Nick Davis's Blog, page 17

Scaling The Dream A Plan For Storytelling Into The Future

[image error]Over the last five years I have seen my website AltWorld Studios grow and change, along the way I set lofty targets of getting multiple books published, and pretty much failed to met each and every one of them. Thankfully I’ve been very lucky that I have been supported in my indie publishing goal by my family. And a lot of the technical skills needed in publishing, such as web design, graphic design, illustration and the ability to write, are skills I have on various levels of competence. It is time though, to scale back and focus my efforts.

From the beginning AltWorld Studios was a place to tell my stories, and I branched out from traditional novel-writing, to illustrated stories, and then to full comic books. To make this happen I scraped together what pennies I could spare, ran Kickstarters, and tabled at conventions with one goal in mind, to fund the these stories. I can proudly say that all the artists I’ve worked with have been well-compensated for their work and every penny I ever raised went into my books. In many ways that has been my greatest success; in all my published work, I kept to my promise that the creative talent is always compensated.

Scaling The Dream

The last three years I posted a wish list of work I wanted to publish that year, each one ambitious, but scaled I hoped at the time to something I could make happen. Sadly with every wish list I released, I failed to get a third of the books done. It might be good to post ambitious lists, but I always over extended and made statements that I could not back up on the shoe-string budget. It is time to be a little more realistic, lean on my skills and scale the dream accordingly.

End Of The Beginning

Do not worry, it isn’t the end of work I started here, it is merely a pivot. Stories will still be told, just at a very different pace, and now I feel confident enough with my art, it is time to spread my wings and illustrate my own work. I still have plans to continue the Awakenings Saga, and complete a Mr Button mini-series; it will just be at a lot slowly pace, as and when funds are available to pay the artists that work on the stories.

[image error]I am also scaling back my convention tabling, (I know how can I scale it back more?), I don’t really have anything new and I’ve settled to sit this year out, and work on something new and exciting to bring next year. When I first started in Artist Alley it was to sell my stories, not mashup artwork based off other people’s work. While the convention attendance has pretty much turned into an old friends reunion, I cannot justify the expense – even though my family (the wife) said she would move heaven and earth to get me there, with her illness it is fundamentally unfair.

Support after all goes both ways.

Not The Beginning Of The End

This is not the end of things, and I am aware I’ve already said that – the Out Of The Attic Saga with Tristan & The Cuddly Defenders has been completed and I am tying up the last of story loose ends from that body of work.

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The Teddy Bear Action Comics will continue under my own hand. I am in the middle of drawing the next Hero Ted Story to add to this fun Webtoon series, Unconditional Hugs has been re-introduced, and will be drawn at a six-strip quarterly release – along the way I hope to add to Awakenings and Mr. Button, (but, they are not a high priority).

[image error]This newly dubbed Teddyverse will continue to grow, with new characters and adventures, albeit much slower than I would like, but in a more sustainable way – after all I am not a publishing house, I am just trying to fake it until I make it and doing my own thing.

Also this is going to happen.

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Dee & Duo are new characters for the Teddyverse, and will be the adventure story I am writing (and drawing) throughout 2018, I am very excited to tell their story and I hope when I release it you will be excited to read it too.

Onwards

As you’ve been reading changes are coming to AltWorld Studios, my mostly one donkey show is going to keep telling stories that I hope you want to read, and to bring you the wonders that I have seen. Let me know your thoughts below.

Adventure ahead!

The Justice League Movie A Bag Full Of Misses

[image error]I am going to open this mini-review of the Justice League movie with this statement, DC books were the first american superhero comic books I started collecting, it started on a rainy afternoon in the early 1990’s, in the Waterstones bookstore in the heart of Leicester. I picked up Justice League Europe (part of the Giffen era) and I was hooked. It was humor, super-heroics, paced action and sang with the joy of hope. I was hooked and spent a lot to time and money, back collecting Justice League, International, Europe and a few crossovers. So, it is safe to say I’ve been fan of DC for over 25 years.

WTF DCEU

It is no secret I am also a huge fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and when DC announced with their partnership with WB that they were starting to release live action movies, I was overjoyed. Up to this point, while lagging behind Marvel, DC had been pin-point perfect with their animated versions of the characters and surely the storytelling will carry across.

Then Man Of Steel  (MoS) hit, just a slight tone shift in the wrong direction leaving me feel uncomfortable, where did the hope go? Batman v Superman (BvS) – what the hell is going on with the DCEU? Have they forgot that heroes, need to be heroes? Suicide Squad (SS), if they capture the humor and tone of the dirty dozen movies they couldn’t go wrong here… Yeah, I was horribly wrong.

Wonder Woman (WW), different director and suddenly the potential of the DCEU was realized, we finally had a hero being a hero, being inspirational and displaying that hope. This was the movie you could build these cinematic universe off and I was suddenly excited about Justice League – after all it was going to have the most iconic superheroes on the planet. How could they possible screw this up?

The Way Ahead Is Perilous

To say the Justice League movie was a troubled production is not a lie, rumors of bad audiences tests, executive displeasure and the firing of the Director Zack Snyder (months before the cover and sad news of his daughter dying), not only from the movie, but from the overseeing the entire DCEU, all lit up the various comic book dirt sheets. And finally WB threw money and the promise of a Batgirl movie to Joss Whedon to tidy up the entire mess. After that we heard nothing but extensive re-shoots, upset actors, and very loud wringing of hands from WB. Nothing but negativity news from a movie, that had the potential to knock the Avengers off the top spot.

After all it is the Justice League!

After the bad experience of MoS, I decided I was not going to see any DCEU movies in the theater, so I didn’t miss anything with BvS or SS, but feel WW would have been even more fun seeing the sweeping camera on the big screen. However all this negativity surrounding Justice League did nothing to make me want to take a trip out to the movies to see it… So, we watched in on Digital Release through Vudu, which you will see from the review might have saved the movie.

All About Missed Opportunity
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The Justice League An Exercise In Missed Opportunity

So, I sat down and watched Justice League (JL) hoping for the best, fearing for the worse and knowing we would get something in the middle of those two expectations. This movie is definitely the product of two directors with two very different styles and you can tell, it bounces between the dull grey Snyder motion, to Whedon brightness quips with no rhyme nor reason to it – that is the most glaring issue of this movie, it felt disconnected; fifteen minutes into the entire mess and I was pretty much done.

A lot of the movie felt like the actors were set individually against a green screen, fed lines and were not acting with any of the other players, and then plonked straight into scenes, there was nothing seamless about these re-shoots, you can materially tell the difference between Snyder and Whedon scenes.

Then we get to the CGI – all superhero movies are full of it nowadays. The MCU the objects look heavy and real, and even the effects in Ironman still hold-up over a decade later, sadly the DCEU under Snyder the objects all look like they were rendered in the 90’s. Thankfully halfway through the movie Vudu had a streaming problem and switched from HD to SD, which instantly improved the effects tenfold – Cyborg started to look real, Steppinwolf stopped looking like the end boss of a Legend Of Zelda game (okay, maybe not all that much)

Now effects are not normally a thing you talk about if the story is good, after all WW worked in-spite of the dire Aries effects, not because of them, but the story was a bit of a narrative mess. How did Bats have a beard here, then not a beard here, then another beard here? Thankfully we were not subjected to the dream within a dream schtick of BvS. It felt Justice League was the best movie they could make out of what they had, without having to re-shoot the entire movie.

The overall result of this DC blockbuster, was an okay superhero movie – but we don’t want okay in the tent pole movie, we want spectacular! We can forgive okay in solo-hero movies, but you get the greatest, most recognizable superheroes in one movie, at one time and you just make okay… Something has gone wrong. Do WB and the show runners at DCEU not know how to make a superhero movie?

My take aways from this mess is; Barry was fun (felt more Wally than Barry though), Arthur is now hard-drinking and the fact Aquaman might just be an alcoholic still doesn’t make the character all that interesting, Victor suffered from just poor cgi, but the character was cool, Bruce still isn’t Batman, but at least someone figured out that a human being wants to avoid getting hit, and can’t be a tank, Diana was another high-point and Clark finally got to be Superman (but with a muppet mouth)

The motherbox lore is all completely wrong, and might lock out all the cool stuff that is in the New Gods saga, Steppinwolf might have been better being a little more human in appearance, and have a better motivation, even if it is Daddy issues, than just being upset he didn’t manage to conquer Earth the first time around. The movie is supposed to foreshadow Darkseid, but the hodge-podge nature of the story and the way the New Gods have been shown may have stolen the menace from this villain. And would it have hurt them to make the Javelin, look like the bloody Javelin.

To sum up, Justice League is another DCEU missed opportunity, another also-run, when it could have been a contender.

What Is Next?

I am not a bean counter at DCEU, I know JL has caused seismic shift in the production teams running this part of DC/WB, as all but one of these movies has made their expected money in the theaters. I also know WB were expecting Avengers money with the JL and are very upset they didn’t hit that target. There is still noise about other movies being made, but I think a lot of these are going to be just noise now after JL. I cannot figure out why it is so hard to make these movies, the animated features and award-winning series have shown how to tell stories using these heroes. Follow what has gone before and MCU will really have a run for their money.

It simply ain’t that hard.

This is one DC fan who is again disappointed with what is happening with our heroes.

Out Of The Attic – A Teddy Bear Comic Book Adventure

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Tristan & The Cuddly Defenders: Out Of The Attic By Nick Davis & Dan Nokes – $14.99

The odds have never been stacked higher against Tristan the Teddy Bear and his friends the Cuddly Defenders. The Monsters under the bed are on the rampage throughout the Land of Wonder and a dark rumor that the Boogeyman has risen again.

Fresh off their fight at the Tower Of The Moon, the Cuddly Defenders rush to defend the Great Reality Wall, to stop an old enemy from summoning the Boogeyman back into existence. But, our heroes may already be too late and they will face their greatest challenge, as Tristan gets lost in time and space, and ends up in the most unexpected place, and faces his most cunning enemy yet.

Out Of The Attic collects together the three-part Out Of The Attic Saga and the Menace Of Mech-A-Nor by Nick Davis & Dan Nokes, in a full color adventure comic for all ages. Available on Amazon in print and kindle book form.

Amazon Print
Kindle eBook

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Drawing Outside Your Comfortzone – With A Mini-Season Of Unconditional Hugs

[image error]If you’ve been following along with my ‘Drawing Outside Your Comfortzone‘ articles you would know I’ve been transitioning to Digital Drawing. Over the Christmas period that became a full transition as I was given the opportunity to work with the Apple App – Procreate, with the tools to get the most out of this surprising powerful piece of software.

First We Tested

While I did some trial work to get the feel of drawing basically on glass and you can see the results of that below. All I can say it is like drawing with your wrong hand and everything you learned to do with paper, suddenly does not work, so practice… practice… practice! Then I tested myself by drawing a mini-season of Unconditional Hugs Cartoons.

Then We Jumped In With Both Feet

Unconditional Hugs, is my Teddy Bear cartoon strip that I started in 2014, to train myself in sequential storytelling and to get the feel of the discipline of drawing a comic strip. It follows the adventures of a Teddy Bear and his boy, and is influenced by Calvin & Hobbes. To test myself with Procreate I decided to draw mini-season of this strip that if you bound together would make a pretty decent comic page (just like those old Sunday strips) The results of which you can see below.

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Not bad for my first steps in the land of digital drawing… Now let’s see what I else I can do… Onwards!

Darth Vader And Son And His Precious Little Princess

[image error]About three months ago I came across these amazing my little Star Wars illustrations by Jeffery Brown of the Skywalker family, well… Being a family, and I thought it would be cool to share a taste of them with you.

You can view and buy Jeffery Browns awesome Star Wars books on Amazon Here.

A Look Back In Time At My Longfield High School 1985 Report Card

[image error]I got a surprise post from my Father back in the UK today, it was a report card from my first year at Longfield High School from way, way back in 1985. I believe I was twelve at the time and my year that came up from Swallowdale, and other surrounding schools, completed the first full complement of students for this new three-year school. 

Before I go on, I feel I must explain that the school system in the UK is a little different, here in the USA you go by grades one through twelve, this signifies what year you are in, and what school. In the UK, that does not exist. Instead, the count begins from one, as you move from school to school. For example, Longfield would be considered Middle School here in the USA, and this report card is from my first year there… Making me a first year. When I left the school I would be a third year student. to go to Grammar school as a first year. Confusing? It is okay, I am still confused by the grade system here in the USA.

Now… With that being said, I received this report card from my Father in the mail, I have no real memory of it and it was fun travelling down memory lane as I read what the Teachers at Longfield thought of me, as a first year.

My 1985 Report Card

[image error]Headmaster MacDonald-Pearce was only there for our first year before moving on to another school. I remember him being very Scottish, with huge bushy eyebrows.

[image error]We took Drama as a class at Longfield, I remember it being very awkward and feeling extremely lost during these sessions. I am sure it was a sign of how progressive the school was being, it frankly terrified me.

[image error]It is good to see my English has only improved slightly, although it is interesting to see what held my interest then, still holds my interest now. But, back then I wasn’t writing about Teddy Bears. Coincidentally, 1985 was the first year I read The Lord Of The Rings.

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Enquiry was another oddity that you would only find at Longfield, it was a three-hour block set aside on Friday where we were encouraged to follow our own projects, and to explore the world. Each project could be no more than four Enquiry sessions, and you could incorporate video and other AV stuff. Apparently I was all about trains – it was a much more innocent time.

[image error]It was French, and this was about as advanced as I ever got in the language. Sorry… No, amazing insight just found no use for it.

[image error]I found Humanities, a mix of history, current affairs, politics, and life science, a very interesting course to take. I remember building this Roman Fort and all the markers, my friend and I burned through coloring it. I also remember making a lot of Roman Soldiers for it, perhaps a precursor to my interest in toy soldiers.

[image error]Yeah, even then Math was not strong with me. just couldn’t ever get those numbers work for me.

[image error]What can I say? I liked making a noise? It only got really tricky in the second year when they started to make you read music and keep time. Up to then I enjoyed this class.

[image error]Dude, I had asthma, and it took a long while for me to finally get something out of cross-country running. Although amusingly I almost speared Mr Evans during javelin practice in my second year.

[image error]Never mind the science of it, I enjoyed making things fizz and go bomb.

[image error]Tutor was home room, were we took registration and assembled after lunch. I remember 1JW (my class) not being very well-behaved for our Tutor Teacher, which is one of the sad things I have to report from my first year at Longfield.

Summing It Up

There you have it, a report from my first year at Longfield High School, it is interesting to note, that back then my imagination and creativity were coming to the fore, and you could see who I would become, even at such a young age. Strangely there was no creative arts report in that section, and I do remember sitting through art in my first year. I am also heartened to read that Swallowdale, despite its best efforts, didn’t crush my spirit in my completely and signs of it appearing where showing. Although that school did instill a still awkward shyness in me, (because of its fondness to humiliate students), that I still lapse into from time to time even now.  My High School years were the time I started to find my feet and realize the direction I want to go in, so in many ways it lived up to its motto ‘In your own way success’

Kind glad I was the last of the Longfield originals, please leave you comments and thoughts below.

Journey Into The Tempest With the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory

[image error]I will happily admit that going to the Theater is not a thing I do, I just don’t, not many folk do, with the advent of moving pictures. going out to the theater for an evening’s entertainment really stopped being a thing for a lot of people, myself included. So, when I got an invitation to watch The Tempest performed by the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, I decided why not, but wasn’t too sure what to expect.

Now I have had the benefit of an English Education, (back when they cared to make it an education), Shakespeare was approached as one of those things you just had to get through, to you know, get summer break. Mainly because it was presented in a dry way, and that might be part of the problem to enjoying this long admired Bard’s work, but I will get to that in a moment.

My journey into Shakespeare, wasn’t one of self-discovery, but was exposure to the series of Kenneth Branagh movies, mainly being Henry V, Love Labour’s Lost, and Much Ado About Nothing, and while I enjoyed the word play, I didn’t search out any means to see anymore. I know shocking, eh? But, let’s be fair, while the Bard has that pedestal of being the most well know playwright in the world, it has the baggage, (thanks to hours of listless education,) of being a bit boring.

With all that being said… I found myself on opening night stepping in the Great Hall at St. Mary’s in Hampden, Baltimore, home of the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory (BSF) to experience Shakespeare Live, in the way the Bard expected his plays to shown. I didn’t quite know what to expect… Would it be stuffy? Would it be pompous and overblown? Would it more importantly entertain…

BSF put on a production of The Tempest, one of the shortest plays in Shakespeare works, and perhaps one of the accessible tales he told. The basic plot is the Sorcerer Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan who is exiled to a remote island, through magic, illusion and the assistant of his enslaved Spirit Ariel, shipwreck his usurping brother Antonio and the complicit King Alonso of Naples; in a plot to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place. After many machinations and skillful manipulations, unexpected love, redemption and forgiveness is found.

So what was my thoughts? Being this was my first journey into Shakespeare with Live Theater? Well, I have to say I greatly enjoyed the play, BSF performs in an open stage manner, making use of the entire performance area, and brought a great deal of audience participation into the play, and some contemporary music (while a couple of songs were kinda groan inducing in a joyful sort of way), made the play extremely accessible and enjoyable.

While, I am a poor reviewer, I misplaced my playbook and do not retain the names of the players, and I can only give a layman’s point of view, I enjoyed all the performances, especially that of the Actor who played Ariel – Sian Edwards. Who in this humble amateur’s opinion gave the strongest, charismatic performance of the night, with an interpretation of the spirit that gave an unearthly feel – whenever she appeared on stage, all eyes were drawn to her often wordless actions.

This doesn’t do a disservice to the other players, who to again. my humble opinion were all amazing and brought this play to life, especially the actor (apologies for not listing the actor’s name – but in my defense I sometimes struggle remember my kids) who played the dual role of Ferdinand and Caliban, Together this troop, suspended disbelief and pulled the audience into this world.

I think we can call The Tempest, a starter, and entry point into the world Shakespeare for me, and it was played well, entrancing and leaving me wanting to see more of this Bard’s works. And I highly recommend to you all to take the time to see this work while it is still playing.

The Tempest runs to February 4 For full showtimes and ticket prices visit the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory.

The 2017 Art Of Alt World Studios

[image error]As years go, 2017, wasn’t a huge art productive year, in total I created over 88 individual pieces, most of them shown in the Gallery after the jump. Not everything is show, I did create a couple of comic book sketch covers, but I don’t have a digital record of them. 2017 marks another evolution in my drawing style as I finally get comfortable drawing my Teddy Bear Heroes in a style that works, and adds the dynamic action I was looking for. So, although my production of art was down this year, my style has grown significantly.

My Art Of 2017
















































































Times Are A Changing

With 2018 just around the corner it is time to look to evolving my style again, I have made attempts during 2017 to work with digital coloring, and I now have the tools to work completely in a digital environment. Which means, moving forward I am going to be working to create art the Digital Arena… A brand new adventure ahead!

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Duo The Teddy Bear – Digital Art Created In Procreate

 

 

 

Surviving The 2017 Ride Around The Sun: A Retrospective

[image error]Did you know we fly through space on Starship Earth at an average orbital speed of about 30 kilometers per second (67,000 miles per hour), if you think of it that way we should all be sitting in crash couches and safely buckled in. And considering the rough ride 2017 was, it sure felt like we all got roughed up. 

The Truth Of It

I don’t think I am alone saying this, but 2017 was rough on us and many other people I know, nothing to do with the horrifying political situation, although the Daily Trump Damage Report, is wearing on the most patient of folk and you can’t help, but think, we are one fools impulsive moment, from the world as we know ending. Though, lets not dwell on that, eh?

Pretty much all the plans I made for publishing and writing this year went south, and it isn’t a secret I spent most of 2017 fighting a horrendous legal fight, that really had me considering my entire future here in the USA. It hasn’t really gone away either. Certainly is not a nice feeling, when you are getting stepped on, just because they can.

Generally though, 2017 on all levels possible has been a rough ride, I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been kicked in the ass by this year.

The Good Of It

There has been some high points, I have finally evolved my style of drawing to the point that I am really happy with the end product. Got my family to another vacation (yay!), got my eldest through High School, got the Tether Saga books moving in the right direction, did some Lyft driving to some hilarious results, which helped my kid through High School and got him his car, managed to expand my job responsibilities at work and still turning in impressive traffic numbers on the website, my writing ability has expanded too, although I still have a long, long way to go before it is where it should be.

Learned a little bit of Karate and broke my knee in the process (kinda saw that coming though), reconnected with the joy of board games and I still have my family, the dog still likes me, Top Gear came back as The Grand Tour (so that was a good), and I found my confidence in storytelling, which is good. Dressed as Hellboy (always a favorite) and walked around as a Fox (it was an odd year)

In all the good does outweigh the bad, the few conventions we attended this year (and they’re were very few), I enjoyed on a more personal level, which made up for the glaring lack of financial success that these weekends away have become. I measure of peace some would say, has come my way.

The End Of It

As come to the end of it, I look to 2018, things are going to change this year I can feel it in my bones, I have a plan and hardware to now move from traditional art to full digital, and something resembling blueprint of where I want to go next with my storytelling is taking shape. My eldest is joining the Coast Guard, and I find comfort that I got one of my kids launched.

I was once told that years that are odd numbers are rough years and 2017 certainly lived up that saying, and while the last days of the year countdown, I will leave you all this thought.

There cannot be light without darkness and I have hope.

The Teddyverse Has Finally Assembled

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The last few days I’ve been assembling all the Teddy Bear Tale characters in one place, and the Teddyverse has grown a lot in the last year, as new stories are written and heroes arise. Lets take a look at who is who after the jump.

Can You Name Them All?

Looking at the Teddyverse pantheon picture how many of them can you name? Not everyone pictured has found their way into a story yet, and many you will be seeing in 2018 as I forge ahead into the realm of digital art creation. From left to right, the gallery below will guide you through our assembled heroes.

The Teddyverse has assembled… Adventure ahead!