Mumble, Mumble, Splarg

Alrighty... page 2 of episode 6 of The Word Smith is now online (I'd have posted this last evening but Blogger was being ornery.)  This is obviously later than I'd inteded to post it, regardless.  Partly, this was due to laziness, partly it's because this week's looking to be busier than normal so I don't expect to be posting a page this week so I chose not to push myself overmuch for page 2.

And that is all for today.  I don't feel like posting a sketchbook entry or saying anything else, particularly, so I won't.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

It's a Thing

Ok, so, I ended up being busy last evening hence I didn't get the page up when expected.  While I'm going to aim to have these things ready to go for Thursdays, I should probably just say that they'll be done when they're done and leave it at that.  Anywho, the first page of episode 6 of The Word Smith is now live.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Lateness

Due to me being a bit more procrastinate-y over the long weekend than I'd intended, this week's page of The Word Smith will be a bit late.  It should be up either something this evening or tomorrow.  I'll make another post when it happens.

In the mean time, here's the pencil version of the episode six title page that was posted last week:

There are two things to note about the pencil version of the title page.  First:  it was based on the third of the concept sketches that I posted at the end of the episode 5 unfaq.  Second:  I changed the pose of the central character at some point after scanning the pencil version (I might even have done that change on the traced version, I don't recall.)

Anyway, that's all the excitement I have to dish out for now, otherwise it would probably just be too exciting.  Or not.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

EXCITEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Word Smith Resumes

As promised last week, the title page for episode 6 of the Word Smith is now available for your viewing pleasure - it's very literary.  Will page 1 follow in a timely manner?  Tune in next week to find out!

I was going to post the pencil version of the title page for comparison, but I seem to have forgotten to copy it over to my laptop so it'll have to wait until next week.  Instead, here's a bored freak:

Now back to preping (read: procrastinating) for today's lab tech talk.

Freak Out,
-TFitC

Return of the Freak

Hello Word Smith fans, or Word Smith tolerators, or just random people who got here by accident and are all like "what's all this then?"  (flee, flee before it's too late!)  You may have noticed and perhaps even cared (even if just a little) that there hasn't been an update in a while.  I guess I've kind of fallen off the update wagon after the One Acts ended and my down time has been somewhat longer than I anticipated with not even an interlude in the interim (bad Freak!)  Whelp, to rectify this, Episode 6 will be starting next week, come hell or high water.  Indeed, the title page is almost finished, though it's been almost finished for a couple of weeks now.

Updates will from now on also be Thursday mornings (assuming all goes well) rather than Tuesday mornings as previously.  I figure that my Thursday mornings are usually unproductive so might as well use that time for posting the weekly blog/comic thing.

And becuase it's what I do, here's a page from the sketch book:

Yes, I'm back, and what better way to celebrate than with... hands.

Until next time,
Freak Out
-TFitC

Unfaq Vol 2

Now that the One Acts are over it's time to get back into some comicing.  The script for Word Smith episode 6 is progressing well, but for this week, it's the second volume of "Answers to Questions Nobody Cared About in the First Place."  This will be shorter than the first one since there's only one episode to cover so lets dive right in...

Episode 5 - Spam in the Place Where I Work

Alternate title I considered:  You've got Spam!  But I went with the Weird Al reference because Weird Al is awesome.

The Word Cave (page 1) - we'll see the inside of the Word Cave in episode 6 (please look forward to it!) and this is also the end of the meeting referred to back in episode 3.  (I'd personally never want to work in a place with early morning Monday meetings.)

The most exciting thing on page 2 is probably that it reveals the Word Smith's real name - Gord Smith (on the nameplate in panel 2.)  While figuring out The Pen's real name was somewhat agonizing, figuring out the Word Smith's was much easier (it's obviously "Gord Smith") plus the idea that his real name is almost the same as his secret identity amused me.  I briefly considered making him Ward Smith or something like that, but stuck with Gord.

Page 3 - the first panel is supposed to be a (probably rather obscure) reference to Phantom of the Opera.  "Track down this murderer he must be found...", "Down to the dungeon of my deep despair..."; also note that he has his hand at the level of his eyes.  The perhaps more obvious reference on this page is the VR helmet in the last panel which is meant to be siilar to Mega Man's helmet.

Page 4 is chock full of references, most of which are probably fairly obvious.  Top right is Tron (which I've never actually seen), bottom left is ReBoot (which was the last panel I came up with - honestly can't believe it took me that long to think of ReBoot when trying to come up with references), bottom right is The Matrix.  The reference that might be least obvious is the one in the centre which references an anime called Sword Art Online.

Nothing much to note for Page 5 except that The Pen facepalms on panel 4 (she also sort of did on page 1 as well).  I should probably keep a running tally.

Also not much to comment on for Page 6, though the Word Smith delivers the first of two cheesy speaches in this episode, both of which are cut off.

The villian of the day is introduced on Page 7 - the Homophone!   Note the various "phone" imagery in his outfit.  He's wearing the receiver of a telephone as a headband as well as using a rotary phone dial as a belt buckle.  His weapon of choice is a megaphone.  And, of course, he speaks using homophones.  The second last panel is meant to imply that the Word Smith can actually hear the difference between homophones and, thus, can tell that the wrong word is being used and that the language is being butchered.

Not too much to say about page 8, though in panel 2, The Pen says "What are you doing?" for the third time this episode.

Page 9 - those ribbon-like things on The Pen's sidekick outfit aren't just decorative, they're filled with ink and can be used (as in this case) as ink squirters.  It amused me that the Homophone would be weak against puns.  I hope that my puns here were sufficiently bad.

Page 10 - the two guards are wearing earthworm costumes (neither of them are named Jim).  The reasons for this should become apparant later on, though these character might just be one offs.  We'll have to see about that.  Also note that in panel 3, the hooded figure is watching recent events unfold via a book (you can see pages 8 and 9).  And sitting on a pile of books may not be as intimidating as a pile of skulls, it is more thematically appropriate for the character.


And that is all for this edition of the unfaq!  I'm going to aim to get something up for the comic next week, if only just an interlude.  In the meantime, here's some concept sketches for the episode 6 title page:

Freak Out,
-TFitC

End of an Episode

It's a little later than I expected (even though I expected it to be late), but the final page of The Word Smith, Episode 5, is now online for your viewing pleasure.  To read the whole episode from the beginning, start here.

With the One Act that I'm stage managing starting to go into high gear this week combined with the fact that I still have to finalize the script for episode 6, now seems like a good time to take a few weeks hiatus (which I've been doing anyway between episodes, so you know.)  I'll try to aim to start the next episode in late July and there probably won't be any interludes in the mean time, but who knows?  I can't predict the future, after all (unfortunate, that.)

And here's some character design:

I did some redesign of this character over my previous design from a while back.  Nothing too fancy.

Anyway, that's all for now.  Until next time,
Freak Out
-TFitC

Art of Fans

The "pen"ultimate page of episode five of The Word Smith has gone live.  I'm intending to get the final page of the episode up next week, though it may be a day or two later than normal.

Today also brings a rare piece of fan art.  Inspired by my style-emulation experiment of a few posts back (no link for you!), I decided to try doing some fan art of Misao from Rurouni Kenshin:

Yay!  You know, I haven't watched Kenshin in a while, maybe I should set aside some time to do that at some point...

Anywho, that's all for this week.
Freak Out,
-TFitC

Engarde!

Right.  So, it's an interlude week this week for the Word Smith with things resuming next week, most likely.

And here is the sketchbook version of the interlude (though you should totally check out the finished version as well because colour!)

It also occurs to me that I never did post the styles I was attempting to emulate for my "chameleon" post so here they are should anyone actually care (left-to-right, top-to-bottom):
Power Puff Girls
Peanuts
Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy concept artist)
Rurouni Kenshin (specifically modelled after Misao - one of the two that were rather iffy)
Vision of Escaflowne (nose probably needed to be more pointy)
Studio Ghibli (another one that was kind of iffy)
Scott Pilgrim
Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Garfield

And, that's all for this week.
Freak Out,
-TFitC

Splort!

And behold!  For verily is page number eight from the episode that is the fifth of the Word Smith now online.  Behold, verily, and thou shalt have beholden it.  Yarr.  There possibly won't be a page next week as this week is shaping up to be pseudo-busy with various other commitments/responsibilities, but we'll see.  I'll try to get an interlude up, at least, but I'm not promising anything.

And somewhat related to the whole Word Smith thing I've got going on is a sort-of model sheet of The Pen (in civilian clothing).  Or, at least, that's the intent.  It's probably a far cry from what one would call a real model sheet, but whatever.

And that's all for this week!  Really!

Freak Out,
-TFitC