| It's been good to take a bit longer - I've been working on the story and drafting pages. Not having to produce the goods to a self-imposed deadline (ie two pages a week) has allowed me the luxury of being able to work through some of the trickier points which have presented themselves so far. The next story will be somewhat wordy in parts and getting that right can take a fair bit of editing.
Ideally I would have liked to have finished drafting the story before getting started again with the updates - I've managed 18 pages of what will probably be about 30-40 pages in total. A draft is a rough outline of the art and text - and I learned a long time ago it was the best way for me to work. I don't script stories... I just draft them. I'll just have to make sure I continue the drafting now that I've started the final artwork as well. Most previous delays have always been due to a lack of drafted pages... most webcartoonists talk about needing a "comic buffer" (ie number of pages completed ahead of their actual live date) for me it's more a case of draft buffer.
Something that proved the value of having a draft buffer arose when I hit a bit of an obstacle in the upcoming story at page 9 - I knew what I wanted to have happen, but not how. So instead of wrestling with the writer's block it was throwing up I skipped ahead to the 'aftermath' a few pages later. Spending time on that instead gave me some backwards insight into the preceding pages and I was then able to draft those also. This is something that can't happen when I'm working 'live' - drafting and drawing two pages a week, the week those pages go live. Anyway, I'm sure I'll learn my lesson one day.
So... the next story... I'm not going to say anything about the story itself, not even its title. I will say though that it's based on a story I've been wanting to tell for a number of years now - in fact it was originally going to be the first Bare Pit story. I'm glad it wasn't because it probably would have suffered the same fate as Generation Gap did (bad planning!). It's about Willow and although it will have many characters in it (a few new ones but mostly those already introduced, including some you won't have seen for a very looooong time) I'm keeping the focus on Willow so it will be less sprawling and much less 'epic'. The theme/plot might annoy a few readers, I'll have to wait and see. Anyway, the first page is ready to roll on Monday - hope to see you there! | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment   |
| It's sci-fi/fantasy/comics convention time in Sydney, Australia and I know that a percentage of my readers are local to the area... maybe some of you are going to the Sydney Supanova next weekend. I'll be there, sharing a stall with my webcartooning buds Noemz & Rah. If you are there I'd love nothing more than for you do drop around to our table in Artists Alley (table G) and say hi!
I'll be selling some Magellan stuff (details here).
Supanova doesn't allow public display of anything that might damage it's "family-friendly" image... which includes family friendly nudist cartoons - so I can't really put the Koala Bare books out for sale (stinks, I know) but I will have some copies for sale if you wanna by them... just $AU15 for 120 excellent pages!
The first people who come up to me on both Saturday and Sunday and tells me who their fave L&Z/Bare Pit character is will get a free signed copy of the comic.
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| Regular forum member JirkaRybka has written a review/overview of The Bare Pit/L&Z/Birthday Suits for his naturist blog. It's in Czech so probably not easily read by non-Czech speakers... 
* Czech version
* Google mangle (loose translation into English)
It's very thorough and positive. Thanks JirkaRybka!
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| I have to undergo a minor surgical procedure on 3 July and while it really is minor and I doubt there will be any issues arising from it I will be out of it for most of the day - so rather than kicking off the story on 1 July and then probably having to skip a week right after that I think I'll just push it back a week.
I've been writing the next story so it is underway and coming together really well... I'll reveal the title and maybe some sneak art on 1 July...
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| And so we arrive at the last page of Birthday Suits... woo! As is the tendency with my larger stories there's no special last minute twist (so, sorry if you were expecting something more spectacular).
The last few pages in particular have been all about wrapping things up and giving the various plot/characters some sort of closure. Of course it's not possible (nor desirable) to dot every single i and cross every single t but I think I managed to tie up most loose ends. In the true spirit of leaving-them-wanting-more I haven't really resolved 100% a whole heap of things - like Loxie's mother and sister (in fact, her whole family!) but I prefer to leave that somewhat unresolved. I know some people were hoping/expecting to see something specific about the friendship between Sally/Zinni & Famke/Chrystel but you know how friendships are with kids & teens - best pals one day, worst of enemies the next!
There were a few characters I never developed fully and some other things I never got a chance to do in this story - had I tackled them all then the whole thing would have taken at least another 100 pages (and another year!). But these unexplored issues (including those I started down the road to but ultimately removed and rewrote, most notably the "religion & nudity" thread) will provide fodder for future stories I hope.
Despite the bumps and delays and occasional complaining (by me) I did have a great time working on this story. I can honestly say I never expected Birthday Suits to become what it did - and probably just as well or I would have been more hesitant about starting it. The fact I expected a story with so many interesting new characters would resolve itself in 30 pages just shows I was temporarily insane!
So where to now? I'm going to take a short break from the noodtooning. This time I'm going to use the break to develop the next story and plot it out properly. I'll still be around the LJ though and might post some teaser art from the next story before it kicks off on 1 July.
Many thanks to everyone on the LJ, the forum and the emailers for your support, patience, feedback and input throughout the last 14 and a bit months - and thanks to everyone for reading!!
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| HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
YOU WERE BORN IN THE NUDE!
AND LOOK! YOU'RE STILL NAKEY...
BUT IT'S NOT AT ALL RUDE!
Yep, I just turned the corn factor up to 11, but I couldn't resist!
The song is to the same tune as "Happy birthday to you, you were born in the zoo, you look like a monkey and you act/smell like one too!" - haha, Hope you get the chance to sing my revised version at someone's naked birthday party real soon! 
As you can imagine, page 119 took a while to draw (hence the one day delay)... but it was a lot of fun!
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| I had hoped to have page 119 finished in time for the Friday update, alas that is not to be! I'm aiming for Saturday now...
There's a teaser of the art in progress below the cut...!
( Page 119...! )
| | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| I made a comment in this forum thread about receiving feedback (or not) on The Bare Pit - really it was just me having a bit of a whinge. I guess I was trying to nail down something I couldn't put my finger on - possibly my ego was feeling a bit jaded that day, who knows!
Of course, I haven't made things easy for readers to provide feedback - I removed the comment box under the comic (I really had no choice, it was causing significant navigation problems on many browsers), I didn't have my email on the home page (an unbelievable oversight... now fixed) and the forum has registration issues making it hard for people to sign up and join in.
Of course, since then I've received quite a bit of feedback - and while I hadn't written that other post in an effort to fish up some compliments it's always nice to receive them. Thanks to those people!
I suppose what I was rather unclearly trying to express wasn't so much for people to tell me that they like the comic but to tell others instead... if you enjoy the comic please tell other people about it through your own forum groups (nudist or not), blogs, message boards, website, LJ, twitter, whatever or even face-to-face contacts, especially at nudist gatherings and the like (I'm sure they'll thank you for it later!). Many thanks to those people who have done so already. I know many, many people are hugely supportive of this comic and have spent a lot of their own time and effort promoting The Bare Pit in their own unique way and I would like to thank them all.
Anyway, I guess it's obvious people enjoy the comic or it wouldn't have the number of readers it does have... so I should probably stop whinging and get back to the tooning.
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| Here's something you might be interested in... some nude signs drawn by me for Danny, a guy in the US. He has them for sale via Amazon, here's the product pics/descriptions:
Product Features
- Colorful - Bright - In-N-Out Burger Look !
- Nude - Nudist - Diner & Drive-In Theme !
- Non-Rust .040 Aluminum - Rounded Corners
- Convenient & Ready to Hang 12" x 18" Size
- Exclusive SkinnyDipper Quality Art & Designs
Full details and order here!
Product Features
- Home - Spa - Hot Tub & Fitness Room Decor
- Fun - Colorful & Suggestive
- Custom & Exclusive from Skinny Dipper Signs
- 12" x 18" Aluminum will not rust
- Comic Book Art & Nudist Theme
Full details and order here!
I got a copy of them in the post the other day and they're GREAT!!! (The tiny image files don't do them much justice these things are big - also they don't have that URL watermark plastered across them.) One or the other (or both) would make a great gift - for yourself or anyone else.
My personal fave is the skating waitress... probably because of the colours and the Caddy, it was something a bit different to what I normally draw. If they sell well Danny will probably get me to design a few more...
Tell your friends! Get one (or two) today! | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| Hope you've been enjoying what little there is of Bare Manors online so far. To date I've only heard from one reader of the actual H&E magazine who has seen the toons (Brucoe, in this post)... so I don't know if there are many other H&E readers about with actual printed copies of the Bare Manors copies in their possession.
Anyway, I thought I'd do a little spruiking for H&E to tempt readers in the UK (or wherever else it is sold) to grab a copy of the June issue due out in about two weeks (I think). Here's a teensy-tiny micro-teaser from Bare Manors #6 (meaning it won't fully be online until August)...
Personally, I reckon it's my best one so far - although I only submitted it this morning and haven't heard yet if the editor has accpted it or not. I'm still trying to get a grip on single panel toons, they're easier and harder than a page of The Bare Pit by several measures. At any rate the process of doing one a month is starting to yield some very out-of-left-field ideas... and this is a good thing.
Try and catch #6 in the June 2009 issue at the newsagents if you can!
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| Just FYI, new Bare Manors online...!
(also, next update of The Bare Pit is progressing well, conditions this weekend are more conducive to tooning than they were last week. Hurrah!)
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| Yes! A podcast interview by Stephane Deschenes of the Bare Oaks naturist resort, in which I go on (and on) for 50 minutes about my naturist cartoon stuff and say "um" a fair bit (plus check out my Aussie accent!). The sound quality is a bit hissy but not too bad given that Stephane was calling me from Canada! Anyway, you might find it interesting...
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| January's cartoon is now up. As I mentioned in an earlier forum post - in early December 2008, the editor of H&E Naturist (a monthly UK naturist magazine) approached me to see if I'd be interested in doing a 1/4 page cartoon for their letters page on a regular basis.
Since it was for a UK magazine I decided not to use characters from my Australian based The Bare Pit comic series. I thought it would be fun to try out a slightly different British approach and thus Bare Manors was the result.
By agreement with H&E though I won't show the latest cartoon until a few months after print publication. This first update was originally published in the January 2009 issue - future updates will be on the first Sunday of each month... see you April 5!
(I'll redirect baremanors.com to the new site shortly)... | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Phew! Hectic week. Not only did I manage two updates this week but I also:
- did a podcast interview about The Bare Pit and my noodtooning (link for that pending, will go online in a few weeks - it was for a Canadian based website/blog);
- finalised art for two 12"x18" naturist themed signs (link pending, will go online once the signs are produced and ready to sell - it was for a US based e-bay seller. They'll look awesome!);
- drew my fourth Bare Manors cartoon (will put that online in about 6 weeks, once I've put the first three up!! - it was for the UK H&E naturist magazine)
Not bad... around the world in 7 days! And there's some more illustration work in the pipeline. Doing this extra stuff is good (especially since I've been paid pretty well for the artwork jobs) although it does take away from Bare Pit drawing time. Am still hoping to do two updates next week.
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| Woo! I never expected it would happen when I started Birthday Suits but here it is, hitting it's 100th page. About 10-20 pages left to go...
The current arc has been going for over a year now. Still I think I'm doing alright. Whilst the update schedule has become a bit shaky in the last couple of months at least I haven't gone into extended hiatus like I did with Nood World and with Enchanted. The update schedule should probably be a little more reliable now (notwithstanding unforseen problems, etc).
The Koala Bares, which was 120 pages probably took me more or less the same amount of time as Birthday Suits is taken (possibly longer... I can't remember now). At any rate, Birthday Suits is now the second longest story and might tie for equal longest, although I'm still hoping to bring it in at under 120 pages. Just depends on neatly and quickly I can wrap it all up. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
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