Nick Davis's Blog, page 53

An Unexpected Audience + Cuddly Sketch = A Green Lantern Speed Drawing Challenge

Me at my drawing board – I don’t always have an audience…

This all happened very unexpectedly… I had a piece of paper, a pencil and was looking to wind down after a very long five-hour drive taking my kids home to their Mother. Before I knew if I had an unexpected audience of my Wife’s cousin/nieces and  they were surprised how fast I was putting the illustration together. So to show them just how fast I can push out a Cuddly Sketch (when I am on my A game)  I started a speed drawing challenge of 30 minutes…  Want to see how it all turned out?

Green Lantern Teddy Bear Hal Jordan by Nick Davis

What happened next was an unexpected Green Lantern Cuddly Sketch Card illustration which took my approx 23 minutes. Check out the time stops in the Gallery below.

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Adventures Ahead – my first-steps into painting on canvas

Adventure Ahead by Nick Davis

I have taken a chance and  tried my hand at working on a new medium. When I was last in AC Moore I picked up two 8×10 econo-canvas, I thought it was time to paint on a surface artists have used for centuries. 

I had this idea to paint the Cuddly Defenders stepping through a doorway and it would be in silhouette calling it ‘Adventure Ahead.’ It would represent the start of a journey into something amazing or something dark and dangerous. I would add a feeling of trepidation and optimism into the characters by using their body language to communicate the story.

With that ‘Adventure Ahead’ was born, and throughout the rest of the day in between the usually family stuff a painting slowly came to life. Beyond the storytelling element I found the biggest challenge was representing the light on the far wall and bringing a rounded 3D feel to the Cuddly Defenders.

I used a mix of acrylic paint and a linotype black ink (because I found I had no black acrylic). Painting directly onto the canvas after prepping it with a wash of white was interesting, the surface is bouncy and textured – it was not to different to working with watercolor paper. Except I could use effects like washing and drybrushing.

The photos below represent the process I went through, I still have one canvas left to work with I will wait until inspiration strikes for that one.

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Superman Vs the Incredible Hulk – Fight! Part Three

We waited awhile, after  Part Two of this battle it looked like the Hulk had Supes on the ropes – now the battle rages on in this amazing fan animation. You can watch it after the jump.

Meet the Modibot is this the return of the Modular Action Figure Kit?

Meet the Modibot or the Mo, I discovered this neat looking action figure via a friend on Google+ and they look amazing. They are the brainchild of Ex-Xervoz Designers Wayne Losey and Tucker Johnson. The Modibot takes full advantage of 3D printing technology and you can order accessories for your basic Mo as you go.

I will be ordering one of these fellas’ next week, I’m looking forward to playing with it and reviewing it here. After the sudden death of Stikfas, it is good to see modular Action Figures starting to make a come back. Learn more about the Modibot here.

Creator Spotlight – Meet Scott ‘The Grim Sleeper’ Markley and Time for Hugs

Welcome to  a new feature on Alt World, every week (with luck) I will allowing an Indie Creator to blog on my website and tell us all about their work, what motivates them, what plans they are developing for the year and what work they are most proud of so far.

The honor of the first spotlight goes to Scott Markley – Creator of Time for Hugs and Unconscious: The Grim Sleeper. I first met Scott at the Baltimore Book Festival and we’ve attended conventions and swapped work on a couple of occasions. But enough from me, let me give Scott to introduce himself in his own words… Take it away Old Chap…

Hi I’m Scott Markley, but of course you knew that. I’m a history major at George Mason University and live with my beautiful girlfriend and three-year old son. I’m the lead writer, artist, editor, contributor and the creator of timeforhugs.com, whose most notable content is the webcomic Unconscious: The Grim Sleeper.

Unconscious is my baby. Being a parent to a live human I know what a baby is and what a parent puts into a child, and this effort is no less with my comic. I care for my characters, I want to seem them grow, I want to see their experiences, I want them to begin to have lives of their own and take off in ways I can only dream of. But what is it?

Unconscious is at once an homage to the 90′s cartoons I grew up with and an attempt to bring more sophisticated story telling to a genre more associated with cheap laughs. It is, as I often describe it, Pinky and the Brain mixed with the Sandman, but personally I hope people find it a cross of the best features of Dexter’s Lab and Samurai Jack.

But what is it? Unconscious, or Uncy as his friends call him, is a grumpy, cynical, sarcastic, power-hungry jerk who just so happens to be the Grim Reaper’s little brother. The stories on the website focus primarily on him doing his job of making sure people sleep while trying to become something more powerful than his brother Death. All the while the comic relief, Itchy, follows him around and causes havoc wherever he goes. It’s kid friendly, but I don’t make it for kids. I hope all ages can read it and get something different from it.

2014 is a big year for me. Every book I’ve read by the experts say that year three is the big year – the year you can judge a comic based upon. 2014 is my fourth year, and thus it is the year I try to sell people on my third year. Although I have a lot of things planned, my focus remains primarily on telling the best story I can. Last year Uncy lost someone very near and dear to him and year four focuses on how he deals with grief. He’s angry, seeks isolation, and is even more set at beating his brother by tipping the scales of power. 2014 also marks the halfway point of a seven-year story, and it should bring with it an intensity to keep people interested with one of my characters gone.

The fourth year focuses largely on me learning how to write a better story without leaning on the aforementioned character, as well as focusing on making the most of the beautiful medium of comics. If want to start from the beginning Time for Hugs has a story button should anything they read tickle their fancy.

Of Mice and Itchy by Scott Markley

What is new is my third book, Of Mice and Itchy, which is my proudest achievement to date. I believe the story is stronger than it has ever been. The structure of the book is superior to that of my last two. The art no longer fluctuates from beginning to end but stays the same quality throughout.

But if I had to list one reason, it’s because I’m proud of my character. I’m proud of what he’s done in this book. I’m proud of the choices he made and what he has done. I know that seems ridiculous, because I am the one who wrote it, but Uncy has grown so much that he writes himself. I simply give him the means to tell the story I think he deserves.

Thank you for putting the Spotlight on my work  Nick, your fans can find out more about me and my webcomic on my website Timeforhugs.com and my Facebook page.

Thank you Scott. Any Creators looking to get the word out about their comics, art, books, webcomic etc are welcome to contact me if you want your own Creator Spotlight here on Altworld.

What is the Fight-Dice Combat System?

Fight-DiceTM Rapid Action Dice Combat System is a tabletop game I invented allowing you to take any Action Figure you wanted and fight a duel with another Action Figure.

I play tested it to death and put together something that kinda worked. It was a perfect fit for the modular action figures that were around at the time such as Stikfas and Xervoz, and now would work well with the Modibots range.

I put feelers out to try to get the game picked up by a Game company, I got a Toy Agent interested and he got us a pitch meeting with a company up in New Jersey.

So Fight-DiceTM was pitched to Endless Games on a warm Winters day deep in the heart of New Jersey, and did receive some interest. Sadly as my luck goes it was right when the recession hit and the game itself was component wise very expensive to produce, so it was never picked up.

Oh so close, eh?

I shopped it around for a while, but never came as close as that day at Endless Games.

For the last few years I kept it offline as I refined it, but after the renewed interest in my Mobile Suit Gundam Battle System. I thought I would release a version of  Fight-DiceTM for free on the internet for you all to enjoy.

Please visit the new website to learn more about the Fight-DiceTM Rapid Action Dice Combat system.

Reintroducing the Mobile Suit Gundam Battle System for tabletop wargaming

I originally wrote the Mobile Suit Gundam Battle System (MSGBS) Rules-Plugin for using Mobile Suits and Gundam’s way back in 2001.

I was inspired by the Gundam Anime series which I had recently discovered thanks to Cartoon Networks Toonami block – namely the Mobile Suit 08 Team OVA and I have a love of giant mecha from my Battletech days.

Over the last few months there has been a renewed interest in the MSGBS, so I thought this would be a great time to reintroduce this fun Rules-Plugin.

Initially I used the popular Warhammer 40,000 (WH40K) rules system as the games background and it rather clumsily worked. The game gained some popularity and it was fun using Mobile Suit In Action (MSIA) figures and war-gaming with them. I built a website out of now old-school HTML/frames and over the next three years I fleshed out the rules, scenarios, some gaming supplements and put together rules so you could take your Mobile Suits into space.

Life events took over and I abandoned the Rules Plugin – although I left it online for people to use.

In 2006 I returned to the MSGBS and reinvented it using the Lord of the Rings Strategy Game (LOTRSG) as the mechanic. The Rules Plugin was less clunky and the emphasis turned back onto the Pilots away from the hardware. It felt more like the anime when you played it on the wargaming table.

I was satisfied although I had no time to develop it beyond the ground fighting part of the system. I left what I had worked on the website and moved on. At some point the website became inaccessible due to a cron job redirect I set up, but with renewed interest I investigated why the website was unreachable, fixed the issue, linked it to my main websites and left it for Gundam fans to rediscover.

The website is exactly how I left it in 2006, all clunky code and frames, I don’t see much point in updating as the Plugins can be found fairly easily. Although the MSGBS WH40K and LOTRSG Rules-Plugin are far from polished they give an enjoyable gaming experience (although the LOTRSG based Plugin plays better) share the work and please enjoy.

You can learn more about the Mobile Suit Gundam Battle System here.

The Return of Peter Parker in Marvel Now Amazing Spider-Man #1

The Amazing Spider-man #1

After 30 issues of Superior Spider-Man, it has been declared by Dan Slott that Peter Parker is coming back to reclaim his body, and will return in Amazing Spider-Man #1 in April. You can read the news on Comic Book Resources here.

I’ve taken the liberty to refashion the cover as Peter Parker is pulling ‘I’m fabulous’ all over it. Enjoy it in the fun spirit it is intended.

The Fabulous Spider-man #1

The Last Alan Moore Interview on Slovobooks

The Alan Moore interview on Slovobooks was published on January 9, the interviewer was trying to talk about some of the darker sexual elements of Alan Moore’s books, and while that was addressed – it didn’t really shed any light on why these elements always pop up in Moore’s work. I think he still stuck in deconstruct mode.

As this was a write in question interview, Mr Moore starts going on at length onto other subjects directly attacking the UK Newspaper Independent for revealing a plot point in the next League of Extraordinary Gentleman, has a long diatribe about Grant Morrison (Moore really does not like him), and takes a few swipes at old publishers (is there any publisher than Alan Moore has not got hacked off at?), and more finger poking at the fans that read his books – he really is an odd duck.

Anyhow you can read the full interview here, it is very, very long, convoluted and contradicts itself here and there, but it is worth the read.

Still no news if we are ever going to see the Ballad of Halo Jones complete and I for one am still holding out for more DR and Quinch. Enjoy

My Totally Cool Discworld Birthday Cake by the Sweets Fairy

This very cool and totally awesome Discworld Birthday cake featuring A’Tuin, Death and the Elephants is my Birthday Cake. Everything you see here is edible and sculpted out of fondant. The Sweets Fairy is run my wife and she has been providing affordable custom cakes to fit your budget to the local East Baltimore area for the last two years. To see more of the Sweets Fairy work click here.

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