Doodle Debate

As practice for something else I have in mind, I cropped a segment of my Podcast and added some stills to visualise the discussion.

-Adam.

Two Thousand And Twelve.

So it's 2012 and with that comes an optimistic look at the year ahead with steely eyed determination to do better than we all did last year. 2011 won't be a hard year to beat as I stumbled a lot more than I gracefully flew over the past twelve months. It's with that in mind that I want to lay some of my personal goals on the table for the new year.

1) Firstly addressing the obvious- Felicity has been put on ice for the last couple of months. I went into a great bit of detail on it just before that. Summarizing; I have to rebuild my confidence on it and approach it with belief that I can 'do it justice'. My issues with Felicity are mainly routed in my frustrations with my own artwork- never quite delivering the results I want on the book. Curiously, these are issues that seem exclusive to Felicity, which I feel may be because I created Felicity alongside re-writing my artistic identity, I have had to rebuild each element to match my current artstyle.

I think it's time to completely rebuild those elements and do it thoroughly. I aim to release another chapter of the story. I can't say it will be in the first half of the year unless my problems are solved quicker than I expect. Who knows though, I might be able to kill my gremlins on this one.

2) Secondly, The Journey- my short story has been put on ice as well. Although this is for entirely different reasons, I completed my goal of a December deadline for Chapter One but I have since come to realisation that there is a far better direction I can take this story. I will be rebuilding it as a higher priority book than my other 'Free-time' stuff. Ultimately, I've managed to create something more special than I initially thought and I don't want it brought down by my lack of experience in areas where it needs to SING.

3) Thirdly, Magpie will be getting a debut Issue late this year as I'm currently scouting for a writer to collaborate with, it's not a high priority for me compared to my other stuff but the demand amongst the folks who have loyally supported my work is certainly high(more so than any of my other work) and I can definitely say I will have one Magpie book completed by years end.

4) Lastly, although most probably the first piece of work I'll produce this year; Scoundrels is a new mini-comic that I've just detailed in the previous post. My contribution will be one of hopefully a few from many artists and will be a piece of a bigger puzzle. While I may only do one book for this in 2012, I'm hoping by years end, there will be a lot of books to read.

That about does it for the Artistic ventures I alone can control, I do of course have some work in between to involve myself with and which I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy. Hopefully some of that stuff can come to the surface this year, will have to see. Fingers crossed!

-Adam

Takes All Sorts

//Currently, Until the first batch of stories are released(expected around April/May) any creators interested in joining, hold tight for now! It's very early days for the project so I want to make sure it makes it off to a good start before any more people put the effort in. Thanks, I'll announce when we're ready for more.//

Scoundrels is a collaborative comics project.

An idea to build something alongside artists/writers and at the same time work some of those story-telling muscles. It also isn't going to break the time-bank.

The idea is to let several to dozens of comic artists and/or writers collaborate to create individual stories set around the same premise and characters- to explain;

Each Artist or Artist and Writer team would be tasked with creating a short six to ten page comic that stars a character or characters of their own creation. This would involve character concept and design, right through to realising them in a story-driven context, whelter that be through colour or black and white.

There are little to no limits on what the artist or writer can do outside of the following requirements;

-All stories are required to end with a pre-estasblished narrative element- which would tie each characters stories together. (That element being that a legendary fable "The Atlas" has been discovered to be truth. How that information reaches a creators character is up to them, but it must reach them by stories end. It's also entirely possible for a writer to skew this information, perhaps have it reach their character through misunderstood words or myth- ultimately driving them to a goal that is different to another characters understanding.)

-All character stories must revolve around or directly involve Pirates, smugglers or otherwise questionable individuals. Whilst it is entirely possible to have a character that combats against pirates, the end-story tying all characters together is very much going to be a pirate-centric element so they would require a reason to want to be involved.

-Set in a world with a Science Fiction/SteamPunk/Retro futuristic vibe. (Attire is very much in the style of 18th Century Pirates with Science Fiction twists.) Aliens are present and accepted as part of a galaxy wide culture, stories can take place on any planet with any number of unique additions to the lore welcome.

The overall idea being that several characters would come together in one place, having all come from individual and unique backgrounds. A later, larger collaborative project involving all characters together would then be an interesting possibility.

Ultimately, this is a chance to allow artists/writers to get involved and muck in to create something together, for purely the end result of having something interesting and fun to read and share.

There will be no 'leader' as I myself just want to simply be one artist out of group that decide to create a character and add a story to the lore. As such there isn't any right or wrong outside of what's been described above. If you want to have a story about a robot who escapes the belly of a beast to rejoin his crew then that's fine, infact, that's badass- why aren't you starting work on that?

Any one interested, drop me a comment here or contact me on twitter. Or go ahead and create a character and let me know when you've got a story together, each story would be featured on the website and credit the creators involved.

-Adam