Battlefield Babysitter

Page 10 --- wow....lame

2009-06-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

This is a LONG LONG LONG LONG LONG TIME over due. in any case. I never finished this page because BFB was becoming too much work to eek in during paying work and my dayjob at Neopets. So I'm working on a compromise that hopefully will work out better. I'm going to not be coloring. And I'm not even going to be doing terribly finished work. I'm turning BFB into something more manageable so i can tell the story rather than worry about the workload it presents.

I don't even know if anyone checks here anymore, but I'm definitely gonna keep working on this for me at the very least.

Coming back soon

2008-08-07T14:40:00.001-07:00

So I'm wrapping up my work on Vix! for Image Comics and I have another project I'm working on but it's a little bit more my own pace than deadline crazy. So what's that mean for BFB? Well what that means is that I'm aiming for a dive back spot here in September.

I appreciate everyone who's hung back with me over this past 8 months wondering WTF is going on, but here's the cat out of the bag for what I have planned...

I'm redoing BFB from the start. I haven't been happy with the artwork for the first 9 pages...like at all. I rushed the hell out of them when I first did them and having a mini-series under my belt through Image has taught me a lot about my storytelling abilities. So Coming in September (firm date to come soon) I'll be reposting the story starting from #1 with a bit better art and some better scripting as well.

So stay tuned Babysitters, we'll be up and running soon.

Update

2008-01-28T21:39:00.001-08:00

Hi all. First off let me just say thank you all so much for your patience and comments and reading. I also wanted to apologize for the lack of updates. Shortly after number 10 was posted I got signed up to do a 3 issue mini-series (not our lovely BFB) as well as another Project with Tori Amos and as much as I love these projects it saddens me that I haven't had time to keep up with BFB.

This is not a quit note, just an fyi that BFB updates will have some time in between. I'm really sorry that I can't get onto a regular schedule right now. But I do have to pay the bills and to do that I have to do the gig work first and my own from the heart project second.

But stick with me, there WILL be updates.

Thanks again everyone. Much love.

Page 10

2007-12-13T18:20:00.000-08:00

Well, Things are just plain hectic this time of year. I'll be resuming updates of BFB after the New Year. It's just too crazy to post up quality work and I don't want to short change everyone with slap dash comics.

Soooo I'll see you all soon with new stuff. Promise!

Page 9

2007-12-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well looks like I'm going to try for Friday updates. Gives me all week uninterrupted to work on new strips. Next Friday will likely be posted on Thursday though since I shall be away from civilization for a few days on a snowboarding trip. Yeehaw.

Enjoy this week's introduction to the little one who shall require said Battlefield Babysitting. aaaand his momma.

(P.S. One of these days I have got to learn how to do lettering. Guh)

(REVISED page. I somehow lost some narrative and dialogue when I saved this before. Fixed the missing stuff)

Page 8

2007-11-30T13:57:00.001-08:00

Like the last page said I was working on this page as of 4am on the day it was due. Needless to say this turned into a very weird page since the anatomy and design work is way off on this one. Not to mention the coloring was done in less than 25 minutes.

But c'est la vie. In the end I did in fact want this as a splash to be a lead in to more story since the 8 pages shown here and on Zuda were a teaser for the rest of the story and I wanted this to have an abrupt commercial break feeling.

Well that's it for the first 8 pages of Battlefield Babysitter.

We'll be right back after these messages.

Page 7

2007-11-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

Okay this page I hate and love. I liked that I got such expression pushed out of these characters when usually most of my characters are either snarling or smiling in most of my art (I am so limited). But I also hate it because I had made up some wall art for her room to really define the kind of character she is. Spent about 3 hours building her wall aaaand computer froze on me. And like all computer freezes it happened during one of those idiot moments where I had forgotten to save my progress. In the end by the time I got the computer up again and photoshop running it was 4 in the morning on the due date of the competition and I still had page 8 to do...so needless to say I didn't rebuild her wall.

Suckage.

Page 6

2007-11-30T13:52:00.000-08:00

By this point I'd completely given up on Sketchup being of any help at all in backgrounds, and the way I traditionally draw backgrounds would have conflicted so much with the previous pages that I just basically said "F--- it" and moved one without backgrounds in this page.

Honestly, I could be wrong, but I felt like that actually helped this page as I think backgrounds might've been distracting from this little parlay with the family.

Page 5

2007-11-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

A LOT of people had been asking "Why was Kat helping the police and then suddenly being arrested."

All I can say, people is that the joke here completely bombed. It was meant as a mislead to make you think she intended to do right and work alongside the police, but in fact she was the one running away from them from the get go.

The other question raised is WHY is she running from the cops. THAT question will be answered in a couple weeks. Sorry for the wait, but it's not like it's story shattering or anything. Just the pacing of the pages.

Page 4

2007-11-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

Other than Kat looking a little too much like a brain damaged Ariel(Little Mermaid) in the bottom left panel. I think this page was also pretty close to what I'd intended. So I was happy with it. Damn that wobbly Yin Yang up in the top right though. Somehow compression corrupted the file of both the TIF and final JPG format and really whacked out that Yin Yang...suuucks.

There were also some comments elsewhere that had suggested a weirdness about the dialogue conveying a feminist appeal but still showing bare ass. It's true, I'm torn between my utter respect and adoration for the stronger sex (Yes men, women are tougher than us. They give birth to BABIES and at best we cry when we have constipation. Bite the bullet and accept that women are hard as nails compared to men) and my love of the female figure. Basically consider it a differing of opinions between the writer and the artist of this strip and pay no attention to the fact that they are the same person.

Page 3

2007-11-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

Again with the sketchup backgrounds failing me. This page actually turned out okay compared to what I had in mind. I really wanted to give Swan a sexier appeal, but it's just so hard to convey how pretty she is in all those feathers and that damn helmet.

Page 2

2007-11-30T13:40:00.000-08:00

This page ended up being a complete and utter failure at what I intended. I was using Google Sketchup to build these really great backgrounds to use as basic ideas for drawing out full bgs for this page of an intricate school...

but somehow my files exported like turds throw at a helicopter blade and I was running short on time as it was. So I settled for hack backgrounds that nowhere near told the state of the area like I wanted.

Ah well. From failure comes our strength. And sheepish grins of defeat.

Stag also went through a fast transition here. Originally this page was to take place long before Katherine was to get her abilities and Stag was going to be her older brother who picked on her. But somehow when I drew him on page he came out younger than intended and just made he and Kat very close in age. Strange how the process works.

Page 1

2007-11-30T13:36:00.000-08:00

The obligatory introduction page.

I fully intended to make this a cyclical story where it starts off with Katherine in her Battlefield form and tracing back through time to explain how she got here, but it was to take place intermixed with shots of her current situation. But I felt that the 8 pages available to me for the Zuda competition just wasn't enough room to use that kind of story element. So I just gave a basic introduction here followed by 7 pages of flashback without the present day milieu.

Welcome to Battlefield Babysitter

2007-11-30T13:32:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. Just a welcome note to bring you all up to speed. Battlefield Babysitter was a concept I came up with a couple years ago but could never find the time to do anything with. Not even come up with an outline.

That was until Kwanza Johnson at Zudacomics.com came knocking and asked me for a pitch for their first competition. Well I dug up something else and it was just not ready to go, so I looked back at this little folder with some sketches of our mohawk wearing gal and thought -- What the hell, it's not like she's doing anything else.

In the long run I ended up rushing out some script work and the first 8 strips of Battlefield Babysitter in about 9 days. These first 8 pages are by far under par for my normal work but somehow I still eeked out a 2nd Place final standing in Zuda's first competition.

Some of you were kind enough to encourage me along the way and as promised, I will repay the kindness by continuing Battlefield Babysitter here on this blog. So check back here often as I'll be posting up new pages. No idea what kind of schedule I'm looking at yet, but I will be updating, that's for sure.

Thanks for everything and enjoy the ride.