Nick Davis's Blog, page 25

Go, Go Robo-Ted Mecha Anime Holding The Line Against The Boogeyman

Go, Go Robo-Ted!!! Piloted by the grim LT Booyah, Robo-Ted is our last best hope against the Monster constructs of the Boogeyman…

Robo-Ted is my semi-regular action story written and illustrated in a classic Manga style. Illustrations was finished in Faber-Castell black ink and colored using digital media.

It is a fun experiment in storytelling using the explosive highpoints of manga storytelling and loading it with minimal exposition. I love Mecha and doing a lot of Teddy Bear storytelling, and I like the thought of Robo-Ted fighting huge gibberly horrors. I am not sure where LT Booyah and Robo-Ted are going, but I hope you join me for the ride.

Adventure Ahead!!!

Lord Of The Rings Birthday Cake – The Road Goes Ever On And On

On Wednesday, January 6 I turned 43 years old, while still not old enough to be considered an adult in Hobbit years it was old enough to earn a cake from the Sweets Fairy Bake Shop. This year I was lucky enough to be made a Lord of The Rings themed birthday cake and it looks smashing!

The Sweets Fairy did an amazing job this year! Every element of the cake is edible (well not the ring – but who would eat the precious!) and the map of Middle Earth was hand drawn on rice paper using edible ink. I love the quote ‘The Road Goes Ever On And On’ and the classic silhouette of the Fellowship walking across a down. Thank you Jean, the cake is amazing!

For those of you keeping a calorie count score, each slice was approximate 180cals and as long as your sensible you can have your cake and eat it. Enjoy the gallery below to view more of the cake.

New Year, New Look, New Direction

Welcome to Alt World Studios, the home to the words and art of Indie Storyteller Nick Davis, over the last few days you may have noticed alt-world.com (now altworldstudios.com) slowly evolve to reflect this new direction I am taking this year at conventions and approach to my work.

I’ve never been comfortable at conventions calling myself an Artist, I’ve always been more of a writer who can draw (as long as I take a run up to it) and the new description puts emphasis on who I am creatively. The Words (for writing) & Art (for my drawings) of Indie (independent) Storyteller (because in reality that is what I am). Now I can showcase all my work, writing, art, design, ideas and everything else under a banner that I finally feel includes what I am about.

I hope you join me this convention season as I take Alt World Studios onto the road and come check out all my work, from Teddy Bear adventure, to the Once Upon A Time wonder tales and the mostly ignored superhero comic (that is not about Superheroes) Fabula Zero. This is going to be a big year of changes and I hope y’all come along for the ride

Another Race Around The Sun With That Was The Year That Was 2015

Hey Everybody Peeps! We survived another trip around the sun and what a really odd year this has been for me. First off,  thank you all for coming on this journey, for reading my ramblings and for buying my work… It is really, sincerely appreciated!!!

So This Happened

I don’t think I can recall how packed this year is for me and I know I will something out, so lets just quickly run through what happened this year… First off I published two comic books! Yep, that is right two books! I got the new Tristan & The Cuddly Defenders Mini-Series Out Of The Attic off to a great start, and hope to finish this mini-series off in 2016.

 

Went on a RV vacation with my Father to the Upper-New York state region, saw Niagara Falls and hung out at Darien Lake with my Kids. Not too bad… Pushed myself to draw more and learn sequential (comic) illustration with starting Hero Ted – the Superhero Teddy Bear web comic. Watched Tristan & the Cuddly Defenders Movie Pitch stall out in Hollywood as a parade of ancient properties have been revived by the risk adverse studios. However, there is hope yet, so keep your fingers crossed Teddy Bear Fans.

Found success with my new job and being trusted with much more responsibility as I try to guide a $500 Million Dollar a year company onto the internet of things. Now that is a quite an adventure. Also had fun at Comic Book Conventions and I think I’ve found my groove for 2016.

Got through another Inktober with a much improved drawing style.

Oh… And lost weight

60 Days Into The #Daily10 How Did I do? #Fit

Hey, as we gently move into the new year I thought I would share with you the Day 60 results of my ongoing #Daily10 challenge, which actually has become more of a habit now (which is a good thing).

What Is The #Daily10?

For those of you who are new, the #Daily10 is a simple life improvement technique based on the rule of incremental improvement. To many diet regimes call for huge lifestyle changes or buying over-priced (and surprisingly high sodium) diet meals. Sure they do work if you have the mindset for it, but the #Daily10 is for those of us… Who well… To be fair… Are more sedentary.

The basic premises of the #Daily10 is to walk up to 30 minutes day, spread over the day and to keep your calorie intake at a sensible level (in my case 1800 cals a day). We burn about 1500 cals doing nothing, the simple mechanism of walking up to 30 minutes a day adds an additional 800 – 1000 calorie burn.

The #Daily10 Challenge isn’t about instant results, but about incremental improvement 0.01% at a time.

Now 60 Days In… How Did I do?

Well, here I stand 60 days later, mildly impressed with myself… I did sadly gain 3lbs over Christmas (damn mince pies!), but have since lost that weight gain. Cost me a week of progress, but… the #Daily10 isn’t about beating yourself up, it is about turning a ripple into a wave and to make exercise a habit over a chore.

Weight on 11/01/2015: 261lbs
Weight on 11/30/2015: 247lbs
Weight on 12/30/2015: 239lbs

I’ve gone down two pant sizes and XL shirts are starting to look a little baggy on me. I am calling this very spectacular progress and I’ve readjusted my target weight after breaking through the 240lb barrier with relative ease.

Now With Vivofit!

One of my grumps over the last 60 days is I knew I was missing crucial data to help me complete my challenge, my phone Fit App would sometimes not record results or even worse exaggerate performance giving me a false impression of achievement.

At Christmas I was gifted a Garmin Vivofit (a Fitbit device) which allows for much more accurate record keeping and I can see the calorie burn from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to sleep. I highly recommend anyone embarking on a weight-loss challenge in the New Year to get a one of these devices… Knowing how you are doing is really half the battle. Progress becomes much more realistic, as you set your own targets.

Set Your Goals

As I’ve mentioned before the #Daily10 is about setting your own goals. I’m not doing anything crazy, no insane diets, no feel the burn workouts, I am doing very small changes that are starting to have a very real effect. This is what I am doing.

Morning – 1 Mile Walk With Dog

Lunch – 0.5 Walk

Evening – 1 Mile Walk With Dog

(Vivofit scores say I do an additional 1.5 – 2 miles at work)

Target Calorie Count: 1800 

Burn more than you eat = weight loss (simple)

Keep Going?

There is a specific reason why I am doing this… My family

The Secret Life Of An Indie Publisher – The Cost Of Publishing

The Alt World Studios Publishing Engine

Welcome to my second installment of the Secret Life Of An Indie Publisher, where I take you into the murky waters that we Indie Creators inhabit and peek behind the scenes of what a very (very) small press gets up too. As I write stories, create characters, pull together publications, work with artists and from time to time illustrate my own work.

In our last installment I talked about Why I Create, in this installment I take a look at the Cost Of Publishing – inspired by a Facebook post I saw last night complaining about the price of Indie books. After all we are a total unknown, we are selling a property that isn’t mainstream, has no brand history and most likely doesn’t even tell a story with Superheroes in it. Just why are we more expensive than mainstream books?

Quantity

One of the biggest reasons most Indie Publishers cannot compete on price is because of cost per unit, we simply do not have the demand to make large print runs a practical application (and in my case the storage either). You see, Printers work on a simple equation, the more you print, the more you save per unit. It costs the Printer just the same amount to produce one printed book as it does to print 1000. This is why the more you print, the more you save, which in turn drives down the price per book.

Without the advent of digital printing and Print-On-Demand services like CreateSpace most of my books would not even be produced in print, because I could not afford the upfront fees for a traditional print run of say 2000 books, (the wife would kill me).

The Hidden Cost

At this point I am talking from my own experience, which may not be typical to other Indie Creators that I know. I am primarily a writer, than illustrator (although I can draw) and many other Indie Creators write and draw their own work – so their costs may be different. Over the last four years I have published just under a dozen books, of which three were just prose and the rest were illustrated, or comic books. During this time I’ve worked with series of Artists all of which I take great pride in paying, (exposure doesn’t pay the bills.) So the first hurdle for any publisher is the production costs of their work.

Here is a ballpark breakdown costs of my latest comic: Tristan & the Cuddly Defenders: Out Of The Attic Two

Artists = $1800

Writers=$150

Production=$1000 (basically free because it was me, but we needed to put monetary costs here)

Printing=$357

Total=$3307

Now I ran a Kickstarter to fund this comic book, but I was not kidding when I said in the campaign details every cent went to pay the creative talent. I’m not going to make production costs a huge issue because it is still tiny compared to say how much a Big Two (Marvel or DC) production team would get. However, it is a factor when deciding the price.

This Is How It Is

There you go, that is Cost Of Publishing for an Indie Creator like me. My books and my comics are not cheap to make, I can’t bury costs and all my projects work like an interlinked chain, each one paying for the next book in line, So please support your local Indie!

Paying $5 – $6 for an Indie Comic or Book is probably the greatest thing you can do, you may not realize it, but as an Indie Creator I can never express my gratitude sincerely enough in your supporting of our stories and our art. It really does make our day to see some one show faith in our stories that they want to part with their hard-earned money to read them.

After all that $5 (with me) gets you a full-color 28 or 32 page adventure comic, packed full of story and no adverts for Snickers, Cars, Games etc… The Big Two, Image, IDW or Dark Horse cannot match price that content wise.

So make an Indie Creators day, buy their book, tell them you loved it, tell your friends and family that you loved it and encourage them to pick up a copy, and then come back for our next issue.

Only you can keep the creative spirit alive and for that I thank you all.

Who Is Hero Ted? The Superhero Teddy Bear Out To Save The World Before Bedtime

Who is Hero Ted? This Superhero Teddy Bear empowered by his child’s security blanket that has popped onto the Teddy Bear Tales scene. Well, my first question are you reading Hero Ted? It is quite easy to do because it is a FREE webcomic which you can view at Heroted.com

If you are please carry on reading, if you are not; I encourage you to take ten minutes out and catch up on this Teddy Bear adventure story. I think you will enjoy the innocent charm of it.

But Who Is Hero Ted?

There has of course been over super-powered Teddy Bears, the most famous being Super-Ted, a creation of Mike Young; this super-powered Teddy Bear was give his power by Mother Earth and with his friend Spotty the Alien took on Texas Pete and his dastardly gang. It is hard to say if Hero Ted was slightly inspired by this character, when I was young I did see a number of Super-Ted cartoons on the BBC.

But, this isn’t who Hero Ted is trying to be.

Hero Ted is my superman surrogate… Or, how I see Superman. No, not as a cuddly teddy bear, so don’t be silly. To me Superman greatest power is not his very silly power set, but his heart. Think about this, if you were this powerful, this invulnerable, would you solve problems by punching your way out of them? Or… Try to understand the cause and solve that instead. To me, Superman has demonstrated the latter over the former many times, and that has been something DC has forgotten with their current comic book and movie versions of the character. Superman is just not an angry, angst man and trying to write him like that just doesn’t work for the Kansas born Boy Scout.

Hero Ted gets his powers from his child’s security blanket that is wrapped around his shoulders, he is powered by wonder and innocence. He wants to explore and solve problems, not cause them, and although he will fight – he is after all a Superhero; he first reaction will always be to try to solve what is causing the problem and understand why his adversaries are upset.

This isn’t a bad thing to teach and will for some exciting stories.

Early Reader Comic

Compared to the Teddy Bear Tales illustrated books and the Cuddly Defender comics, Hero Ted is very much an early reader comic book. I made the decision to firmly target a much younger age group with this character. His adventures are huge, a little silly and an imaginative throwback to a very different era, Along with the usual cast of Monsters under the Bed our Superhero Ted will face off against a Sand Pit Monster and more. I hope you follow these adventures, they are full of heart and written for the Superman fan in us all…

Join the adventures of Hero Ted, the superhero Teddy Bear out to save the world just before bedtime.

Teddy Bear Adventure Ahead!!! Tristan & The Cuddly Defenders Comic: Out Of The Attic Two Released Today!

The Battle For Bedtime Begins!!! 

Hello Teddy Bear Fans, I am very proud to announce that Out Of The Attic Two, the Teddy Bear Adventure Comic featuring Tristan & the Cuddly Defenders is released today. To learn more about this comic take a look here. 

 

Tristan & The Cuddly Defenders: Out Of The Attic Two Comic Book is available in Print, Kindle and other eReader devices and has just been released on ComiXology.

The Cuddly Defenders are rag-tag group of abandoned Teddy Bears and Cuddly Toys on a quest to stop the Boogeyman and his Legions of Monsters under the bed from taking over bedtime and stealing the power of wonder. You can learn more about their comic book and illustrated story adventures by looking here.

Thank you to everyone who have helped make this book happen, from the amazing creative team to the all the backers on Kickstarter, because of you all #TristanLives! Now get out there and pick up copy and help the Teddy Bear Adventure to continue….

The Battle For Bedtime is now in your hands!

Domo Arigato,

Nick Davis

Creator Of The Cuddly Defenders

 

The Secret Life Of An Indie Publisher – Why I Create

Alt World Studios Writing, Production, Marketing, Accounts & Art Department

Welcome the Secret Life Of An Indie Publisher, I hope to peel back the glamorous party life of indie creating and publishing in a series of blogs, and give you look on how being an indie works for me, some of my challenges, production times and staying motivated in the face of apathy.

This Is How It Is

Like many Indie Creator’s out there I am holding down a full-time job (I am a Web Designer for a construction equipment company) and working on my creations in the little free time I have after work or can spare at weekends. Very few us can do this as full-time profession, there is simply no money in it and it is a huge commitment to make when you have a family, or just want to survive. Yes, some of us break through and move onto amazing things, but the reality is you spend dollars to make pennies.

A harsh reality, eh?

So why do I put myself through this? Let’s explore this by looking how I got started down this road.

How It All Started 

For me it all started six years ago, I wrote my first novel for NaNoWriMo called The Tether and I was eager to bring it to the world, convinced I had the next big thing in paranormal action adventure. I sent it out to every publishing house I could find and got roundly rejected by them all (and rightly so it is a terrible novel). Still convinced the world should see my work I learned all about the art of self-publishing, helped by the fact my formal training was in Graphic Design I pushed The Tether onto the world via Createspace. It’s still up there on Amazon, still being roundly (and rightly) ignored by all.

Still convinced that the Tether was an undiscovered masterpiece and the next big thing I wrote a sequel called Accept One, I went through Createspace and pushed it out via Smashwords, learning how to format for eReaders opened a whole new audience to be ignored by… But, at least now I had the freedom to write and publish my stories.

The Experiment – Fabula Zero Exposition

This was my first attempt at a high concept… I wanted to write a story about Superheroes, but not have it about Superheroes, while at the same time nod towards my comic book influences such as 2000AD, Battle, Star Lord and the Beano. This how Fabula Zero Exposition was born (Story Zero – idea explanation) about a Comic Book writer with writer’s block and who’s Superhero characters were coming to life around him trying to help him finish the story. The concept of the idea was simple. When he interacts with the Superhero characters the book is a comic, when he is in the real world the book is narrative prose. Thought I would revolutionize the comic book world with its release… Yeah… The sound of silence when I brought it to convention were deafening… Sigh…

The book production was costly, as I had to pay an artist to work on the pages, but the journey was an education and Fabula Zero is a genuine fun to read comic book and my love letter to Superhero comics…

My First Success… The Wonder Tales

A lot of people know me from my work on The Teddy Bear Tales, but did you know my first real self-publishing success was a series of original fairy tales called The Wonder Tales? These stories were my first real self-publishing success. It started when I wrote a single story in a Tolkienesque style for the birthday of JRR Tolkien called the Archer, the Horse and the Princess. I put it up as a short on Smashwords and people brought it, I followed it up with a dozen original fairy tales including the Daughter Of Frost a fairy tale I wrote just for my Daughter.

The stories got collected into two volumes one about the Archer and one about the Princess Archer and seem to sell in fits and bursts… I will be reintroducing these books to the convention circuit next year and writing some new stories of this long neglected line. After all it is pretty cool writing a story beginning with Once Upon A Time…

Then Came The Teddy Bear Tales…

I am not going to re-tell how the Teddy Bear Tales started, as I have already done that here. I’ve been writing stories about this Tristan the Teddy Bear and his Friends the Cuddly Defenders since early 2011. I have discovered that getting illustrated and comic book stories published is much harder, and much more expensive to produce (artists expect to get paid too). The discovery of Kickstarter helped fill the funding gap, but also created some unique issues of its own (which I will cover in a future blog).

The Teddy Bear Tales though really pushed me to up my game, it was not enough to just publish a book and move on, now I had to learn how to market, to present a professional face, to pitch and sell my work, how to raise funds and how to present my work. All of which are skills I am still learning and improving upon.

From the Teddy Bear Tales books came the Cuddly Defender Comics, my attempt at cartooning with Unconditional Hugs and my new journey writing and drawing Hero Ted… All challenges and all giving me the ability to grow.

So Why Do I Do This?

This is a question I have often asked myself. This isn’t a journey I would recommend for everyone, you will get soundly ignored, face some bitter disappointments and in some cases get openly mocked. For that all I can say is you will learn how to grow a thick skin.

What I have found is I enjoy the story telling experience and the freedom self-publishing gives me to express myself and my stories. I can so easily change gears and try new things, new ways of story telling. new characters and there is a genuine buzz when you meet a fan of your work.

I create to tell my stories… Thank you all for reading them

A Sneaky Peek At The Secret Life Of An Indie Publisher – Why I Create

Alt World Studios Writing, Production, Marketing, Accounts & Art Department

Welcome the Secret Life Of An Indie Publisher, I hope to peel back the glamorous party life of indie creating and publishing in a series of blogs, and give you look on how being an indie works for me, some of my challenges, production times and staying motivated in the face of apathy.

This Is How It Is

Like many Indie Creator’s out there I am holding down a full-time job (I am a Web Designer for a construction equipment company) and working on my creations in the little free time I have after work or can spare at weekends. Very few us can do this as full-time profession, there is simply no money in it and it is a huge commitment to make when you have a family, or just want to survive. Yes, some of us break through and move onto amazing things, but the reality is you spend dollars to make pennies.

A harsh reality, eh?

So why do I put myself through this? Let’s explore this by looking how I got started down this road.

How It All Started 

For me it all started six years ago, I wrote my first novel for NaNoWriMo called The Tether and I was eager to bring it to the world, convinced I had the next big thing in paranormal action adventure. I sent it out to every publishing house I could find and got roundly rejected by them all (and rightly so it is a terrible novel). Still convinced the world should see my work I learned all about the art of self-publishing, helped by the fact my formal training was in Graphic Design I pushed The Tether onto the world via Createspace. It’s still up there on Amazon, still being roundly (and rightly) ignored by all.

Still convinced that the Tether was an undiscovered masterpiece and the next big thing I wrote a sequel called Accept One, I went through Createspace and pushed it out via Smashwords, learning how to format for eReaders opened a whole new audience to be ignored by… But, at least now I had the freedom to write and publish my stories.

The Experiment – Fabula Zero Exposition

This was my first attempt at a high concept… I wanted to write a story about Superheroes, but not have it about Superheroes, while at the same time nod towards my comic book influences such as 2000AD, Battle, Star Lord and the Beano. This how Fabula Zero Exposition was born (Story Zero – idea explanation) about a Comic Book writer with writer’s block and who’s Superhero characters were coming to life around him trying to help him finish the story. The concept of the idea was simple. When he interacts with the Superhero characters the book is a comic, when he is in the real world the book is narrative prose. Thought I would revolutionize the comic book world with its release… Yeah… The sound of silence when I brought it to convention were deafening… Sigh…

The book production was costly, as I had to pay an artist to work on the pages, but the journey was an education and Fabula Zero is a genuine fun to read comic book and my love letter to Superhero comics…

My First Success… The Wonder Tales

A lot of people know me from my work on The Teddy Bear Tales, but did you know my first real self-publishing success was a series of original fairy tales called The Wonder Tales? These stories were my first real self-publishing success. It started when I wrote a single story in a Tolkienesque style for the birthday of JRR Tolkien called the Archer, the Horse and the Princess. I put it up as a short on Smashwords and people brought it, I followed it up with a dozen original fairy tales including the Daughter Of Frost a fairy tale I wrote just for my Daughter.

The stories got collected into two volumes one about the Archer and one about the Princess Archer and seem to sell in fits and bursts… I will be reintroducing these books to the convention circuit next year and writing some new stories of this long neglected line. After all it is pretty cool writing a story beginning with Once Upon A Time…

Then Came The Teddy Bear Tales…

I am not going to re-tell how the Teddy Bear Tales started, as I have already done that here. I’ve been writing stories about this Tristan the Teddy Bear and his Friends the Cuddly Defenders since early 2011. I have discovered that getting illustrated and comic book stories published is much harder, and much more expensive to produce (artists expect to get paid too). The discovery of Kickstarter helped fill the funding gap, but also created some unique issues of its own (which I will cover in a future blog).

The Teddy Bear Tales though really pushed me to up my game, it was not enough to just publish a book and move on, now I had to learn how to market, to present a professional face, to pitch and sell my work, how to raise funds and how to present my work. All of which are skills I am still learning and improving upon.

From the Teddy Bear Tales books came the Cuddly Defender Comics, my attempt at cartooning with Unconditional Hugs and my new journey writing and drawing Hero Ted… All challenges and all giving me the ability to grow.

So Why Do I Do This?

This is a question I have often asked myself. This isn’t a journey I would recommend for everyone, you will get soundly ignored, face some bitter disappointments and in some cases get openly mocked. For that all I can say is you will learn how to grow a thick skin.

What I have found is I enjoy the story telling experience and the freedom self-publishing gives me to express myself and my stories. I can so easily change gears and try new things, new ways of story telling. new characters and there is a genuine buzz when you meet a fan of your work.

I create to tell my stories… Thank you all for reading them