End of the Year

It's New Year's Eve! The year of 2012 is coming to an end! Today's post will tell some stories of the first year of this blog.

On a particularly boring Wednesday on the 8th day of February, I started the blog with my first blogpost. The next post I wrote began the ironic adventure of the Super Rooster comic, where I explained the five different versions of the comic series, and that I had started my sixth, and what I hoped would be my last, attempt.

Soon after that, I started Rabbit and Robot, the nutty improvised webcomic of mammals, robots, rock monsters, and nature spirits. I had a lot of fun making up the story as I went along.

In came Spring, and I started adding more content to the blog. I made a few posts of some of my older comics, and I started doing random sketches. I got a Twitter account (which as of yesterday has 10 followers). And then I came across my "due date" for the Super Rooster script, but I was only a third finished. So I bumped up the date (for the first of many, many times).

I had my friend Joey Han draw a Rabbit and Robot page, which took the story to an interesting turn. I changed my Super Rooster plans and started a different story. I entered Summer, and between camps managed to keep drawing comics, and I got a deviantART account that I never use.

Autumn came, and I was pretty sick of drawing Rabbit and Robot, so I ended it with an "epic finale" (though I have a strange urge to continue it...). Sometime after, I finally realized that I was never going to finish that Super Rooster Sampler, and I ended the project altogether, adding a pathetic sixth attempt to my list.

But ending these two projects cleared up my plate, and I started thinking of a new webcomic idea. I was careful that time, and only said that I hoped to release it in November, which obviously didn't happen. Then came December, and I wrote about a game Zack Wright and I made up, and I drew some holiday pictures, and I started writing an end-of-the-year post describing the whole year even though there isn't a soul in the world who would care, and realized that I had reached the end of the story.

So, I hoped you enjoyed all of that nonsense, and I look forward to the coming year. I think my resolution will be to "never tell you people about things until those things ready to be published." Happy New Year, everyone!

Oh, yeah - as it's the end of the year, here are the seasonal blog headers of 2012:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

To celebrate, why don't we all read that "classic" Super Rooster Christmas special? (Actually, it was almost as bad as the Star Wars Christmas special, but you can still read it here!)

Enjoy the holidays!

Winter Sketchin'

A snowman, a Santa, and other Wintery things.

Role-Playing Comic

The Role-Playing Comic (RPC) is a game created by my friend +Zack Wright and I. The game can take you on any sort of adventure that you and a friend can brew up!

What You Need:

• Two people
• A pencil
• A sheet of paper
• Optional: Dice (of any number of sides)

Basic Gameplay:

The best part about the game is that you can add or change any rules you want. But we've established some basic gameplay rules that we use.

Each person is either the writer/artist of the story (or the "Game Master," as the geek world would call it,) or the player, who gets to decide what to do in the world that the GM creates.

The GM would start by either asking the player to choose a race, class, location, etc. for their character, or deciding all that himself and getting straight to the adventure. He then draws the first panel, which would be the starting location.

We usually draw scenes in a from the player's point of view, because it makes it feel like they're in the world. The player then looks at the comic panel, and decides what to do. (When the player decides what to do, the GM should write it down, so it can be read like a story afterwards.)

The GM would then write/draw the next scene, based on the player's decisions. (We usually don't draw the panels and words left to right, like in your average comic; we find it easier to draw from top to bottom, like in the example.)

Stuff You Can Do:

Like in real life, the player can do whatever they want. Also like in real life, the Laws of Nature (aka the Game Master) set limits to what they do. They can either declare it physically impossible, or perhaps have chance decide with a dice roll. Here are two main things players can do in a game.

Talk: As the player, you can go up and talk to anyone you wish. Their outcomes can be varied, from offering to help to pulling out an axe and trying to chop you in half. (I usually don't draw a new panel for each piece of dialogue. I prefer to just write the text and add a little floating head next to it, like in the example.)

Battle: Battling plays a big part in Role-Playing Games. We've tried many methods for battling, but there's one method we use the most. When the player decides to battle a character, we'll draw a battle panel, containing the character ready to fight, the character's battle statistics, and their health (see the example). The player and GM take turns rolling the dice to fight each other, until one of them is defeated. (For more info on battle, see "Statistics.")

The rest is up to the imaginations of the player. We've done all sorts of things from buying potions to riding Giant Spiders to raiding small Inns to rob them of their root-beer.

Statistics:

Like in RPGs, we usually give the players Statistics. The standards are Health, Attack, Defense, and Gold (or other monetary system). These numbers are constantly erased and changed as the player battles and gathers items. In battle, the player loses Health for each hit they take, based on the enemy's Attack, and can gain Health from many things, such as potion or food. The amount of damage they do to enemies is based on their Attack, which can be gained from stealing weapons from defeated enemies.

So, That's It.

These are only the basic rules we've established, but by all means, experiment! Try playing with over two people! Add your own favorite Role-Playing elements! Undertake the goal of creating the strangest situations you can!

So, that's our game. Here's the complete page from the example, which can now be read (from top to bottom, remember) as a comic! Enjoy.

Swedish Chef Sketch

To test out some new pens, I drew the Swedish Chef. Børk Børk.

December News

It's December! A new month has come, and hopefully it will be a more interesting month (blogwise) than the previous month! Actually, I'm pretty positive that it will be, because I've got quite a bit of things planned this time around.

I'm almost ready to start my Sci-Fi webcomic! I've finished the first script, save a few names, and I've got all my materials ready (14'' by 17'' bristol paper, some new nib pens, a full bottle of ink). All I need to do, besides coming up with a name for the series, is… actually drawing it!

I have a few new types of blogposts that you'll see a bit of this month. The first are stories, which I talked about in my previous post. The second is something so incredibly amazing, I'm not going to even say what it is. But it involves my friend Zack Wright.

Lastly, I've decided that I'll do sketches by request from all of you readers. You can make a request via commenting on this blog, Twitter, or any of my other social networking accounts (see my About page). I'll even put your name on the post, to make you happy.

So, yeah, I appologize for only writing 3 posts (new record!) last month. But this month, I'll be sure to keep posting. Stay tuned!