make decisions about lots of things. But then computers must have free will since they can make decisions as well. One of the great advances in computer science is the ability for computers to calculate solutions faster then any human can.

Some might say that the computer is only doing what it's told. It has no free will since it can only figure out what it has been programed to solve. However, are humans not the same. You can't preform most tasks without training in how they are done. Some things can be learned through trial and error, but computers are capable of this too.

perhaps we need to look at what it means not to have free will. What is it we are slaves to? Are we slaves to our passions? To some extent. for example, we can't choose who we fall in love with. However, we can choose that to do with those passions. We are capable of denying them.

The article suggests that we are controlled by our subconscious mind. Often we react to things before we even realize that we need to react. But doesn't that require the subconscious to make a decision? In essence, that means that the subconscious mind must have free will - free even from ourselves. We can veto our subconscious if we are aware of its actions but often the subconscious is better at doing things then our conscious mind it.

This is especially true with art. Good art is always a subconscious process. We dream or enter a trance like state and suddenly good ideas come. When we try to force ourselves to come up with good idea, we dry up and can't produce anything. The best we can hope for is to remember an idea we can up with in the past or which someone else came up with and reuse it. Original ideas can only come from the subconscious mind.

Some what is the subconscious mind and why does it have so much power over us? It seems to be a collect of everything we have experenced throughout our lives. When bad things happen to us, our subconscious remembers are trys to avoid those situations in the future. Conversely, we want to repeat events that had positive results in the past. Our subconscious uses all this information to guide us in the best direction for your personal happiness. Making or keeping others happy can contrubed to our own happiness, so we are not totally selfish but it is the general tendency for most people to think of their own well being first.

Comments For Page 259

I'll just put the new page link here. I don't have much to say about it except that I dreamed about what is going to happen over the next few story pages, so you can expect some interesting revelations over the next week or so.

I'm back to school now, so expect some slowness getting the pages up. I have more free time now, but I also have more time consuming projects to do. We are expected to create at least one high quality animation this term in order to show what we can do to potential employers. I still have a lot to learn, so I need to really stay focused this year.

I hope to become a freelance animator/ illustrator once I graduate and that requires that I can really prove to the world that I am worth taking a risk on. Freelance work requires you to constantly look for work and is very unstable financally. However, I'm too much of a creative genius to be confortable doing any kind of steady line of work. I hope I can generate a larger fan base for my work and become self-suffent like many other web comic artist. I will be creating more content (animated scenes) and promotional materials (T-shirts, books, calendars, etc.) once I graduate and have more time to deciate to the site.

I hope you will all continue to support me and tell others about my work.

Comments For Page 258

Not my best work, but it's up on time at least. I'll post more later.

Happy New Year!

I wish all the best to you and yours for the new year. May this year be better that the last.

Comments For Page 257

Well, I got this page up in good time for a change.

I'll probably put a quick New Years page up Monday and try to get the comic started again on Wednesday. Only problem is, I'll be back to school on Wednesday (the time sure flies by when you don't want it to). I'll try to get the page started before I leave, so I can get it up on time; however, I haven't had much luck in that regard, so the page might not be up until late Wednesday. It will be up on Wednesday one way or another.

Have a safe and Happy New Years Eve!

Comments For Page 256

I'm making a habit of these late updates. I have my Brother and his Family visiting this week, so I've been spending time with then. The are out right now, so I'm putting this up while I can.

I hope everyone enjoyed the lovely wallpaper I put up as a Christmas bonus. I don't think I got any more votes then usual, so many people were either too busy or didn't know about it. If anyone wants it, I'll e-mail it to you in exchange for a small donation through paypal (use Dungeonwarden msn.com as the e-mail address).

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays. I'll se you Friday.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I hope you are enjoying your Christmas Holidays. I know not everyone has reason to celebrate, but I like to keep an open mind about such things. Try to enjoy the day, and I'll see you back here Wednesday.

Strange error

For some strange reason http://dungeonwarden.com and http://www.dungeonwarden.com take you to two different versions of my website. Anyone going to the first version will not see the update for Friday while the second version works fine. I see no reason for this discrepancy, and I'm pretty sure dungeonwarden.com was working on Friday. Maybe this is just a holiday glitch and everything will be back to normal soon.

Update: Now all the files that were updated on Friday have disappeared. I put them back up on the site and everything seems to be working. My web server must have had to reset the site to a previous date. It was weird that only half the site had reset before. I hope the problem is fixed now.

Holiday gifts are still on the way for Christmas Eve. I hope people will take the time to check them out. By Tuesday they will be gone, so you'll have about 48 hours to get them. The Christmas card will stay on as a permanent part of the archive, but the rest will not be seen again for a long time. Enjoy!

Comments For Page 255

Sorry that I'm late getting this posted. I've just gotten so lazy now that I'm home. I'll put up a Christmas Card for Monday and maybe a Christmas gift as well for those that vote for me. I just have to remember to get everything done before Christmas Eve.

I checked my files and realized that I don't have the newest Flash file for my animation with me, so I can't update it. Well, I could if I wanted to redo all the work I did between this save and the final one; however, I discovered that my computer can't handle the file anyway. As much as people complained about the computers at school being old and glitchy, my home computer doesn't come near to the power of the ones at school. I think it's time for an upgrade, even though this computer is only a few years old. Animation takes a lot of processing power.

I may put up the unfinished version, just so you can see what I've done and why it takes so much power to edit the thing. I really put a lot of work into it.

Happy Holidays Everyone.

Comments For Page 254

Sorry, for the delay in putting up this blog. I'm just settling in back home and I need to get things in order. I spent some time making the page look nice, but I can see I really need more practice to be as good as many of the other web comics out there. I suppose I should take some pride in the fact that I'm not using Photoshop like most other people are, but my pictures could be so much better with a few filters and effects applied to them.

Right now I'm caught between wanting to be a better artist and wanting to work on other things. Animation is an important part of my education and I need to focus on that as well. I still haven't finished coloring my last animation project and I'd really like to get it out for Christmas. I'll try to get it done by tomorrow night, but there are no guarantees.

Still dealing with some loose ends before starting the next chapter of the story. I'll see what I can come up with for next week. Happy Holidays!

Comments For Page 253

I'm feeling much better today. It's amazing what a little rest can do for you. All my responsibilities are done for this term, so I'll be heading back to Wolfville tomorrow to see my family and take a much needed vacation. I'll try to get my animation finished before Christmas. All I need to do is color a few scenes, but I'm really burnt out so I'm not going to be much use to anyone for the next few days.

I added more background detail but also removed the highlights since this is a darker scene (the sun is going down). I really need to compose my scenes better, but I don't want to spend a lot of time working out all the details. That's fine for a painting, but for sequential art it is too much work to frame every scene. Maybe if I was getting paid for this, I'd spend the time making everything look good, but right now I just don't have the energy. During the school year I don't have the time. Maybe I'll be able to start doing commissions and putting up incentives after I graduate. Then I'll have the income I need to work on my comics full time. I hope you will all support me. I promise to reward you if you do.

Comments For Page 252

Sorry for the delay. I'm posting this nearly 23 hours after I normaly update; however it is still Friday, so this post isn't technically late.

Who am I kidding, this post is very late and it's all because of the long nights I've been putting into my animation project. It was due today but it isn't actually finished. All that's left is to color three scenes, so I should be able to put it up on my blog soon.

I am very tired right now, and that is another reason this is so late. I am having a hard time keeping awake and I can't think straight. I also accidently turned off the computer and lost all the work I had done up to that point. If this page looks a bit rushed, that's because it was. I think I'll go to sleep now. I'll see you Monday, when I hope to be more alert. Maybe I'll have some stuff done by then.

Comments For Page 251

Here's page 251. A little late, but that's to be expected. I didn't put any highlights on the bottom panel, but I really don't have time to fully render the scene. I'll keep practicing my art style, so don't worry that my art won't get any better.

I wasn't sure where to put this scene in the time line, but I need to reveal Toi's new form before Horese shows up, which will be pretty soon. Probably Monday, after I take care of some loose ends on Friday.

My animation project is coming along. I have all the required parts done. Now I need to fill in the details so that it can been seen by the public. I should have it up by the time I post on Friday, so expect to see it then.

Comments For Page 250

I've reached a great mile stone of 250 pages! Many people have quit long before this, but I've rarely even missed an update. I've been late many times but I've always tried to put up my page for my fan's enjoyment.

Todays page is the cover to the next story line in the Beast Token quest. The quest started way back at page 175, but hasn't really begin until now. First up is Horese. Will she be a thorn in the vixens side or will she join them on the quest willingly?.

Has anyone noticed that none of the beast girls are very nice people? Racheal is at least civilized and willing to avoid battle when she can. The rest seem to relish a good fight. Makes you wonder what some of the other girls are like.

I'm still busy working away on my final animation. I better get back to it. See you Wednesday.

Comments For Page 249

Boy am I tired. I've been staying up way too late to get my projects done. Everything is finished now except for the final 2D animation. I'll put my 3D animation up soon so you can all see it. It turned out pretty good considering I've never animated anything in 3D before (except the obligatory bouncing ball).

If anyone is interested in animation, start by trying to get a ball to bounce. It doesn't matter if you are doing it on paper, Flash, Maya, or with any other program or method. A bouncing ball is the easiest thing to learn motion, squash and stretch, slow in and slow out, and just about any other animation principle. The secret of the bouncing ball is that it's easy to draw (or make a 3D model of), so you're not hung up on what you are drawing and can concentrate of the animation.

If you look at page 249, you'll notice I'm using highlights now. It is really staring to make my characters look more three dimentional. By May 2007, I should be drawing my comic in a semi-realistic style with full textures and lighting effects. And to think, just last year I was drawing lifeless 2 dimentional black and white illustrations for my comic. It's hard to believe how much better I'm getting.

3D Dance Animation
Uploaded by DungeonWarden

Comment For Page 248

I was up late again last night trying to get my work done. As a result, I didn't get to work on my webpage. Fortunately, my class was canceled today, so I was able to get the page up around 10:30 this morning.

My 3D animation project is almost done, which is good since it is due tomorrow. After that, I have my 2D project that is due next week left and then I'm finished ... for this term. Next term, I have to do a big project in either 2D or 3D. I'm pretty good at both but great at neither. Animation is headed toward 3D, but there is still a lot of 2D stuff out there. I've got a lot of thinking to do over the holiday break.

Comments For Page 247

What's this? a new character and a new art style? I really must be crazy. To be fair, I did finally finish my wallpaper and the new style is a result of all the work I put into that piece.

I'm sure you're dying to see the wonderful art work and might want to put it up on your own desk top. Well, unfortunately it contains a few spoilers and I want to save the public unveiling until later. Of course, if someone were to send some money my way Via Paypal (my E-mail address is Dungeonwarden@msn.com), I'd be more then happy to send you a copy of your very own.

I still have a couple of animation projects to do next week - one in 3D (Maya) and one in 2D (Flash). I'll put those videos up for you to see once they are done. I'll put my other sketches up as well sometime. Maybe next weekend. It depends on how much work I get done between now and then.

Comments For Page 246

Another late night tonight. I at least got my comic page done in time.

As you can see, I'm slowly revealing more background information while adding more mystery at the same time. Pretty clever, right? Okay, maybe it's a pretty standard way to write good stories but not everyone can do it - or at least very few people take the time to write good stories.

I'm slowly getting my big projects done. Of course they are all due next week, so I'll going to be pretty dead by next Friday. Expect the next few comics to be late or simple. If they're not it's because I'm procrastinating on my assignments. Oh well, as least someone gets to benefit from my lasiness.

Comments For Page 245

Sorry for the delay, ... again. Finals are closing in fast and I don't know if I can get everything done and work on the web comic at the same time. However, one of my final projects will be a full-color illustration of my characters - including a few spoiler characters. Look for it by the end of next week. I'll make it the reward for voting over Christmas Vacation.

So who is Horese? Well, the name might be a bit of a clue. I'll drop a few clues about who she is when the next page goes up Friday(?). It looks like the Vixens will have to let Terra into the group whether they want to or not.

Updates are coming. I'll update the info page to include information about Terra and Horese once that information appears here. I also scanned a bunch of my life drawings, so I'll put those up when I get the chance (That might be two weeks away at the rate I'm going). Keep reading and I'll keep putting up my comic pages.

Comments For Page 244

Late getting this up so comments will have to wait. Enjoy todays page while you wait.

Comments For Page 243

Sorry for the long delay on getting this page up. I was very tired from all the long nights and just couldn't get up the energy to finish the page. After a long nap this afternoon, I went right to work getting this finished so that the page would still be updated today. The things I put myself through to keep my fan happy.

Terra is four hundred and sixty-seven years old? Is that human years or snake years. Actually, Terra can't be human since only one talisman girl can come from each planet (see pages 182-184). Is she from a long lived race or is there some other reason for her longevity? Come back Monday to find out.

Comments For Page 242

Wow! Terra looks a lot different in her normal form. What is she, like 14 or something? How do you stay mad at a little kid? On the other hand, the Vixens are not known for their kindness. See their reaction Friday.

I'm caught up on my work, so I should be able to get pages up on time for the next little while. On the other hand, I still have several big projects to work on so I'll be pretty busy over the next few weeks. I may be posting in the mornings instead of the night before for a while, but we'll see what happens.

Comments For Page 241

Sorry for the delay. I was late getting the page done last night and I didn't get a chance to get the page up until now (6:20 PM) because of everything else that has been going on.

We had some dances come into life drawing class today, which was pretty interesting. They were pretty flexible and were able to stand still in some fairly ackward positions. I'll try to get some of my drawings up so you can see them (I really need to get my drawing scanned so I can do that).

I had a meeting with a client who I created a web page for (go to Site-light Guardian to see it) and get payed. After a quick lunch, I had to go to business class. I got together with my group to research out project and it was after 4:30 by the time that was done. I had an early supper (I hadn't had much to eat all day), and then sat down to finally get my story page finished and put up on the web.

Terra doesn't seem to be too bright. Either that or she doesn't think anyone would have a problem with her joining the group after she just tryed to kill them all. Either way, Wednesdays page sould be pretty interesting.

Comments For Page 240

Many strange thinks have already happened that Racheal isn't even aware of. Expect many more strange happenings before the troup finally leaves the city and begins the Quest of the Twelve.

Very busy catching up with my work so I better keep this short. See you Monday.

Comments For Page 239

Looks like Bunny still likes Racheal . . . or is this just some part of her master plan? Once a character turns bad, you can't help thinking all kinds of negative things about them, can you? You'll just have to wait and see where all this will lead to. Stay tooned.

School work is falling behind again. I'm really going to have to work hard to catch up. Darm my need to take a vacation. I really should have stayed at school and caught up on my work.

Comments For Page 238

Sorry for the delay. I've been on holiday this weekend and have been avoiding anything resembling work. Everything is back on schedule now.

Who's Deloria? Was she Bunny all along or has something else taken control of her? Is Terria really the snake girl or is she another player in this already complex story? What do they know about Alimetra that has yet to be revealed?

It will be a while before any of these questions are answered. The question that will be answered is what will these two do next. Stay tooned to find out.

Comments For Page 237

Sorry for not posting any comments last time.

Things are just getting weirder and weirder, aren't they? Why is Toi hitting Ann and what exactly does Bunny mean? Both very good questions and at least one of them will be answered Monday.

I've been trying to get a lot of work on my animation done this week, and that's the main reason I haven't had much time to post. There was also a big stink this week when we found out that a few small assignments would be worth a lions share of our mark. As I've mentioned before, we have a sub filling in for an instructor that is recovering from an injury. Because our original instructor wasn't here to help us with the big project, many people went ahead an did it anyway while others worked on the smaller assignments the new instructor gave us. No one knew what anything was worth until this week when the new marking sheet was finally released. Many people were not happy with the focus moving from the big project to the smaller assignments, for various reasons. I don't want to get into the politics too much but it's sufficient to say things are a bit of a mess right now.

Comments For Page 236

I don't have much time to post right now, so I'll just use this as a place holder until I get a chance to update my Blog. Check out the newest page in the mean time.

Comments For Page 235

Looks like Toi is back to her old self, sort of. She still has the head and paws of a rat and is twice as big as she was before. Bunny seems to have grown to three times her normal size. Will they ever return to normal? How did they even change in the first place? These answers will be revealed later. The question right now is "How are the others going to react to their friends' transformations?" That question will be answered soon as the battle in the ally continues Wednesday.

I've gotten a lot of my animation done over the weekend, but I didn't scan any of my sketches or life drawings. Sorry. I'll try to remember to do this when I get some free time. (Don't hold your breath.) My animation is still pretty rough, so I don't have anything to show at this time. Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll put up the finished "pencil test" (This is the animation with no color and rough lines everywhere. It is meant to test the animation to make sure it is working before being cleaned-up and colored).

Comments For Page 234

If you look carefully, you'll notice that Bunny has grown considerably bigger then Toi. Considering how big Toi was on Page 233 compaired to Bunny, Bunny must now be gigantic.

I wonder how Balap is going to react now that Bunny's hands are bigger then he is. Come back Monday to find out.

Classes are going well. I'm keeping up with my work, although I'm still not getting my animation done. I'll have to work on that today and throughout the weekend.

This weekend I also hope to put up some of my sketches and life drawings. I did a nice picture in Coral Painter that I want to put on the site as well. I don't have too much homework this weekend, so hopefully I can get some other things done.

Comments For Page 233

Is it just me or does Bunny look less serious when she's in rabbit form . . . Wait a second. Since when can Bunny change into a rabbit? The weirdness continues Friday as Bunny and Toi fight it out.

Very busy trying to keep up with my homework and tutor at the same time. I've been painting with Coral Painter 8, and the results look pretty good. I'll post the picture on my art page (look for the link to the right) when it's done.

I've been thinking I should start putting up all my pictures. Especially my life drawings. Potential clients seem to like seeing that kind of stuff.

Comments For Page 232

Looks like Toi is awake ... or at least something is. What happened to Toi? You'll have to come back Wednesday to find out.

Tuesday is Halloween so I'll take the time to wish you all a happy Halloween now, since I likely won't post again until the event is over. I put up a halloween animated e-card my friend created. You can watch it by clicking here.

Things are starting to get better organized around here after the loss of one of our instructors. As I posted before, he has an injured foot that is taking a long time to heal because of where the cut is. We are going to get some evaluation and figure out what we have to do to finish the term. I really would like to get my animation project done by December, but at the rate I'm going I don't think that is likely. We'll see.

UPDATE: I've updated to the Blogger Beta and the image loaded right away. Hopefully the upgrade will prevent this problem in the future.

Comments For Page 231

Bunny seems to have recovered ... or has she? She certianly seems to be acting strangely. Toi not likely to recover with Bunny shaking her like that. Come back Monday to see what happens next.

I'm busy doing tutoring with a classmate of mine and it's taking up a lot of time that I should be using to work on my own stuff. I'm way behind on my animation and I don't see how I'm going to catch up. I suppose I should be working on it now instead of posting on my blog, so I'll get back to it.

See you Monday.

Comments For Page 230

Looks like Bunny has found a way to tap into her old Slimorp form. Long time readers (and anyone reading the archive) will know that the Slimorp was transformed into Bunny on page 175. At the time she seemed to be locked into the new form. Now it appears that it it just taking time to adjust to her new body. It will likely be a long time before she will be as flexible as she once was, but it's nice to know those powers aren't gone for good.

Anyone puzzled by Balap's change of heart has to understand that he spend the night as Bunny's prisoner before the current battle began (between pages 189 and 190). What happened during this time is another story. One I may write as a side story or maybe I'll just reference it throughout their journey together.

I'm keeping ahead of my assignments so far. Shouldn't be any problem getting Friday's page up on time. What's going to happen Friday. Nothing that you're expecting, you can be sure of that.

Comments For Page 229

Here it is. You finally get to see what happened to Toi and Bunny when the Scalians discarded them. Looks like they are in pretty bad shape. Can they still be saved or is this the end for these two? Come back Wednesday and find out.

I've been reading some articles about storyboarding, camera angles, dramatic poses, and other related information. It's hard to believe what goes into laying out a story for a movie or animated show. There is so much you need to think about when placing the characters and the cameras. I'll have to try practicing some of these techniques in my own stories. This page includes some dramatic close-ups, but I probably would have done that anyway. I'll try something different Wednesday and see how it works. See you then.

Comments For Page 228

My Instructor was out sick today, So I had extra time to work on my web page despite having a lot of work due tomorrow. I'm still not done all the work but I have a better handle of what I need to do at least. Hopefully my instructor tomorrow will give us some time to work on it in class. I don't think anyone has it finished so I'm not too worried. Still, the faster I get it done, the less work I'll have to worry about.

I went with the Obitckert (Drake) scene instead of the Toi/Bunny one. I try to spend the weekend trying to work out how I want to present what happened to them. Expect some blood, but I don't plan to be too graphic.

There may be some blood in the current battle as well (actually there already has been a little). I don't want the comic to get too serious though, so expect some craziness as well. I'm planning one scene that will surprise a lot of you (I hope). Keep on reading.

Comments For Pages 226 and 227

Sorry for not posting the comments for page 226 until today. I got pretty busy and then forgot all about it.

Our mystery man on page 226 seems to be taking matters into his own hands. As you can see on the top of page 227, he seems to know how to use a whip. Ouch!

Ann keeps trying to get Racheal to fight, but Racheal seems distracted. What did the Scalians do to Toi and Bunny before running off to attack Angel and Slara? The scene was removed due to graphic violence. Not so much because I don't like graphic violence as that I'm not sure I could do the scene justice.

Should I reveal our surprise guest from the last panel on Friday, or should I cut to what is happening with Toi and Bunny? Find out Friday (feel free to vote between now and then).

Comments For Page 225

Sorry for the late post, but since it's Friday the 13th, these things are to be expected. I'm doing this in class because we have a work class right now. I should be doing the work since I'm starting to fall behind. Since almost everyone is falling behind, I don't feel too bad about it, but still....

Today's page has the Scalians making a come back. Looks like the battle is not over yet. Expect things to get pretty violent next week.

I don't really have anything else to say. I guess I better get back to work.

Comments For Page 224

Sorry for not posting earlier but it was late by the time I uploaded Page 224 and I didn't get a chance to post my Blog. I'm only now getting around to updating.

Today's comic is brought to you by BLAM! The makers of comic sound effects. Actually, I just thought I'd try something a little different to add a little fun to the battle. Don't think the Scalians are out of action yet. It will take more then a few punches to keep these guys down.

I tried to pose Angel and Slara so it looked like they were punching at the same time, but the angles and overlapping images make this kind of difficult. Since Ann is all alone, it was much easier to put her into a nice pose. It's not perfect but I kind of like it. I'm sure in a few months I'll wonder how I could think this was actually good, but for now I think it probably one of the best free-hand (that is, drawn without using any references) illustrations I have ever done.

Comment For Page 223

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada!

Today's comic is a contrast of color and black and white. I also experimented with the idea of space. Again, only you can decide how well this works together, but I'm trying.

I hope most of my readers will forgive me for experimenting with the design of my web comic. This project is as much to help me to develop my art style as it is to produce an interesting story. I am currently reading several books on art design including:

"Understanding Comics:The Invisible Art" by Scott McCloud - an interesting look at what comics are and how they work as a visual story telling medium. Anyone interested in Sequential Art (including animation - though the focus is on comics) should read this book.

"Comics and Sequential Art" by Will Eisner - I've only read the first few chapters, but it is already clear that Mr. Eisner is a master of sequential art (again, referring to comics). He really thinks about the placement and shape of every element - including the frames around panels. He was one of the first to remove the frames for added dramatic effect. A must read for anyone using this art form (Note that Mr. McCloud refers to this book several times in his own book).

"Creating Characters with Personality" by Tom Bancroft - a brand new book (published 2006) and one of the only books to go into character creation in full detail. Mr. Bancroft works as a character creator for Disney (he created "Beast" from "Beauty and the Beast" along with many other well know characters). This is a real nuts and bolts book about creating characters, which includes a project the reader can work on themselves to get use to character design. The most important thing I came away with when reading this book is that I need to pose my characters more to create more dynamic and likeable characters. I'll try to do this in Wednesday's page. It includes a battle scene, so posing will really help bring the page to life - I hope.

Comments For Page 222 + John K.

Sorry for the long delay getting this page up, but I was busy last night - watching a presentation by John K. Himself. Wow! What a great honor to meet one of the greatest animation directors of our times.

It was a modest presentation. John talked a little about his life in the industry and showed a few classic cartoons. There were a few problems with the set up. Early on they had to change laptops and John was forced to ad lib and answer questions before the presentation really got started.

Later on, a cartoon ("Tortoise Wins by a Hare") couldn't be viewed because there was a scratch on the disk. John showed some newer stuff he has been working on, including the weird Al video and an animatic of the Tenacious D video. He also showed an old Ren and Stimpy cartoon that never made it past the animatic stage.

Overall, it was a fun evening. I wish I could have talked to him in person but I had to catch my ride back.

I tried for a dramatic effect on this page, but the scalians seem too happy to make it really work. Though, maybe that makes it even more frightening. I can't really tell. It's hard to divorce yourself from your own work.

Comments For Page 221

It looks like a race to find Toi and Angel. The Scalians have a head start and Angel is out at the moment. The Scrofian is out as well, but if he wakes up he might give the girls a fighting chance, or not. Those Scalians are pretty tough.

John Kricfalusi is coming to Halifax this Thursday to show some cartoony cartoons. I have got to go see his presentation. Truro (where I am) is a bit far from Halifax (about an hours drive), so I don't know if I can get a ride there and back but I'm going the beg the people I know with cars to take me. Since we're all animators, I'm sure they'll want to go as well. I can't wait.

Comments For Page 220

Whoops, seems like Racheal should have kept here mouth shut. Now they have to deal with a Mondroit - whatever that is. The Scalians seem happy about it so you know it can't be a good thing.

Not much to report today. I've been doing a lot of research on the web. Seeing what kind of animation was out there. I though Atom Films was a good place to look for quality animated films, but there is a great deal of good stuff you can only find by going to animators own websites. I've also found a few more articles talking about the state of animation today. One scary statement one commenter made was that animations schools are producing a generation of factory workers instead of independent artists. People want to go where the money is, and that is working for the various animation studios. Real artists will go the independent route and create their own films. Fortunately Canada (where I live) will pay artists to produce independent films. The catch is, you need to create an independent film first and have it shown to the public (Film festivals are the best way to do this) before they will fund you. My goal is to produce something while I'm still in college that is worthy of showing at a film festival. I'll keep you posted at to how I'm doing.