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Feb 01
Well I fixed the forearms and hands, sort of, and reposed him. And…I figured out a way to import the image into Flash then into Photoshop and quickly did some fancy coloring effects. This opens up a new line of thought. I really enjoy drawing and working in Toon Boom. It totally beats the pants of Flash. What’s also cool is that he is a poseable cut-out puppet and Toon Boom makes it so easy to change the parts of the body for other poses, other hand poses, facial expressions and so forth. All in one fully rigged figure. Well, I’d have to make separate figures for the side view and front view, but that’s no big deal.
I really like working in Toon Boom. It’s a great program. You know, one of the big problems I had was doing the comic in color because it always took so stinkin’ long to do the flats. It’s boring, tedious work. I had tried different things but none really worked. I mean, 10 to 15 hours for a single page was too much. But working in vector art makes coloring a total breeze. I’m pretty disabled and not able to do too much at times. But being able to do poseable puppets when I’m well will make it so much easier to a comic. There’s still the whole thing of backgrounds, but there’s ways around that too. Anyway, it’s not perfect but it’s something.
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Feb 03
Hey, everyone. Just wanted to first of all let everyone know that Wowio.com has finally improved now that they’ve landed the support of Top Cow comics, and they’ve changed their agreement. It’s now a more straight forward thing where you can preview the first 15 pages and then buy the full ebook for $3.99. I actually make a bit more money on the Wowio ebooks now that they’ve changed their agreement, so if you’re interested in getting the ebook check out the link on the left that says Wowio.com.
Also, I just wanted to let everyone know that right now the big hold up on any new comic pages is the writing. I’ve been feeling like crud the last few days, and just unable to do much. But I need to do an official outline of the whole story and then each chapter. Then I need to write the full script for chapter 7. I’m going to continue more or less where we left off but there will be some changes and refinements. But the writing comes first and I can’t do anything without writing the next chapter and outlining out the whole story. That’s a lot of work so don’t expect it to happen over night, because I’ve been pretty sick. But that’s basically the big hold up right now. But thanks to everyone who’s been supporting TFR for so long. You’ve been awesome.
Jan 30
Should I reinvent or refine TFR, or start a new comic?
By Outlandish on January 30th, 2010Posted In: News
I’ve just added a new search feature to the site. If you want to search for a particular page or blog post it should help. Also it allows me to use Google ads without pasting them all over the main screen. So feel free to use it and so on.
Now to something more interesting. I’ve been toying with the idea of reinventing or reinvigorating TFR for a while. I’m not sure if I want to reinvigorate TFR or else do a new comic or game project called Legends from the Void, which might be described as a futuristic cyberpunk Diskworld-ish story with elements of Star Wars (when it was good) and special agents, spies, hackers, battles with huge fleets, on so on. But the thing is that TFR already has a lot of devoted readers who’d like to see more. Besides that, I don’t see why I can’t take all the ideas from the Legends story and fold them into TFR to make it more exciting. Personally, I can see how all those things could add to TFR. Interestingly, the hero in Legends is very much like Brin Thade so it wouldn’t be hard to add that element into TFR.
One of the biggest things to me is that Gilrec needs to be reworked into more of a hero, a bumbling but somewhat courageous hero. He should be more like Bertie Wooster who had a lot of wit and gumption but was always messing everything up, seemingly beyond hope, and then Jeeves would come in and save the day. That was actually in my dream. I was trying to type it out in the dream while I was watching the story unfold like a movie before me. Funny that. So I’ve added a little poll. Please don’t feel constrained by that, however. Feel free to comment to this post with your thoughts.
I may as well tell you I’ve caught the game designers bug and have really, REALLY wanted to make some little games or experiences. Or interactive comics. The problem is that it’s all a bit overwhelming, what with my disability. So I’ve been thinking doing a comic may be more therapeutic, not to mention simpler. However it’s still possible to do more interactive things with the comic. How about having a poll on what action Gilrec or the hero should take next? I don’t know, just throwing out ideas. It would be possible to use Flash to make the comic more dynamic. But then maybe not. I’d like something that’ll work on the iPad and Flash doesn’t work. So give me your ideas. I’m starting to feel the need to do some epic sci-fi story-telling 
Jan 29
It’s been a while since I’ve updated and I was looking at the site and loathing the bland white look of it. I like something a little more dark and dashing. I’m not sure I achieved that, but it finally looks more like what I had in mind. I’ve been wanting to fix the look for ages. And I didn’t just want to leave it in generic white agony. So there we are. We now have a header for the blog so that it stands apart from the comic post. I even added a few nice graphical touches. It’s still really simple, but should be easy to load.
You may wonder why I spent some time to update the poor neglected thing. I’m not sure other than it was bugging me. And I haven’t forgotten TFR. I’d like to reinvent it and make it more fun and exciting. Gilrec always was a wimpy, whiny guy and it’s hard to make a good hero out of a character like that. If you’ve read my dream post (the one with Doctor Who and the comment I just made under it) you’ll know that my subconscious has been thinking about and reworking TFR in the depths of my brain. Unfortunately, I’m disabled and not feeling much up to writing a new story just yet. Still, it’s in my head so maybe I should at least get it down in writing. For some strange reason, moon ninjas entered into my dream…and speeder bike chases. Not sure where they come in, but they’d be fun to draw. I will keep you up to date on whether or not I write anything. In the updated version though, Gilrec is much more like Bertie Wooster, more full of confidence and beans, and more willing to help a friend out-even if it means trying to out think moon ninjas, or bounty hunters, or corrupt imperial Admirals and what-not. Anyway, hope you like the new look.
Jan 12
It’s so strange how shows like Doctor Who effect me. It’s a very exciting drama (with just enough of that great British BBC cheesiness that I love) but it always gives me the most vivid dreams. So the other night after watching the end finale of David Tennant’s Doctor Who (I’m gonna miss him as the doctor he’s a brilliant actor) I also went to sleep listening to Right Ho Jeeves, by PG Wodehouse and wonderfully read by Jonathan Cecil. It’s a great Jeeves and Wooster book and I fell asleep sometime after this hilarious part about all these telegrams that Bertie Wooster gets from his aunt and his complete stupidity in his replies. It was Wodehouse at his best.
The weird thing that I’m leading up to, is that I had the most intense and bizarre dream that night. I won’t bore you with details, but it was all about me rewriting The Far Reaches, and coming up with a great idea to make a brand new story better and then I was looking all over for my laptop because I had a script I was working on (in the dream) and had to change the beginning. And while this was happening I was actually seeing the adventures of Gilrec as if they were an animated movie happening before me. Um, I guess that was detailed. Oops.
Anyway, it turned all nightmarish after that and I woke with a start, but then madly wrote down notes on the story I had dreamed about. But I couldn’t quite remember it. All I can say is that dreams are rummy, especially after the combo of Doctor Who and Wodehouse. To set your mind at ease, Gilrec didn’t become Docter Who or anything, although he was actually much more of a action oriented go getter in some ways.
I don’t normally like sharing dreams and goofy stuff like that, but I thought this was funny that I dreamt I was writing TFR and had a brilliant idea to make it better. Very strange.
