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Phineus & Friend Fan Art!

epicfailblickfanart

I have three new pieces of fanart to show you all. First up Barry Linck, of the webcomic Phineus: Magician for Hire, has drawn the whole team! His comic, like mine, has roots in role-playing. I suggest you check it out.

Next we have two peices done by friends of mine. ‘There is Clodin: natural state’ (which is to say he dies a lot) by Jonjo. This is something of a spoiler but not-really. I have begun to describe Clodin as a stick of dynamite: you can be sure he’s going to blow up; whether anyone goes with him depends on how close they’re standing!

‘Lady Clodin’ by Jason is just… wrong. It poses the question ‘Would Dwarfs die less if they looked like this… or would the beard still be a
problem?’

clodinfanartbyjonjoLady Clodin by JasonInterestingly this led to a whole debate on female Dwarves.  Are there female Dwarves?  Do they look just like the men?  If they are so indistinguishable could Clodin, in fact, be a woman?  Our favorate theory was that Dwarves are like bees: they only have one female – the Queen, who is an enormous, fat Dwarf that all the others ‘service.’  Have I given you disturbing mental images?  I’m so sorry.

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Friendly Fanart

Amuletts (having stolen some underpants) by Martin (player)

Amuletts, Martin & Clodin by Mike

I have new fanart kindly done for me by my friends to help me in the webcomic war. Okay, it wasn’t spontaneous, I bugged them a bit. It’s great nonetheless.
It’s prompted me to try and get the Fan Art Gallery sorted out. It isn’t quite to my liking yet, but you can see some of the fanart I have done for other webcomics and I will be adding more.

Concerning the interview I talked about in my previous post it was scrapped due to poor sound quality, but we’ll be trying again as soon as we’ve worked out what the issue was.

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Interview, cameos and fan art!

martincameoI’m either popular or an incredible net whore… I wonder if you can work out which?

Tonight I am going to be on the Webcomic Reviews and Interviews Podcast, broadcasting at 6pm EST or 11pm GMT. If you make it you can listen in live, join the chat and have the opportunity to ask me questions. If you miss it it will be available for download afterwards.

My next big news if that Martin has a cameo in Between Places, a lovely webcomic with truely beautiful artwork. The story is complicated, and a little confusing at the beginning, but as it develops it all starts to come together and is a very engaging read which I thoughroughly recommend. It seems likely that Martin will cameo in future pages if that’s any incentive.
steve_fan_art
I also received a new piece of fan art.  This was done by Steve who runs the game this comic is based on.  He also wrote a review to try and help me in Frumph’s webcomic WAR! Thanks Steve!

Finally I have decided to have so cameos in my comic. There is a crowd scene coming up which currently looks pretty pathetic (see below). I think cameos would brighten it up nicely. Due to the setting I am requesting humans or close-to-human characters. However I am also planning to make a larger wallpaper of this scene, which could have extra characters in it including aliens, furrys or whatever. So if you want your characters to appear in Epic Fail get in touch, otherwise I might not include them.
adoringcrowd

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How I colour my comic on video… almost!

Some people have asked me how I make my webcomic.  So when I did the Valentines Day bonus page I used a free screen capturing programme called CamStudio to make a video so I could show you.  It wasn’t a 1oo% sucess, so unfortunately you cannot see the whole process from beginning to end.  It should give you a pretty good idea however.

What you see is me scanning in the hand-drawn page of the comic into photoshop.  It’s not perfect so I make the lines sharper by increasing the brightness and contrast by 30, then I clean up any mistakes or fuzzy edges.  Once that’s done I select the black lines and use them to create two new layers, one called ‘linework’ the other ‘colorfill.’  Then I bucketfill the colorfill layer, saving various selections as I go to make things easier when I get to the shading.  Once this is completed I reload the selections one at a time and add shading using various brushes and the dodge and burn tools. That’s pretty much how I make Epic fail!

Anyway, I hope you find the video useful/interesting.  Hopefully I will have better luck next time I make one.

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Please help me win the webcomic WAR!

warboxbannerI have joined Frumphs WAR! which is a promotional competition between webcomics. I joined it late, so I’m very behind. This is an appeal to you to help me to win it!

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Copy this and paste it somewhere:

HELP Epic Fail, a comedic fantasy webcomic, to win Frumph’s WAR! Go to https://comicofepicfail.com – please copy this message and pass it on 🙂

You can also:

Tell your friends about this great webcomic you found called Epic Fail at https://comicofepicfail.com Pop it into twitter or messenger!
Link to https://comicofepicfail.com from your website, blog or anywhere on the internet. Even add it to your forum signatures.
• Add https://comicofepicfail.com to your social bookmarks. There are handy buttons below every post on the website to make it quick and easy.
Write something about the Epic Fail webcomic. It can be anything, but reviews or interviews are good.

It helps if you tell me what you have done. If you have other methods I have not listed to help promote my webcomic please get in touch and let me know what it is.

Thankyou so much!

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I’ve been given my first ever fan art!!!

tinuvielle_by_purenightshade

Purenightshade of Children of the Tiger gave me my first ever fan art!  It’s of Tinuvielle and I think it’s absolutely beautiful.  I literally danced around the room when I got this.

I found Children of the Tiger a while ago.  There are some stylistic similarities between our comics, so if you like mine you may well like hers.  It’s one of my regular comics to read and I’m really enjoying it.

By the way, there is now a fan art gallery XD

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The UK Web & Mini Comix Thing 2009

image008As a UK web comic creator I have decided I am duty-bound to go to The Thing this year.  It is the only major exhibition in England for small-press and web comic artists and takes place on the 28th of March at Queen Mary University in London.

It will be my first time attending and I will not be exhibiting, however I may consider doing so in the future.  Aside from the many stalls there will be drawing and reading spaces, so I will be bringing my sketchbook.

If you are going and would like to meet up please let me know. I’m eager  to meet other artists and comic-lovers.  It may seem too early to think about, but you can save a lot of money by booking both tickets and travel in advance.  I hope to see lots of people there.

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Blog Computer Games Game Reviews Gaming

Personal Review of the Myst Series of Computer Games

Myst Video game

 

Myst – I like Myst now, unfortunately it was responsible for initially putting me off the series (and point and click games as a whole). Why? Well, it is a very short game, something I did not realise until I replayed (and finished) it.  On first play I got through most of it then got stuck at the music/space ship puzzle, which is very glitchy.  This was frustrating. I felt I was stuck at the beginning (when actually I was close to the end)!   It took me 10 years and a friend to talk me into Riven.  After that I had another go… and got stuck in exactly the same place! Fortunately (technology having come on somewhat) I now had access was the wonderful internet to (a) help me and (b) make me realise I was not alone.  So I got past it, and realised Myst was pretty good on the whole. (I played REAL Myst the second time around which was probably an improvement). But Riven

Riven (Myst 2) Video game

Riven – WOWIEEEE! Dang fabulous game (but in 2nd place, keep reading)! Great puzzles and plot, tremendously beautiful and atmospheric. Amazing world-building mythos, plus the villain, Gehn, is fabulous.  You really want to watch the alternate endings just to see how evil he can be.  Myst is full of ideas and potential; Riven fulfills it.

Myst Exile (Myst 3) Video gamee

Exile – This is my favorite. Why? Saavedro. He is fantastic. I like to get inside the heads of individual characters and this is a game where you really do. He leads you on a tour, you understood exactly how f***ed-up he is and how he got there. The actor, Brad Dourif, (the same guy who played Grima in LOTR and Suder in Voyager) does a truly superb job.

Myst Revelation (Myst 4) Video Game

Revelation – This one is good but not a stand alone, and there were some bits that were annoying game-play wise. I was often left with no clue as to what I should be doing next, and spent a lot of time stumbling through the forest randomly poking things; for this it slips into 3rd place. But you’re hooked in here by Atrus’ children, Sirrus and Achenar, and discovering what happened to them after Myst. Having played the previous games I was invested in the characters and therefore really wanted to help, and understand.

Myst End of Ages (Myst 5) Video game

End of Ages – Um. Yeah. The actors were CGed in this one, very good CG but I think it took away a lot of what made Myst so unique, appealing and realistic. I have not finished End of Ages, but so far I have found it pretty dull. Atrus isn’t there, nor anyone you recognise (the original actors were not involved with this project). The gameplay in all of the Myst series is slow, but they had me interested. This one didn’t. If I finish it I suspect it will purely be for completeness of the series.

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X-Fools “Missing Episodes” recovered.

During the 1990s there was an X-Files spoof radio show called “The X-Fools.” They had little five minute episodes that played every weekday, with ridiculous cliff-hangers and lots of radio humour.

The interesting thing about this show – or perhaps the most frustrating – is that after it finished broadcasting it disappeared from existence. Finding information on it is difficult, I don’t even know for sure who created it and the voice actors are a complete mystery.

Now I was one of the few dedicated fans who followed it every week, as best I could. I even recorded them off the radio so that I could listen again and again. But like all fans I wanted more.

The only place I could find it was a website made by someone like me, who had salvaged a few episodes themselves and wanted more. I would have given them more, but it seems they had given up and moved on. The website died. But I had the episodes.

Possessing some webspace I uploaded them to it along with my own, and began a campaign to recover the missing episodes. When I say ‘campaign’ I mean load my page with keywords and hope that the relevant people would google me. I’ve had a steady flow of traffic and downloads since I put the site up, and even the occassional grateful email.

Well, the branch has born fruit. Two people, within a few days of one another, have contacted me and provided me with perhaps as many as 20 x-fools stories between them! It’s fantastic and gives me hope of finding more, perhaps even them all!

So now I’m putting them online. The humble, but precious webpage lies, for those who are interested at www.amuletts.com/xfools Some are up and more will follow.

Update Jan 2016: The studio contacted me an asked I take the archive offline. I don’t know at this time if they are planning to republish or rebroadcast. I certainly hope that is what they are planning. It would be a shame if these gems were never heard again.

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Baby, it’s cold outside

My little corner of England seems mightily cold at the moment.  It snowed a few days ago, lightly.  Now there’s just this wonderful frost clinging to everything.  Seen in the short hours of daylight it’s incredable.  Magival.  Even the most boring thing looks beautiful with white crystals.  On Thurday there was low cloud so every thing was shrouded in a cyan-tinged mist.

Everyone complains, but I’m happy, wrapped up in my layers with waterproofs from head to toe.  I’d rather have this than the grey rain we usually have in winter.

I just bought a new saddle for my bicycle.  Actually it’s a Christmas pressent from my Parents, they gave me the money so I could choose one for myself.  Thanks Mum and Dad!  My old one absorbed water, not that bad since I wear waterproof trousers whilst riding it, but in this weather it turned to ice.  Kinda painful to sit on!  I’m very pleased to have the new one; it is wide, padded and sprung.

I bought new gloves this week too:  insultated, waterproofed, with rough ‘grips’ on the palms.  I thoughroughly reccommend everything waterproof.  You can say “I’m prepared” and stick two fingers up to the British weather.  Supprise storm?  Ha!

All I need to complete my invulnerability to winter is get one of those Buff scarves, or a neck warmer, so I can wear it over my nose and mouth.