Musings From The Good Earth

Final Logo design

2008-11-10T00:07:00.004Z

Well it has been a little while since my last blog entry so apologies for that. Its been a hectic couple of months - I went to Egypt for one thing! Anyway, here is the finished logo design for 6Icons:

The stone tablet consists of 6 animal totems - Eagle, Fox, Lion, Cockroach, Bat and Turtle. These all have specific meanings, but I wont go into details here- sorry, You will just have to find out in the future.

So I thought I better let you know the status of our little project. Currently, I am still working on the characters for the first installments of the strip, and I hope to have more sketches for you soon on that. Its proving to be quite an ambitious project, but I think its worth spending time getting it right. Anyway, till next time, Adios

Bat Martial Artists Ahoy!

2008-09-14T19:23:00.006+01:00

Well another busy week on 6 Icons. I have decided to give the Monkey a little break from the blog writing, since the ball is now firmly in my court - he has done all the hard work writing the thing after all! I shall be letting you know, week by week, how the artwork is progressing as we slowly reach our goal- trust me, the wait will be really worth it. This week I have been filling up my sketchbook, finalizing the characters, starting with Cuma Wan, our Bat Martial Artist. This is pretty much the penultimate stage of the project. Once all the characters are fully designed, then work on the comic strip will begin. It may seem like a slow process at times, but it is edging closer to a finished strip and we are all getting pretty excited about the final result.

Cuma Wan
There have been a few tweaks here and there - essentially he is short but powerful monk - a kind of cross between Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. Cuma is brooding and rather intimidating despite his smaller stature (he is around 5 foot tall). I originally thought of him having a tattoo across his chest, but after a few sketches decided it looked better across his back. That also makes him pretty iconic from the front and back. As you can see, I have a character turnaround - that helps me a lot when I come to drawing the strip. As you can see, I can now draw Cuma from almost any angle now. This helps me keep things consistent from panel to panel.

Also this week I worked out the size comparisons for the major players. Again this is to keep things consistent. If in one panel you have one character looking down at a smaller character, that height difference needs to be maintained in other panels or else you would think the character had shrunk or grown! Now I guess its back to the drawing board...

When Writers Attack

2008-09-07T12:50:00.002+01:00

It's a well known fact that a writer with little to do will retreat into a corner and write something. That, after all, is how they ended up becoming writers in the first place. We seem to have entered a phase in the development of 6 Icons where I have very little to actually do.

I've animated about a third of the first episode and written some notes for further development but aside from that I'm just hanging about waiting for the first pictures to emerge.

There's the continuing problem of the music, of course. But we've got a direction we really need to have more of an episode for that.

So this writer has little to do.

Guess what he's done next.

I didn't want to start something new in this inevitable downtime while the Doodler gets his head properly round the project (after all as any fool knows writing a decent script is child's play, drawing all the pictures for it... tough, very tough). So I went back to revise an old work. This is going well but I'm even reaching the end of that project now as well.

That leads us into a calendrical coincidence. It is now creeping up on Mid September. Which means it will soon be October, and after October comes November.

And what does November mean?

Well, that's a question I'll leave you to think about until nearer the time. Until then I shall just drop the title "Uncian" which may mean something if you have been paying attention.

Frustrations of a Part time Web Comic Artist

2008-08-30T10:32:00.015+01:00

Welcome to another blog entry. Apologies for the lateness of this entry coming nearly two weeks after the last. The Monkey has been away for a few days and I was visiting friends over the bank holiday. So its left to me to keep you up to date on our progression so far. The past couple of weeks I have been finalizing the Logo, and starting on the final stage of the character design - its all about deciding the finicky details of each of the characters - what their costumes look like, how tall they are, what their facial expressions look like, and how they look from all angles (the turn arounds I spoke about last month). I have been watching a lot of animation recently, particularly the fantastic Animated Batman series from the 90`s, and Hellboy Animated- Sword of Storms. Both highly reccomended. The slick styling of both these has inspired me in the look of the web comic so stay tooned.... As I finish each one, I will post them up for you. Since I am still playing around with these , i cant really show you anything just yet, but should have one up for you in the next week or so.

Since in the last entry, Monkeyboy was talking about the fantastic locations of our little world, I thought I should show you some sketches of those places as a flavour of things to come.

Lacertillia
I drew heavily on Aztec architecture (or should that be Aztecture), for Lacertillia, for this ancient and decadent jungle empire. It really comes alive at night , with lanterns and festivals for the rich tourists, but could those bright lights and gaudy decorations hide something a little more sinister.....

Titan Archipelago
Since this is the pirate haven of our world, the architecture of these tropical islands resembles parts of the Caribbean and Mediterranean, from wooden shacks to stone fortresses. Since we are dealing with a greater level of technology than your typical 17th century pirate, the finished look will be a blend of modern and old - think
modern streamlined yachts with pirate garb, rigging etc and you wont be too far off. The design of Waterworld would probably be a good visual reference.

Speothos
The most technologically advanced city on the Good Earth has a slick futuristic look, blended with Art Deco styling. Yet beneath its polished chrome skyscrapers of the rich nobles, lurks a dark corrupt city of sleazy bars and labyrinthine alleyways, ruled by ruthless gangsters.

Gavallia
This marshy land is the home of the reptiles and amphibian races, an ancient land steeped in mysticism, magic and tradition. Visually its a blend of ancient china and Venice, with elements of 1940s Shanghai. A dangerous and exotic place to stay.....

Aquila
A heavily industrial city, Aquila is the hub of the Aquilan air force, and as such is a grim militaristic place. Imposing tall factories echo the emotionless nature of the Aquilan people. There are definite and intended visual references to Nazi Germany here.

Duntroon
A harsh artic landscape of mountains, ice and the occasional ice fortresses of the Duntrooni clans, resembling a mix of igloo and Scottish castles. A brutal and dangerous land to survive in.

Anyway, I hope that offers you a tentalizing insight into whats to come. So much to do, so little free time.....

Animation Antics

2008-08-17T20:50:00.003+01:00

We finally have three minutes worth of animatic and sat contemplating this last night. Essentially work continues. It's really very tedious, we're not having prima donna strops and retiring to our Winnebagos. We're just quietly continuing to work away and while it doesn't make for a superb dramatic blog experience at least we're inching ever closer to Episode 1, Chapter 1.

I would like to tell you a little about the setting of our story, known colloquially as the Good Earth. It is known as such although there is no "Bad Earth" with which to contrast it. The Good Earth is generally known to be an abundant place to live. Indeed all shortage and poverty that exists on the Good Earth is created by its inhabitants. It is blessed with rich seas, and plentiful croplands. The population is advanced but small. If it weren't for their many disagreements the place would be a paradise.

There are three major continental landmasses, Lacertillia, Uncia and Duntroon. Roughly speaking Jungle/Tropic, Temperate/Desert, Arctic/Mountainous. Lacertillia to the West devolves into a pepper of small islands called the Titan Archipelago. The major conurbations of the planet are to be found on the gigantic landmass Uncia which is actually named for a goddess who came out of the icy Northlands of Duntroon uniting many of the tribes before eventually dividing her Empire into three.

All of the land masses are joined by the Northern Ice Sheet and the two northlands Metatheria in the East and Phaethon in the North. The only inhabitable mountain territories in Duntroon are the land of Aquila which is in the south east bordering the gigantic Corda Valley and in the North West the mysterious kingdom of the Duntrooni who seldom interact with any of the other of the Good Earth's inhabitants.

The majority of the Good Earth, about three quarters of it, is covered by the vast Titan Ocean and in the distant far flung centre of this ocean are a tiny scattering of islands now referred to as the Broken Islands. Weapons testing have left them hollow, haunted shells.

Anyway I can tell you all this in words but hopefully soon you will be able to see some pictures. And we haven't even got into the urban areas, the history or the mythology of the Good Earth yet.

Trust me, this is a deep, rich world where we're hoping you'll enjoy spending a lot of time.

6 Icons Fondue and Global Domination

2008-08-10T16:58:00.022+01:00

As our ambitions for 6 Icons continue to grow, my thoughts have turned to Logo design this past fortnight. I am working on a header for the blog which captures the style of whats to come, and realized I really needed a nifty logo up there. So I have been corrupted by the evils of marketing and corporate branding- well when you do want to buy one of our Tshirts, Sporks or Fondue sets, its really going to need a logo... Anyway. heres how things are looking right now:

So, whats that grey wheel thing you ask? Well I am not going to give too much away just yet, but once you read the finished web comic, all will become clearer. And its not finished quite yet... Anyway the logo is meant to represent the different facets of the good earth. From the ancient past to the gleaming modern day.The tablet will
have a stylised design featuring a number of primitive animal pictograms, which I am working on right now. Should have something finished for you soon but heres my intial sketches as a teaser:

Why A Quiet Week Is Good News

2008-08-04T00:01:00.003+01:00

It's been a quiet week in Icon land but that is actually quite a good thing. The reasonb being is that in a quiet week everyone can get their head down and do some work.

I've been animating madly and the Doodler's got further into the whole drawing program thing, basically the team's been working away quietly and that means that we're inching ever closer to our first chapter and from there the rest of the exciting saga.

I'd love to post up something a little bit more detailed but I don't think I really have anything worth looking at. A script for a comic book is only really of interest when the comic book exists. If you've got no pictures per se it's impossible to really get all gung ho about how great the script will look when it's drawn, after all that depends who draws it.

Rest assured the Doodler's doing some good stuff and we're both loving the slowly evolving animatic, when his drawings and my animatic collide we're going to have one helluva light show for you all.

Until then I'll get thinking about what else I can tell you about the world of the Six Icons.

The Iconic Concept

2008-07-27T20:06:00.003+01:00

To coincide with the release (in the UK) of The Dark Knight this week and given all the chat about the characters so far I thought this Sunday I'd talk a little bit about why we're talking about icons. This whole project started in the first place because I asked the Doodler what it was he really wanted to draw. You can see examples of his answer below.

From my point of view I had never written any kind of comic strip before and I knew that what I wanted to do was keep my storytelling simple. The reason is that in the past I have made the odd attempt at comic stuff and it's not a novel. In a comic you have very little time to riff, you have to stay pretty glib and communicate in short bursts. This gives comic writing a laconic air that suits a particular type of humour.

I wanted to talk about the concept of icons because comic book characters are, quite literally, iconic. In a way this project is going to be a comic project about comic strips and their subjects. In one way this is quite a clever idea but it's mostly clever because it's so dumb.

I figured that all the gaps in my talent as a comic strip writer might end up papered over a little better if I was writing a script for these characters because they are the kind of characters comics are supposed to be about.

Hopefully this will shine through in the finished product, for that, you will have to wait and see.

Hero Character Designs

2008-07-21T22:57:00.049+01:00

So at this stage of the project I thought it would be pretty cool to introduce our major characters and the stage they are all at, character design wise. These are based on a couple of weeks frantic scribbling and research, and build upon my first tentative sketches. So here goes:

Kallai Mortan
Mortan is a pirate - a ruthless yet somehow dashing and honorable rogue. I decided to make him a Sea Otter because, well I love otters and it seem to embody Mortan's personality. Keeping the long body and short legs of an otter, I gave him pretty muscular arms because he is a good swimmer, and probably pretty mean in a brawl. Although not clear here, his whiskers are slightly long, giving the appearance of a manly moustache. Or maybe that should be an Otterstache. Ahem.

Juut Mesaver

I liked this Master Thief from the very beginning. The challenge for me was to make Juut and the Pirate pretty different, since they are both roguish types. But where as Mortan is athletic and heroic, Juut is a true sneaky git. So I decided to go with a fox because I needed an urban thief. My early designs included cats and raccoons, but they seemed too cute. Also Juut has a dual identity, that of a millionaire playboy, so that duplicity just seem perfect for the wiley old fox.

Tas Au'ri
Tas is an Amazon Queen, so the first thing that sprang to mind was a jungle cat - dangerous but also decidedly feminine. I played around with a few variations, but a Snow leopard was very appropriate in the end. Why? Well now that would be telling....
So I pictured her as tall, powerful and slightly scary. You just don't mess with this one, trust me.I gave her Wolverine esque clawed weapons, which obviously augment her own set of claws. They are worn, though. No Adamantium skeletons on the Good Earth.

Runa Dith'ard
Runa is a young Flying Ace and as such, her costume is based on a WW2 British pilot uniform. As to her race, well a bird seemed like an obvious choice. We settled on an Owl, since the big eyes give Runa a vulnerable look, although she is definitely a plucky gal. Owls also have a slightly comical feel , which contrasts nicely with her other avian foes. But I shall tackle the villains in a later blog.

Amath Gomazza
Amath is a Queen in hiding, and also a Bandit/Adventurer. She can use her feminine guiles, but is also mean with a throwing knife. I eventually settle on a Ferret because they are beautiful creatures, but rather sneaky and dangerous. When playing the role of the would be Queen, Amath is dazzling in flowing dresses and flamboyant jewelery. But when she needs to be more practical, she is a born adventurer in the spirit of Indiana Jones.

Cuma Wan
Cuma is a Martial Arts Mystic - a rather dangerous and grim sort of chap. He was always going to be a bat, so I played around with a few species. He originally looked pretty comical, with a pig like snout and large ears, but I eventually made him a fruit bat. They actually look pretty mean, despite the sound of them. Cuma still has traces of bat wings- enough to glide and leap at foes. He also has a religious symbol branded (furry equivalent of a tattoo) across his chest.

So What next then? Well I need to finalise the characters with Turn Arounds. Basically that's animator speak for precise drawings of each character from 3 -4 views around the body - front, side on, back etc. They help you draw a particular character from all directions. I will also have to get the costumes and accessories spot on, and work out the size relationships between all the main characters. Not much then. Stay Tooned......

Picture Turn Arounds and Soundtrack Woes

2008-07-21T11:36:00.004+01:00

In a slightly (ahem) late Sunday update this week, promising noises!

The animatic develops apace. Although the whole team took a day off yesterday to visit a concert; Doodler and Mrs Monkey had an ice cream leaving me as the hard drinker, I had a pint of cider. Don't imagine for one second, however, that just because we took some time for R&R we haven't been moving onward and upward. Doodler's been starting something he can explain to you called "turn arounds" (? - honestly, ask the doodler), Myself and Mrs Monkey have been working on our music hiccups (software shortfall, you know the kind of thing) and all of our thoughts have wandered towards global domination.

Usually speculating about the graphic novel and RPG spin offs of a project which hasn't even got a single chapter yet would make me a little jumpy. Thing is, we're all working super hard and some of the stuff that's coming out is starting to look really amazing. For those of you bored of constant "we are working" posts, which is starting to include myself I have been prodding the Doodler to put up some of the more advanced work he's been doing. He says that because he hasn't done the turn arounds the work is not as good as he'd like it to be. I said if he explained that in the post where he put it up people would think he was the best artist in the known universe because it all looks pretty amazing to me.

So we shall see if that pays off.

Back to the music. When it came to the soundtrack I was trying to get Mrs. Monkey to use a piece of software last updated nearly a decade ago that I bought because for a musical n00b like myself it was appropriate. I'm a writer. I'm never going to be a star quality musical genius. So a piece of 30 quid incredibly basic software seemed like a reasonable idea. Actually it isn't a super awful programme for little bits and bobs, but I guess someone more professional might require a greater bang for their buck. I had tended to shy away from anything more complex than my toy because I was familiar with the ways of the toy and I don't think it's really worth beefing up capability in an area you're never going to be proficient in. To be fair I have encountered the odd piece of software here and there which just confused the hell out of me.

Well, fate stepped in on this one. My toy disc has developed a chip in the side which means it crashes every 6-12 minutes. Not suitable at all. As it happens Mrs Monkey's father is a bit musical and computery, so the Mrs. got on the phone and after half an hour or so we had some solid advice. Following this has brought us to the most amazing tool ever. I've been trying to wrap my head around it and it's certainly not as simple as Mr. Chippydisc but I think on this occasion it's a learning curve it will be well worth going through.

We've got the demo of the program at the moment and we're learning all of its features but we're hoping to purchase a full version soon. An example of when a disaster is a helping hand in disguise. As soon as the Mrs and myself are comfortable with the software we'll see about getting you a taste of the Good Earth sound.

Finally, an honourable mention for Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible project which has a website here and an explanation here if we were Joss Whedon then when we had this many fancy shmancy Hollywood connections and time on our hands due to a writer's strike we would have done something very similar. Although possibly our idea would have had an upbeat ending and more talking animals.

The fact is though we honourably mention Dr. Horrible because it's precisely the type of media that we are trying to produce (although, like I said, with a much smaller number of talking animals, Bad Horse notwithstanding). Supporting Dr. Horrible is kind of like supporting us. Although obviously it's not us that gets any financial kickback from it. Hell, you get what we're saying! It's about principles people!

Until next time. Ook.

Layered Characters and Moving Pictures

2008-07-13T22:11:00.005+01:00

One of the things that is really important to a project like this is it's sound mix. It just so happens that Mrs Monkey is a bit of a musician and so she's stepped up to the plate for providing us with some tunes to go with the pictures. Well, one of our cunning plans was to have each episode made up of six 6-7 minute segments. So therefore each episode will total around 36-42 minutes. That means that the total amount of sound mix for each episode is 36-42 minutes also.

I had discussed this a little with Mrs. Monkey but somewhere along the line the communication became muddied. She thought I wanted her to write 12 36-42 minute long single pieces of music. You can imagine the rather heated discussion that eventually arose from the pressure this put her under.

So we finally managed to round out the concept that actually no single thrust of music would last any longer than 3 minutes. We also discussed how each character would have a dual motif that would tell you something about the character. To which end I present for your delectation a first look at six of the main characters in 6 Icons along with a brief description of their musical motifs and why the motifs exist:

1) Cuma Wan - Motifs: Germanic pastoral and Oriental flute. As it happens Wan is a pretty straight character, the stoic martial artist with a debt to discharge. However we've mixed this up by making his homeland, Eutheria, a cross between Tibet and Austria. It has a baroque wooden grandeur mixed with a spiritual tranquility. Wan's musical motif will reflect his background more than commenting on the quirks of his character.

2) Runa Dithard - Motifs: Glorific wartime anthem and soft emotional melody. Dithard is a complex character, at once keen to impress and yet steeped in a philosophical grand tradition that has been brought low by her country's situation. Dithard is a Ciccaban and these amazing engineers who made a kind of flying machine known as a Sky Weaver were all wiped out in a disaster just over a decade ago. Dithard has had to sign up with the neighbouring country's airforce to fly in their war against the stern authoritarian Aquilans. She flies a Phaethonian Warbird to assist the Phaethonians in their war against the Aquilans and their vicious Preyhawks. Even so, coming from a background of elegant, precise engineering virtuosity has an effect on her soul and this, in turn improves her piloting skills. Her theme will reflect this.

3) Kallai Mortan - Motifs: Sea shanty and simple honest melody. Mortan is a traditional contradiction, he's a pirate and an adventurer but he has the heart of an honest and moral man. So his theme simply entwines a cheeky and romantic sea shanty with a simple, emotional melody that talks about the solid goodness of his heart.

4) Tas Au'ri - Motifs: Tribal sounds and eerie portentous melody. Tas Au'ri is a barbarian queen who was frozen in the icy wastes of Duntroon for over a thousand years. At the outset of the story she is thawed out and has to adjust to the fact that the world has moved on whilst she has been trapped in ice. There are questions about why she has come to this world and what she has to bring to it and these are reflected in her theme which melds tribal sounds with an eerie undertone which asks about her enigmatic destiny.

5) Juut Mesaver - Motifs: A tricky one, two closely bound tunes, one overtly low key and sneaky and the other melding with it but also making a very obvious domination to it. Juut Mesaver very obviously has a double life he is master thief and urbane playboy but both of these parts of his personality are complimentary. He can continue this dual existence but only because he as a core individual is so together. His theme reflects this spiritual consistency.

6) Amath Gomazza - Motifs: Hard, masculine, organised melody with a very soft, sad undercurrent. Amath Gomazza lost her father in a "quiet civil war" in her homeland Lacertillia. She is the leader of the rebellion against the Lacertillian Imperial Senate but this position has almost been thrust upon her because of her history. She is a capable and brilliant leader but she has an underlying melancholy and romantic longing for a simple, quiet life. Her theme is a masculine cage that almost imprisons its very emotional female undercurrent.

Or at least that's the plan. The parts of each theme will be separatable and may even occasionally intermingle. The sound mix will use these themes and riffs on the themes along with a number of signature melodic keys to the various factions of the Good Earth. We haven't even mentioned our central protagonist and the large number of other characters who impinge upon our central characters' lives.

For my own part I have spent some time this weekend creating the equivalent of animatics to help with timing and pacing our chapters. I haven't cracked open Flash for quite a while and it's a taste that definitely needed reacquiring, but even with boards filled with stick figures sweeping across the stage the thing's looking ace.

More as it comes. Stay tuned!

Midweek Musings

2008-07-09T14:34:00.004+01:00

As a monkey I obviously like to Monkey about. Over the last fortnight I have been Monkeying about with a Google service called Analytics. Analytics is a visitor tracking service that breaks down your visitors by country, by browser, by referrer and by dozens of other arcane factors which someone somewhere must care about. By Sunday this week we had had, well, no visitors really.

All our Analytics account would say is that we ourselves had been and checked the site was running (you can arrange to have these visits ignored but how depressing would that be?). Well, I can proudly announce, due in no small part to the Doodler's sketches I'm sure, that we have finally broken our duck and attracted our first few authentic visitors.

I know they are authentic because some of them are from the US and therefore cannot be anyone we know. We haven't broken out the champagne and commenced dancing in the streets but we would like to say "Hello" to all the people we don't know who have stopped by to check out what's going on here at our blog.

We're sorry that it's still a bit spartan but the doodler's frantically sketching away to provide what will, surely, be one of the most attractive borders on the wubbleyou wide web. I would provide further scribblings but the writing is always the part which contains "The Spoilers" and until we're ready to start introducing some proper "extras" I'm just putting down some thoughts from time to time.

I'm currently writing Chapter 3 of the first episode and I'm really excited by just imagining the look of the finished product. The Doodler's style is rounder and warmer than the style of Broken Saints the previous example of our chosen artform, the animated flashcomic. The world we are building is intended as a fantasy holiday destination and our themes are ancient and epic.

We can't wait till we're ready to peel back the wrapping and invite you all to spend some time on the Good Earth. Until then, it's just the slow growth, like a budding plant. If you fancy it say "Hi". We're going to slink off and get back to work. Catch you all real soon!

At last the Phantom Speaks!

2008-07-06T21:50:00.011+01:00

So since monkey-meister is doing all the talking as normal (well he is the writer after all) I thought I should add another voice to the mix. To be honest, I was completely suckered into this project from the start. If you ask an artist who has spent 15 years drawing other peoples characters, what he would really like to draw, and then create a sweeping, epic narrative around those dreams, its pretty impossible to refuse that level of ego massaging. If it wasn't all such a hoot, and if he wasn't such a decent guy, I would probably want to get medieval on the monkey for my now non-existent free time, and for his blatant manipulation techniques. Strangely enough though, I am getting medieval on him, but that involves siege weapons, laxatives and exploding cows, all of which I will not be expanding upon here...

So what did I want desperately to draw? Anthropomorphic Animals. A whole planet of them, and no humans. With this incredibly detailed synopsis presented to the monkey, he added a few simple additions - characters, story arcs, the planets geography, history and inhabitants etc. I figure this stuff must be pretty simple to do, because he knocked it up in less than a day. That or he is just some kind of literary genius. Seriously though, he is some kind of literary genius. Anyway, enough with his compliments - it makes me sound like a gibbering Neanderthal with a lump of granite and a spare cave wall. Anyway, purely as a teaser at this stage, I offer up a glimpse of some of those cave drawings....

The Figures Are In!

2008-07-06T13:40:00.003+01:00

Yes, folks, Google Analytics never lies and it tells us incontrovertibly that, in fact, the only people in at the beginning of the Six Icons phenomenon were myself, the doodler and my Mrs. This is a shame because now precisely no one could admit to a tiny glimmer of hope that this would be a great Internet phenomenon. Nobody can proudly proclaim that before they'd seen picture one of the stuff we're going to be offering up they had a feeling we'd be something special. Nobody is really paying attention.

This suits us fine. The best work is done in secret, compare The Matrix to its lacklustre sequels and the first two Star Wars movies to any of the others. In fact, on a more relevant point check out any of the Marvel Comics Animated features (of which there are four) distributed by Lionsgate. It's like Marvel slinked off into a corner with a bunch of writers, decent voice actors, musicians and animators and quietly started practicing for this summer's world conquering Iron Man/Hulk combination. In fact in Ultimate Avengers 2 you even see nascent character notes for RDJs Tony Stark and Edward Norton's Bruce Banner.

The fact of the matter is that I have been avoiding the notion of deadlines and schedules and wanting to deliver on time because at the moment it's simply not important. Nobody cares. The minute we are in a position where we're proper content producers there'll be pressure to produce and an expectation of a piece of content on some semi-regular basis. In other words it'll be less like a hobby and more like a job.

I think all of us, myself, the Doodler (and the Mrs. who commenced work on "The Good Earth Suite") last night could do with a little rest before commencing that sort of a battle!

Till next time.

Getting Underway

2008-06-29T19:42:00.002+01:00

The thing I often think about special features or project journals is that often the project they describe was well underway before the journal even began. I always think that by the time you see anything so much has already happened that it makes context hard to come by.

Not that I'm all for beginning to tape the special features for the triple disc DVD release now. I think there's got to be some kind of gradient on these things but I don't think a blog is particularly an extravagance. I think me and the Doodler are both the types of people who like to feel that there's a blank page there to fill before we start to fill it so I started up the blog even knowing that we wouldn't have amazing amounts to talk about as we get underway.

The Doodler has, I should add, already filled a sketchpad with roughs and we've got a series outline and the first two chapters of the story have been written. So stuff is going on. I think it's easy if you don't do anything as insane as try to do a job of work and also do some creative project on the side to underestimate what's going on behind the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the study door. The other thing is that none of it's particularly exciting.

I mean, looking at the Doodler's sketchpad does fill me with a sense of excitement but these are all early designs. I tell you what will be really exciting is when we get the border up on this here blog. I've seen the sketches and it's pretty damn good looking (like Derek Zoolander) so when that's up I'm hoping it will inspire further writings in the journal.

It's also hard to strike an actual balance between showing the outside world a glimpse of what's coming about here and giving away our ideas wholesale. It's always been my feeling that if you discuss a problem you see ways around it so I'm bringing it up now in the hope that it gives us a sense of liberation. I think there's going to be stuff that is even in the border that's going to require some explanation so that should open stuff up a bit. Then there are a variety of "tertiary bonus materials" which we will relaease selected bits of as we go.

As a taster I can explain that what we're hoping to do is produce 12 chapters in this first 6 Icons series each of which has 6 chapters of between 6 and 7 minutes each. I guess that we'll be releasing the series by the chapter and it'll slowly build into the story we're trying to tell.

I think you could classify 6 Icons as a definite "yarn" we're both fans of stuff like Marvel Comics, Indiana Jones movies, The Matrix all sorts of good stuff like that. Doodler and I talked about this project to start out with and he told me that he loved stuff with anthropomorphised animals I wanted to do something about the iconic nature of heroes and with the keyword icon in mind I set off to rough out some ideas. This was about a month ago.

Right now we have a structure a script, a book of rough sketches and we're aiming for chapter one as our next milestone. We've got Google Analytics set up on the site and as soon as there are any discussion points we'll be keen to hear from you as well as poring over your almost invisible web visit pawprints.

Welcome to the official 6 Icons blog

2008-06-21T12:26:00.000+01:00

So I suppose, if you wandered in here by accident, that you're wondering what the hell 6 Icons is... Good news if you're reading this within about a fortnight of this posting. You're the first beyond a very close circle of friends to know anything about it.

6 Icons is a new online comic project in the style of innovative flash comic Broken Saints . As you will be able to tell from the utter dullness of what, as of this date, surrounds this blog in terms of template it's super early days for us yet.

Myself and my colleague the Phantom Doodler wish to share with you through this experience our road to creating a new web comic experience. We love the new stylistic innovations Broken Saints brought to the world of online comics and we're kind of amazed no one else has stepped up to take on stage II of what was, essentially, an entirely new approach to the artforms of animation and comic creation.

So we're stepping into the breach with something we hope will be more accessible than Broken Saints. If you found that comic hard to get into then you could look at 6 Icons as a sort of testing ground to get you used to the form until you step up to the darker and more challenging material of that series.

6 Icons combines the Monkey and Doodler's love of good old fashioned serial action with anthropomorpic animals, an epic sweep, a grand vision and just a bunch of super-fast pulp story telling.

More info is to follow shortly once myself and the doodler have got our heads together on this but for now rest assured, if you're reading this you can most definitely say you were there first.