After much consideration, I have decided to place Robot on a temporary hiatus. The fact of the matter is, that the story is only half written and in order to ensure that it continues and concludes in a way I feel is satisfying, it needs to be put on hold while I finish up the school year. I have plans to begin writing the second half of the story in June, finishing up by July’s end. This would mean that production of the comic would resume in August, concluding sometime after that.
In other news, I have been informed that Moustache had won an award. It received a Certificate of Merit in the Comic Cartoons category of the 2012 Gold Circle Awards for Digital Media by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA). Pretty Cool. I’ve also apparently won third place (presumably for Moustache) in the Individual Imaging category for the Society for Collegiate Journalists (SCJ) – into which, I was inducted last spring. Not too bad, if I say so myself.
On a final note, I’ve been asked by the new comics editor at District to work on a weekly comic for the magazine again. I had originally planned for this to be Robot however, I broke District protocol by publishing it here first. Therefore, it’s been disqualified for District publication. So, essentially what this means for An Apple a Day is that, more than likely, Story Number Four will begin production before the conclusion of Story Number Three (Robot) has even been written. Or I’ll take a break from stories and take the comic back to its roots – stupid one-offs that don’t make much sense. We’ll see.
UPDATE 04|23|2012
So, after further discussion with the District Illustrations Editor, it seems Robot will be running after all. Because of this development, I had to take down all pages of Robot currently posted. However, this is great news, considering I didn’t really feel good about writing the next story before finishing this story properly. Robot began it’s run on District’s new “Sunday Funday” comic lineup last week. Currently, pages one and two are available on District’s site. (The comic will be made available for viewing here again as each segment posts on District’s site.)
I was playing around on my iPad the other day and downloaded a drawing app that is pretty fun to use. I initially tested the app by doing a couple of quick gesture drawings. Once I got the hang of things, I felt like I wanted to do something more refined. Then, I figured, since I was watching Doctor Who, why not draw the Doctor? And so, I did.
Then, I drew Harry Potter.
This is a render of Home Improvement set to “Sexy Cooking” by the band Los Campesinos! This version came about when I was messing around with the movie while trying to find an appropriate song to use. Oddly enough, this song worked out better than I would had imagined.
Home Improvement. (Sexy Version)
This is a short animation I completed last fall. It details the struggles home repairs present throughout the year. Granted, Apple has it a bit rougher than most. But the point stands. House repairs suck (especially when they are forced upon you due to circumstances beyond your control).
Home Improvement.
These are the first ten pages of Robot repurposed into storyboards for animation. I’ve said in the past that I’d like to animate Robot at some point and these storyboards are a step in that direction. As it stands, Robot, The Animation will be divided into two parts: The Problem and The Solution.
Robot: The Problem.
The next storyboarding project was a slight variation on the Three Words assignment. This time, we were given three pictures at random and had to craft a story around whatever was contained within those pictures.
My pictures were:
A guy with a mullet
A cute dog
A river harbor market
My concept revolves around the Mullet Man getting coerced into listening to a sales pitch from a charismatic and enthusiastic salesman. The ending is delicious.
In Storyboarding, we were given three words that were to be used to create a story. One word was an animal, one was a color, and the last one was a name. We had to create a sequence of ten to twenty storyboards and then turn them into an animatic. Below, is the sequence of boards.
My words were:
Horse
Purple
Stylo (apparently, this is a name.)
My story is about a boy trick or treating on Halloween night. He gets challenged by a bully for his candy, yet refuses to hand it over. The two engage in a Pokemon battle to decide who gets the candy. The boy easily beats the bully. However, the bully is a sore loser and takes the candy anyway.
