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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Giveaway #1: Jilly and Ernest

Get them while they’re hot! Being the kind soul I am, I thought I’d give them away for free – Jilly and Ernest characters for V4, you’ll need the software (ie. Poser 3D) but apart from that they’re complete characters. I’ve just bundled it up in one big zipped folder, including dependencies – I mean…

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It’s aliiiive!!!

Good news everyone, my render machine is alive! Kinda. Anyway I seem to be able to get it to do stuff. Mostly. And I’ve taken this opportunity to limit the CPU usage to like 95% because it does seem to die when it’s trying really hard. Chill out, I say. Have a break now and…

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Ahhrrrnk! Heuck-k! Cheeky …

This is what test renders look like – rather than render a whole scene I’m often just rendering the bit that’s hardest to get right, to save time it’s normally just the face (cos expressions are hard), or the ‘bits’ that are touching (to make sure there’s no pokethrough / overlap or whatever), like fingers,…

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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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Comic cover image?

This for the cover image of Lithium #3? There’s always this moment when I have to complete a comic and decide what goes on the cover. To be honest it’s tricky because I’m a bit of a perfectionist (it seems … I’m just realising this now … in my thirties), so I have this stupid…

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Oooh, ok, this might not be going so bad … hold on …

OK so just to give the more obsessive-y-struggling people some space – don’t hold you breath, and don’t keep refreshing this blog, but … whisper it … we’re getting there. Comic update Renders: donePages: done (201! Crazy)Bubbles: complete to page 135.Juicy, spunky detail: 80% complete. That’s right. Should be maybe this weekend. Ish. Don’t check…

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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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Twinspiration

Okay … inspired by a little plot-wrangling in a recent comic … ahem … I’ve gone off on a bit of a SIDE MISSION to start making this comic that everyone said they wanted, back when I did a concept comic poll last year. You remember the one. It was a comic about a young…

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Jen! Jen! Jen! Jen!

Ahhh, this next comic’s going swimmingly, I thought I’d take a little break from ignoring my work duties, and also a break from procrastinating with animations and nonsense in Poser, to bring the spotlight onto our lovely Jen. I know the comic’s about her sister, but Jen is really cool too. I could just easily…

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You! Speak!

Pictured: hung over. Well, the new comic’s had just under a million hits, and it sounds like people like it, which is great. Extremely great (Nicolas Cage in The Rock reference … oh God I’ve got to stop putting Nicolas Cage references in everything I HAVE A DISEASE HALP). I’ve added the comments to the…

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Bleak scifi scenes! Yeayyy!!

Gotta love the unlimited scope of scifi. This is development of a scene I’m working on; a sort of body-processing plant, complete with glowing fluids and plenty of leftover females. Why? Well, developing the ‘dishonoring humanity’ theme, we need somewhere to be the lowest-of-the-low, you know? Like, somewhere where toxic males are parading about, ruining…

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Railed

Just thought I’d pop in and say hello HELLO. In the picture above, Jack is helping Skylar with something. And yes, the door is breaking, click-click CRACK goes the poor door frame but don’t worry, for it uses futuristic safety glass and nothing can break that stuff, no not even young Jack’s thrusty efforts. New…

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Good times a comin’

  Relief. Relief. So weird, didn’t expect that. I guess when someone you love has lived with an abuser for so long, you learn to live with the tension, the self-control of wanting the best for your friend but always knowing there’s this ongoing rumble of abuse. So when the abuser is gone (even temporarily),…

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Haha breast physics hahaha

Okay! So I still haven’t sorted all the comic/downloads links on that page of the website, but I did add all the ‘social’ buttons to the top left of the website – and as youtube was an option I added my random youtube channel and hahahahahaaa I’d totally forgotten I’d done some booby physics ‘tutorial’…

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Nab0kov’s final phase

In Vladimir Nab0kov’s most famous controversial book, the main character goes through three distinct phases: the approach, the act, and the fallout.  This is often the storyteller’s thing, but I firmly believe there is a forth phase available to all humans: transcendence. We learn from our own story and we change. We change, we become…

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Nighttime

It’s weird rendering in 3D sometimes because lighting has to be setup by the render engine to cope with whatever it’s fudging about the real world. So like in this scene I want it to be really dark, just moonlit highlights, but the renderer’s like “NOPE.” and perfectly exposes what I’d intended to be under-exposed….

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A big thank you

I mean listen, I do this thing where I create this random flippin comic. And sometimes it’s sexy and sometimes its funny or it’s just really, REALLY random. And sometimes it’s big meta ideas and sometimes it’s pure shitposting, sure, sure. But here’s the interesting thing; people get it. They appreciate it. And I just…

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I am Spartacus!

As we all learnt in blockbuster 1960s film Spartacus, slaves can be freaking awesome. The lowest of the low, oppressed by The Man, can in fact turn out to be absolute badasses. Of course they can: they are people. And people all have profound value. And that’s good news for us all, because we all…

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THE SCARAB OF DESTINY

You know how I like to do Easter Eggs, ok? Both chocolate and nerd-reference variety. Well … this is the Scarab of Destiny. Bear with me … Basically, rather than add a single Henchman/Trooper to a 3D scene at a time, I created this Poser file whereby a whole Fireteam is slaved to a single…

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Cover preview! Woop woop!

 OK so having done 138 pages now, I only just worked out what the cover should be, and rendered it out … So here’s a little preview because when the final comic lands, nobody’s going to notice these details as they ravenously consume the comiccy goodness within, so let’s have a calm look, shall we?…

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Playing with Sophie Shitcrack

Okay, as you may know, before I start another comic in a series, I try and improve the characters with any ‘niggles’ that annoyed me in the previous comic. So development of Sophie is going alright after all; here are some development renders: ^ new Sophie on the left. You can’t tell the difference from…

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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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Eeeehhhh!!

Okay, Colony comic’s neeeeearly here! It’s 142 pages, all but the last 10 or so have speech bubbles all done. I just need to take my time reading through and making sure I’m happy with the way it’s going in terms of ethics/vibe/easter eggs, things like that. So a little about it; I’m really pleased…

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The Eggiest of all the Eggy Eggs

Okay, you know how I like to put film/TV and niche pop culture references in my comics, well there’s also self-referential consistency MADNESS in every comic, too. Here are the top 10 silly ones from Lithium #10 … how many did you spot?!   ^ circled in red is Skylar’s goddamn TOAST which she dropped…

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Good and bad. Goodbad. Badgood.

Someone mentioned recently that they dig my references to ‘both-and’. Thanks; yeah I think we [society] miss that stuff so much – a quick look at Twitter will reveal that nuance and paradox are not exactly commonly understood. Then a friend messaged me this link on the who’s-bad, who’s-good thing: https://thereforenow.com/2011/09/the-tax-collector-with-the-pharisees-speech-in-his-pocket/  It’s interesting, that. And…

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Dress for success

Trouble with scifi is any materials are possible, so it’s difficult to have ‘spacey’, shiny materials and remember to keep it believable. I figure the subtle approach is always best, as there’ll always be people, throughout time, who don’t want to actually wear tinfoil and clingfilm, and prefer to slouch around in jeans and comfortable…

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Epiphanies R us – for superfans

Hello, it’s me again. Yay! In the penultimate Human Being comic, someone said they wished there was more detail about the specific transition of Mike, from his desolation to his security, his peace. It’s a good question, and prob one we all want the answer to, at one time or another (or constantly, sure). Hopefully…

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Cheeky dang kids!

I’ve just looked at the stats for this blog, and judging by the technology (an old Blackberry or a WiiU or an XBox browser …), this tech implies that there are some very cheeky children about the place! If you’re under 18 and are visiting this blog on a Nintendo 3DS or whatever, late at…

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STFW … catalogued!

Holy smokes, I was just searching for an image from OHB as I couldn’t be bothered to find my comics hard drive, and I’ve stumbled upon someone putting together a pretty comprehensive-looking guide to the STFW comics universe! Great work to whoever is doing this (‘R0’? ‘Oblomov’? Who knows who the author is, comment below…

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The non-update update.

Honestly, honestly. It’s been two weeks hasn’t it? Yeah sorry about that, I haven’t lifted a finger on 3D comics, sure. And it’s not that old excuse of being ‘busy’ that’s kept me off the 3D comics, I could’ve been more busy, it’s not busyness it’s more something else. I’ve been getting counseling. And yes…

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Aaaaaand … boobs.

(OK fine I couldn’t decide what to title this blog post). Anyway the comic: 120 pages done! Woop! I have to be honest; I’ve slowed down a tiny bit, having ploughed through all of the action sequences last month, there’s some actually much more complex scenes I’ve had to do more carefully this last week. …

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HELLO I HAVE FINISHED ALL OF THE RENDERING

let’s freaking celebrate! I’ve completed the pics for the next comic; and this isn’t just any 50-page weakling, it’s up there with Lithium #7 – it’s like 220+ pages of pure, raw, Sindy. As previously blogged, this upcoming comic is the first time I’ve not tried to explain everything; it’s more dense, more metaphorical, more…

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Rather Magnificent comic #6 is OUT!

**Runs in, panting** **Slams comic on the desk** THAT FCKEN COMIC’S HHHEEEERRRRRRREEEEEE!! As per Tira’s announcement, the Rather Magnificent Family bubble comic #6 is out! Woop woop! Well my goodness, they actually … okay no spoilers, but heck just check out the comic. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHECK OUT THE COMIC AAAAHHHHHH Tira’s download…

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Straight illin’

Ho ho ho! Merry new year, one and aaaaalllll!!! I’ve been ILL all holidays which, on the face of it sounds very bad, however it has somehow managed to be one of the all-time best Christmases anyway. Perhaps it was that my (fairly minor) spate of illness was just in that sweet-spot where it was…

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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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Some random update and a plan B

Hello! OK, plan B if my blog dies / Google decide they don’t like me any more (I don’t know why they would decide this, because let’s face it I’m lovely and my comics and blogs are all full of wholesome goodness, but you know, some people are prudes and don’t like boobies and willies…

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Lucid

Ok things have gone a bit cray cray at work and I haven’t had a chance to catch breath, but it looks like people are here and commenting, thank you – I’ll try and respond to comments as always. Comic development has had a break for a week as my brain has been dedicated to…

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Rendering’s done!! HELLOoo next comic!

Ehrmagherd!! I accidentally an entire comic! A whole one! OK so I need to add speech bubbles onto like hundreds of pages, but apart from that minor details IT’S DONE, BABY!!!! Wahooooo!!!! Final in the series is here, and it’s a beaut, lemme tell you! There’s even … whisper it … sex scenes in this…

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Invited, uninvited.

Weeell … I was going to start Lithium #13 with Jack having sex with Skylar, like this: … where she’s fallen asleep in a weird position, and he wakes up and is like “OOH … HELLO!”. And I initially wrote it like that because I had that pose of hers in my head and I…

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The lego man says …

Haha ok ok stop stop! In under a day I’ve had well over a hundred (EDIT: in 2 days I’ve had 300 responses … stop! Stop!) well thought-out submissions to my questionnaire on whether to split the next comic or not, and here’s the conclusion: ultimately it’s summed up by one fan: “Sometimes you want…

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The little break

Look, sorry but I’m having a little break from making comics, it seems. So if you wanna have a little break and check the blog again in a month or two, that would make sense. Looking at my many and various creative endeavors over the last few decades (PS. I am extremely old … I’m…

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Big boobs, small bra problems

OK minor detail but it’s a fun one so I figure it’s the kind of thing Charlie and Jack will have a chat about. Charlie’s lovely pink bra (and it is a lovely 3D model, you have to admit; whoever made it did a great job, which you can see from the close-ups in comic…

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Ackbar eggy

GNNNNGK?!!

Okay two things … firstly, did anyone download the zipped PNG version of Lithium 13 and … could they please re-up it somewhere so I can share it again? Update: this is now done! Thank you wonderful people! No, no, haha, I did not just randomly delete my original copy of the pages! Hahaha, haha…

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The morning after … outfit vote!

Having got 80% of the way through comic #4, it turns out it’s been a heavy night for Charlie and Jack, so we need a quick vote for outfits. I know … onerous task, but Charlie’s character does change outfits every 5 seconds, and this is an annoying symptom (having to decide what’s next), but…

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Less light

It’s interesting [to me] how, if we fully light a scene, it can look fake and boring. But if we remove lights, leave lots of shadow, it all sort of pops more. I think Caravaggio was probably onto something. And maybe that’s one of the things that makes ‘vintage’ porn so much more interesting to…

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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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Staring into beauty

HELLO the internet. Well, gosh it’s been a few weeks eh and no doubt many things have happened in your life since we last spoke. How do you feel about that? Hmm, I hear ya, I hear ya. Existence eh? Classic stuff. Personally I have been suffering from what the doctor calls a ‘disease’, which…

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Well … this next comic …

…  is just … I mean I logged on especially, purely to gush about it. And I almost never do that. This is going to be the best comic yet. By miles. I’ve been working on it, and … well … I seem to spend most of the time biting my bottom lip and squinting…

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One hundred pages!

Important news: comic update! Okay so I did something I never normally do today – I pulled a ‘sickie’, and didn’t bother to go to work. I never do that normally, disagree with the whole thing of pretending you’re more ill than you are. Very bad, don’t do it. Naughty. No. But in my defence…

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Hunt Sindy!

Okay listen, London’s a big place and there’s lots of people here, but I thought it’d be funny to do a real life treasure hunt, so … basically right now I’m in Westminster, sitting in a pub beside a Christmas Tree (why they have a massive tree up already I don’t know), so you know….

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Comics are awesomeeeee!

Just wanted to say thank you for all the feedback you’ve given on the latest comic, Grace. Comments ranged from “Very disappointed. Your other comics had excellent dialogue – this one had hardly any.“ (lol, btw), to “Brilliant! Telling such a difficult story without text is difficult at best. You are a master of your…

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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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Skylar: detailed development

It’s always good when you’ve got the basic ‘look’ of someone. Know what I mean? Like, I guess it’s the same for writers, you get a feel for what someone’s character should be and then everything pours from that. So this is our local (to the planet Ethealdor) contact, Skylar. She is fairly stacked, it…

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Oh deary me

Oh dear oh dear I’m not finding much time to blog about this next comic, because it’s just proved toooo much fun spending the time making it. Sorry about that. Sorry ish. It’s also hard releasing images without giving some of the plot away (and I know how much everyone’s here for the PLOT), so…

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Bargain Hunters

“Can you tell what it is yet?” … awww, I used to love Rolf Harris. Whatever happened to … oh. Oh dear. Oh, Rolf. A little too handsy with the kids, eh? Tssss. Aaaaaaanyway, yeah so the greyscale image above is a 3D cross-section that made me chuckle, as I was zooming about the room,…

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Karen

A few weeks back I asked what a good ‘bad woman’ name is, and had a ton of messages from lots of different people saying ‘Karen’!! Haha, what is it with you people?! Anyway, I have to admit, I knew a girl at primary school called Karen, and for one reason or another I hated…

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The greatest debate of all time … VOTE!

Well I’ve just wasted a night rendering the next comic, because my render PC (Windows 10 Pro), decided to force updates. Logged on this morning and find its both borked itself, and little details like folder view and display settings have reset FOR LITERALLY NO REASON, and I had to get involved with its brain…

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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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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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Secret Link