A threat of joy.

I was recently threatened by a ‘fan’, saying I shouldn’t something something something … I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention. I believe I’m capable of making (occasionally ok) decisions, I mean what is this, 1984?! Haha, good times, good times. Enjoy your attempt at intimidation, you are less scary than you think (btw that’s…

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Language, Timothy!

Someone rightly pointed out that I put a grammatical error in Skybloom #2, and it got me thinking about language and our journeys so I’m turning it into a blog post! (This blog isn’t really about grammar, don’t worry.) On page 39, the phrase “There was a naturalness to Sophie and I ….” should be…

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How to use a bath.

Look, it’s very simple … okay fine, I’m procrastinating from Lithium by developing the Backyard twin characters, and I’m procrastinating from that by making another *checks notes* twenty pages of the Colony comic, and now I’m procrastinating from that by blogging about procrastinating on it. But yesterday I read through the Colony script and it’s…

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Laughing at your own work …

(Have a non-spoiler render… ) OK I’ve finished all the rendering & layout for Lithium #4, and going over it to find typos / improve images, I keep lolling at the jokes. Like I very nearly just gobbed a mouthful of coffee on the keyboard just now! Is this normal? Does anyone else write stuff…

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Self HAM

OK this post has nothing to do with ham, I just didn’t want to write the word ‘harm’. This isn’t a big rant or a dark self harm story, though don’t worry. Basically, right, I went to some festivals recently … I know. If you’re an introvert, you’ll know what a big/horrific deal this is!…

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2020 is MY year! Not yours, MIIIIIIINE!!!

I keep seeing possessive new years resolutions stuff around the place. 2020 is going to be MY year. MINE. My precioussss … I mean sure it’s good to go into the future with a positive outlook, but I kinda think we need a culture that understands fresh starts isn’t just an annual event; it’s a…

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Stop voting! Staaahppp!!

Okay okay after three short days and over fifteen hundred opinions submitted (!), here are a few things I have learnt about you wonderful people of the internet: People care about pyjamas (quite right, quite right); People massively prefer Tartan to Silk; Boobies. All good insights, there; thank you, everyone. Here is a picture of…

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Neurodiversity and booby comics

Okay listen, the word ‘neurodiversity’ wasn’t even invented until 1998, and since then we seem to have had **quite** the explosion of our understanding of ourselves. There’s recently been a huge rush of everyone realising they might have [whatever]. And I don’t think it’s bandwagon-ing – it seems an explosion of (1) better testing criteria,…

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Skybloom imminent! Ish!

Okay [minors spoilers although these images could be anything – she might have stepped on lego] it won’t be this weekend because I need to do most of the speech bubbles, BUT! IT! WON’T! BE! LONG! Let’s say Tuesday although knowing me, it’ll be … sooner. AAAAaaaanyway, yeah if you even just semi-enjoyed Skybloom comic…

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THEMMMMMmmmmMmmMmmm

Can people stop saying “All politicians are the same”, please? As someone who has worked directly with politicians for a few years now, I can say … they are very definitely not the same. People’s real root values vary from one person to the next, and in my experience, true legends constantly rub shoulders with…

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Patriarchy and Barbie

So … I saw the Barbie movie. It’s great. Or if you’re troubled by it; it’s a bit challenging, and that’s good. Even better, in fact. Either way, definitely worth a watch. Is it perfect? No. I think it is a bit problematic in places, but that doesn’t detract from the overall message; that no…

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The very busy person time.

Hello I am very busy. Why. I mean ideally I’d want to be creating CG characters, plots, you know, faffing about and enjoying the sunshine and fapping and eating cakey-based treats. But no. My work and human responsibilities stuff is just off the charts at the moment and I don’t have time to just be…

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The Lithium Comic. 05: In Tents

Comic five is here! Wahoooo! In our last comic, we learnt the dark family secret that mean aunt Karen had been hiding. Tsss, that woman. Our young heroes managed to survive the news, but now need to figure out the next tentative steps in this already controversial relationship. Fingers crossed it goes well, eh? Download…

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Big irrelevant pink dick

I thought this’d be funny, make a big-donged alien creature, maybe have it knock on the airlock door of the colony in Skybloom … and then I thought … nah. Anyone read that comic where a teen girl humps her pet? It’s … [googles] … called Dark Rift by Epoch – anyway I quite enjoyed…

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Tie fighter

OK I’m writing a proper grown-up blog post that I’ll publish on Saturday, but in the meantime, here’s an old scene file I opened this morning and … added a tie to … Wow, that’s … jazzy, Charlie. What are we thinking there, eh? Who knows, who knows. The marvelous human mind, eh? Never ceases…

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Important walk cycle test…

During the comic-creation process, it’s really important to animate characters in looping movement poses to get a real feel for … for … … ok nothing. It’s not important to animate them, cos comics are static. It’s a totally pointless exercise, I admit. These animations, then, are just for fun. Lots of free walk cycles…

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How to make friends and love people.

One of the main things while developing characters is to make sure they operate in different environments. OK it’s not, but I guess part of the creative process is plopping people in different scenarios and seeing how they might perform. I’ve been doing the same with Jack, now it’s Skylar’s turn to get wet… Whilst…

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Trouble downloading? Get the comic here!

You know when you log into your email and you have a hundred emails from people asking for permission to access a *public* document, that the system isn’t working. Google Drive is a nightmare for some people, they accidentally delete shared folder contents (apparently), and can’t find the download link for PDFs (apparently). And if…

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Oh deary me … again …

Okay I’ve completed over 160 pages-worth of renders; this is going to be a truly epic comic! I mean sure it’s a total shit-storm, but that doesn’t really communicate the extent to which this is a work of total madness, does it, huh? Well, let’s put it this way: the last comic (Lithium #9; 175…

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A new hope

So I’ve had a little break from Lithium, celebrated the completion of 0HB, and have been pondering and writing a little. Thoroughly recommend it tbh! Write your shit down, people – seriously it does wonders. Hahaha, aahhhh, Skylar.

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Gifs! Gifs! Gifs! Love me some gifs

Here’s the first few silly gifs! Hoooray! Charlotte and her bestest pal Jack, enjoying a sunny morning in the bathroom.  I regret nothing. Share them wherever you like, I’ll prob delete them sometime, knowing me. Note: the only rule with these gifs, is that if you pronounce it a soft J sound, ‘jifs’, then you…

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Karen. Is. Lasagne.

This blog post is inspired by The Night Window, by Thomas Newman. Play it as you read! Why not eh. (Fun fact, lasagne is plural/general, lasagna is singular/specific, apparently. Aaaanyway …) Karen. Is. Lasagne. We all know this, right? Lasagne are made with onions (which make you cry) amongst the deep layers, then the layers…

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Beauty sees beauty.

One of my favourite writers, Richard Rohr, made some interesting observations about Homers Odyssey, and you see a little of my discussion of the same themes in OHB comics 7 & 8, as well as Lithium, and … well, all my comics let’s face it. Rohr points out that in the Odyssey, Odysseus leaves Ithaca…

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Fast slow fast slow slowfast

  OK ok ok hold on hold on I was racing through the comic but my workplace decided it was a good time to shoot cannonballs at me and sure I can dance around like the furry guy in Kung Fu Panda 3, but it does rather put a crimp on one’s ‘extra-curricular’ productivity, it…

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Stat things

Can’t believe I published eleven comics in 2019. That’s quite a lot. I think as I get deeper into the comic series plotlines, the comics will probably get a little longer, so I’m unlikely to release eleven in 2020. At least I hope I don’t. Considering this is a random hobby I crowbar into my…

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Comic previews …

OK we’re nearing the final few scenes of Lithium 9: speech bubbles are even done up to page like 130 or something, so we’re getting through it! Yay! To celebrate, here are two comic page previews which don’t give anything away. I’ll do them as links so if you really don’t want any spoilers whatsoever,…

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The Great Big Update!

What makes this the great big update?!?!!?! Okay nothing, I just noticed I’ve been so snowed with work I haven’t had time to indulge my slightly wankier self for a bit, and have left this poor blog, and the associated imaginings to gather dust ~ sorry about that. However! I’m back. I have ten thousand…

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Wallflowers.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower was on UK tv recently, so I watched it. Holy shitballs, what a great film! Initially, I thought this is going to be crap American Teen cliche bullshit but NO! I was wrong! Hooray! This blog post includes spoilers of the film, just fyi. One very moving theme they…

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It goes on.

OK comic update: I now have only one [big] scene to create, then it’s bubbles time!!! There are over 200 pages … in fact the last scene is a bit of a spread-out affair, so we could be looking at 240 pages by the time we’re done. Another epic. Woopsy. And its taken an age,…

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Oh … I’ve nearly finished … woops

OK basically, I’ve nearly finished the rendering for Lithium #6. And I’ve done half the pages. So … it’s not going to be this week but it’s going to be soon! Yay! Without giving too much away, it’s freaking hot, this one. That’s the trouble with investing so much energy into developing characters and scenarios,…

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Symbolism, wooOOooOOoooo …

I have this sort-of-policy where I don’t put too much thought into my stories. Know what I mean? Like if you force it, it doesn’t work as well. I think things are best when they’re more seat-of-the-pants because then your subconscious brings more gems from the depths of creation rather than you trying to control…

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Shame and wonder and space things

I just read a fascinating [/batshit-crazy] book [/terrifying sex horror pulp fiction], which was excellent [/scared me to my very horny soul], by a scifi writer called Philip Jose Farmer. I’d read one of his books before, it was about *checks notes* ah yes, Tarzan escaping helicopter megalomaniacs and humping everything from gorillas to rambunctious…

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The how to find my comics, Plan B blog post

  Occurred to me that I only have this one blog (I’ve closed my deviantart etc to simplify stuff), and Google is probably the worst host I could’ve chosen for that. Ah well, let’s discuss a plan B shall we?  Google occasionally randomly closes accounts, responds over-zealously to reports or just plain ditches blogs as…

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God is left-handed

Think about it right, God gets to show off the magic in minority stuff like orangutans, seahorses, human knee joints, unusual little cosmic events, moon coronas, stuff like that. So of course he’s left handed, because that means creativity and zaniness [sarcasm]. So of course they’ll be left handed in my upcoming comic [not sarcasm]….

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Merry Christmas Ya Filthy Animals!

Have an amazing few days, whether at home alone or abroad in a huge pile of humans. Wherever you find yourself, I wish you kindness, gentleness and peace! And tiramisu. And a delicious stout. And a mincepie. A good book. Champagne, of course; goes without saying. At least one cheese tsunami. Pigs in blankets, perhaps…

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OK I’ve done the cover …

Having caught myself slightly off-guard by deciding to release the next Lithium comic at the 120-page mark rather than plough on and include the next few scenes (which will take a month or two), I had to then decide on the cover. Part of me wanted to just have Skylar in the freeze tube thing,…

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Past sixty-nine

It’s always nice, passing the sixty-nine page mark. Perhaps because I always giggle. And then have to remind myself I’m a functioning adult, with lots of qualifications and substantial proof that I really really am a functioning adult. I promise. Just a … a special type of functioning adult, who giggles at the number 69….

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Hair.

I dropped the soap on the bathroom floor this morning, and WOWEE I did not think such a quick splat could collect quite so many pubes. But here we are, I thought, as I tried to redeem the situation and return the soap to its original form, desperately scrabbling against a torrent, nay a WIG…

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Initial character ideas

I wanted to create a comic with just a few characters, and tons of awkward ‘human’ situations. Because they’re the funniest. OK, maybe not funniest but they do happen and are all part of the great wonderful fiasco of real life. And they’re great (like scifi) for getting to the core of what makes us,…

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Growing up

OK, this is an animated gif (in case you didn’t watch it for long enough …). I’m not doing one of those ridiculous “Oh my god my tits just tripled in size!” things like you get in some comics, HOWEVER … changing shape as you get older  is part of life whatever your age/gender: we…

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Wears the soap

It seems that, in between real life and work and some pretty big changes that have happened recently, I can’t see Lithium being completed for a few years. Don’t panic! Read this blog post in full before anyone goes nuts. Sure there’s only two comics to go, but based on (1) recent changes to Poser,…

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New character extravaganza!!!

OK I’m having great fun making tons of new people. It’s always nice prepping scenes, though I have to admit I’d been a bit slow with some of the scenes because my ideas kinda outstrip my technical skills! Anyway, characters are easy to make, so here’s a few … You can’t repel boobies of this…

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Skybloom comic 2: Even Less Professional

It’s here! The greatest Skybloom comic of ALL TIME! Okay there’s only one other comic in this series, but I’m exceedingly happy with this one. It’s 150 pages of silliness, joy, and most of all … yumminess. That’s right. Download it, read it, recover and then let me know what you think! Download the PDF…

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The comics plan

Okay I realise it might be difficult to follow what’s going on with the STFW [multi-multi] series comics recently, so I thought I’d just mind-dump on where I’m personally at, and what (my personal) broader plan is for the comics universe. I’ve worked on two major series: One Human Being, and Lithium. Amongst those I’ve…

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Much redeye, very grief

Hello you lovely humans! Lots of people say they like the humanity in my comics, which means they get the whole human -turmoily thing, the whole awkward, touching, weirdy comicsy thing. Which is kinda why I write them. So I know people’ll get when I say that this summer has been a bit of a…

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Crashy & mad

So I’ve written Madiy & Crash to the finish – turns out there’s only two more comics to this mini series, and although it takes a pretty serious turn for the worse (don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler, it’s almost certainly not what you think … or if it is, it’ll be ages before we…

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Developing Charlie as we go …

If you haven’t read the first comic, start there! Here are a few more test renders of our main character, Charlie, as she needs to be ready for different situations in the upcoming comic. Anyway, as we’ve established in the first comic; she’s not perfect, she’s liable to a little bit of shouting, she’s tall…

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New Yeeears, new feeears

Howdy all! Well, one of the all-time great Christmasses, that was for me. And you know when you’ve weathered a few storms you can really appreciate when things work out. I mean sure, I cocked-up the Christmas pudding and sure our New Year plans got bollocksed all to heck and we had to come up…

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Tiiiiiiiime travel: VOTE!

Okay, help me with a conundrum. Basically, I was wondering about weaving in a mini plot including HG Wells and young Mary Poppins, time-travelling into the Lithium series. They could visit a bunch of scenes from STFW and Grace etc as well, a sort of post-Lithium homage to all things STFW-universe. BUT then I thought…

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The great golden helmet of joy

OK! Big fan of conundra, me. Ya paradoxes, ya dichotomies, ya dilemmas; big fan, big fan. In the upcoming comic, I’ll be honest it’s a big of a grey area in terms of how it pans out – we could go in a number of directions at this stage and I’m trying to walk that…

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The Truth

I’ve been writing about the truth recently, looking at its role in a world of chaos. So I thought I’d share some of my own truth in the upcoming comic. Not lots, I just mean be a bit more vulnerable I guess. As I’ve alluded to in other posts (eg the Perfection Trap), we (I)…

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Middle managers can do one

Okay, get ready for a mini (and fairly overdue) rant. As you may have noticed from my comics, I think about things, I have thoughts, one might even notice … I do have a brain. In fact, in the real world I’m a pretty well experienced thinker, paid reasonably well to be a multi-faceted specialist…

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Beautiful rejects

Thought I’d drop the renders that didn’t make it into the latest comic, just for fun. I’ll caption them with what the issue was … >>>In my head this was a reference to the squeezy willy scene back when Charlie’s wearing that green swimming costume, but I realised nobody’d get that reference, and all it…

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Hahahaha … haaa … aaaahh. Good times.

OK I’ve been busy. No wait, the other thing. I’ve been wasting time. Busy wasting time. I’ve started making random figurines to join in with the mayhem of the next Lithium Comic (haven’t actually started making that comic yet, but suffice to say … it’s going to be a crazy one. I might wait a…

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Wahoo, waboo.

I try and be a human, and I do have these amazing sparks of joy and connection … but then it seems everything kinda catches up with me and it all stops and I feel a bit like a paper-thin marionette. Know what I mean? Hey I’ve got it all sussed! I’m amazing wahoo! Oh…

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A forgotten crush

^ Ignore the wig I watched the 80s film Trading Places recently, and whilst wading through the horrific (mostly intentional, but still…) racism, sexism, bad one-liners, and … I wait is that … oh myyyy … Jamie Lee Curtis. I hear what you’re saying, and what I hear is … Jamie Lee Curtis. My first…

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Ok I have a plan.

Thanks for the lovely comments etc on the blog about me needing a break, especially to the loads of you who said that comic I was trying to find was Pet Elf – thanks everyone. Especially the actual author!! Amazing! Anyway, on the me-needing-a-break thing, I’ve done what people tend to do when they’re in…

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Caught by a dumb inflatable

The interesting thing about inflatables is they appear to be large and impressive, but when they do finally pop, it turns out they were just flabby plastic, full of air. So weird.   Deep breath … “We’re sick of experts!!!” **blow** “They’re taking our jobs!”  **blow** “I beat China all the time. All the time.”…

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Ask the internet! Update: done!

Okay, after everyone’s genius at correctly identifying Pet Elf for me a few months back, I thought I’d ask the internet another slightly awkward what-is-this-comic question!  EDIT: Someone sent it to me so no worries. It was far more dodgy than I remember haha! Ahem. Woopsy. Anyway, as always asking the internet worked a treat,…

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Comic covers and titles! VOTE!!!

OK wonderful people of the internet, I have too many options right now so you have to help me decide stuff. There’s an anonymous form below, please use it to help me and I’ll try my best to finish the comic in the next week!!! VOTE GOGOGO!! I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, but…

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Upsadaisy