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Epic Fail – Relaunch!

Epic Fail is returning in October!

It will be monthly,  and I’m also re-launching my Patreon as a monthly subscription.

October is also Inktober! And I’m going to be participating this year!! (I’m kinda nervous about that, but I’ll try it and see how it goes).

You may have noticed I’ve been developing my art beyond the comics: Improving my portraiture, drawing animals for fun, and generally experimenting creatively.

I want to continue doing this, so in addition to the comic you will get to see what I’m doing creatively.

Patreons will get a more in-depth look into my process: Behind the scenes, Work-in-progress photos, videos, streams, time-lapses, etc.

I have lots of ideas for content you might like, including funny, out-of-context gaming quotes (as I play D&D up to three times a week) Cute Guinea-Pig photos, and art experiments where I try out different methods & materials.

I’d like to try vlogging, but I’m a bit self-conscious of talking directly to camera so I’d prefer to make videos where I speak through an animated character.

For those of you who were concerned by my hiatus I stopped updating due to chronic migraines. I was in pain almost every day, not just a little pain either: Traumatic, nightmarish, debilitating pain.

In turn this impacted my mental health. It’s really hard to stay positive when in constant pain. Because of light sensitivity I couldn’t draw or look at a computer screen.

After a lot of trial and error I’ve found a medication that really helps me. I’m doing a lot better and feel I’m ready to live again.

I’ve discovered a lot about my own coping mechanisms – Art is really important; it reduces my anxiety and improves my mood, So It’s literally keeping me sane!

If you become my Patreon now (or are already) you won’t be charged until the 1st of October. I’ll make a personalized video for everyone who joins or upgrades during september.  

Thank you for your support.

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Blog Epic Fail Related News & Announcements Technical

OMG Guys! I got a Cintiq! (15X)

As you probably know I am a poor, starving Artist; I do not have a lot of funds. A Wacom Cintiq is a very advanced and expensive piece of kit that I never thought I’d be able to afford in a million years. New they cost around £800 – £1,500. Eep!

Fortunately they’ve been around for a little while now so are turning up on the second-hand market a lot cheaper. This is where I got mine. Off ebay, for £200, shipped over from America. It is an old 15X and the resolution is pretty low (1024 x 768 at 16,777,216 colours) but hey, I have a second monitor for that! Of course the sensitivity is nothing like a more modern one, but that’s not to say it isn’t still really good!

wacom cintiq 15X

Categories
Blog Epic Fail Related News & Announcements Technical

OMG Guys! I got a Cintiq! (15X)

As you probably know I am a poor, starving Artist; I do not have a lot of funds. A Wacom Cintiq is a very advanced and expensive piece of kit that I never thought I’d be able to afford in a million years. New they cost around £800 – £1,500. Eep!

Fortunately they’ve been around for a little while now so are turning up on the second-hand market a lot cheaper. This is where I got mine. Off ebay, for £200, shipped over from America. It is an old 15X and the resolution is pretty low (1024 x 768 at 16,777,216 colours) but hey, I have a second monitor for that! Of course the sensitivity is nothing like a more modern one, but that’s not to say it isn’t still really good!

wacom cintiq 15X

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Blog Epic Fail Related News & Announcements

Look! I’m in a Card Game!

It’s arrived! I pre-ordered the WAGON Webcomic Battle ‘Geek Deck’ and it’s finally here with six cards illustrated by yours truly. They’re great cards with cool powers that trow a little chaos into the game 😉

epic-fail-in-wagon-webcomic-battle-cardgame

The Geek Deck is themed around the power of the Geek, which is to combine the forces of deceptively weak-looking characters and use unothodox strategy to overcome seemingly unbeatable opponents. Truly in this dawn of a new begining, the Geek shall inherit the Earth.

The Geek Deck includes cards from the webcomics:

AdrastusEpic Fail (that’s me!)Cartridge
Zorphbert & FredSilent PirateEvil Plan

I’m really proud to share a project with such an amazing group of creators!

Now lets look at the cards:

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Blog Epic Fail Related News & Announcements

Epic Fail wins 3rd in TGT Tournament

Last year I went on the TGT Webcomics Podcast to talk about Epic Fail and as a result was put into their yearly Tournament: Episodic Battles, where all the episodes are put head-to-head and voted on to decide which is best. There’s a video of Kurt Sasso announcing the winners below and he does a good job of describing the contestants and the action so I recommend watching it.

I’m going to describe what the TGT Tournament was like for me and Epic Fail. As you’re probably be aware, due to me hassling you for votes over the month of August, there are four rounds. The first three are head-to-heads, one-on-one, mano-a-mano… you get the idea. One webcomic episode must knock out the other, halving the contestants each round. At the beginning there were 40.

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Blog Epic Fail Related News & Announcements

Epic Fail will be at MKomix Comics Fair

I will be exhibiting with Epic Fail at MKomix this Thursday! If you are close to Milton Keynes you should come and check it out. Details at the MKomix website: www.MKomix.blogspot.com

Thursday 19July / 6-9pm / Free

Experience the creatively thriving small-press comic scene at MKomix Comic Fair, in the striking surroundings of MK Gallery’s Pushwagner exhibition.

This is an opportunity to see a wide range of comics representing diverse genres, for all ages, both as displays and some available for sale. Be surprised by the quality of comics, from the handmade to limited editions of just a few hundred.

www.MKomix.blogspot.com
Twitter @MKComicFair

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Blog Epic Fail Related News & Announcements

2012 News

Okay there’s a number of subjects covered in this post so I’ve used subheading.

COMIC CREATORS FOR FREEDOM

Good news everyone! The Comic Creator’s for Freedom Wallpaper raised a staggering $7,500 for charity. If you participated in the fundraiser give yourself a well deserved pat on the back for striking a blow against human trafficking. Did you spot Amuletts amongst the snowball throwers yet?

Comic Creators For Freedom

By the way posters of this years wallpaper as well as those from previous years is available here with 100% of the proceeds going to charity.

SOPA/PIPA BLACKOUT

Some of you might have noticed that Epic Fail blacked out last month on January 18th along with over 200,000 other sites including Wikipedia as part of the ‘Stop SOPA and PIPA’ protest. Sorry for the inconvenience but it was to demonstrate the devastating effect these bills could have on the internet if they were passed. Well it had a big effect with senators dropping their support for the bill like a hot potato!

stop SOPA PIPA

In case you didn’t know the big thing about the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ and the ‘Protect Intellectual Property Act’ was that websites would only need to be SUSPECTED of supporting piracy or infringing copyright to be SHUT DOWN. Which totally goes against the principal of innocent until proven guilty! And the definition of ‘supporting Piracy’ was very broad, such as TALKING about it. It would have given the American Government the power to just take down sites it didn’t like, implementing political censorship and denying our freedom of speech. Thank GOD the protest was effective because there was a great deal of support for the bills beforehand. We must continue to be vigilant and fight to protect our freedoms.

VALENTINES DAY SEX DRIVE

Now Valentines Day will be here soon and I along with several other webcomic artists will be participating in the ‘Valentines Day Sex Drive!’ Started by Stef of Sarah Zero in 2005 all the VDSD involves is drawing a nude picture of one of your original characters and posting it on Valentines Day. So I’ll be doing that and linking to the others so that all you perves can look (don’t worry, it’ll be behind a cut to protect innocent eyes).

NO CONS – ONLINE MERCH

In other news I’m kinda skipping the Small Press Conventions this year – my plan is to concentrate on my online audience which is, after all, a lot bigger than the handful of readers I get to meet IRL. And you’ve been missing out on the merch! So I’m going to set up an online store and start offering it to you along with some new stuff, then if I do rejoin the convention scene it’ll be with altogether much cooler stuff. Is there anything you’d like to see?

EPIC FAIL IN THE WAGON WEBCOMIC BATTLE

OnyxSparrow has invited Epic Fail to be part of the next Wagon Webcomic Battle deck of collectible playing cards – and I have accepted with great enthusiasm. WAGON is a battling card game where the players do battle against each other using the characters and plot devices from webcomics! I love gaming! We’re planning some completely epic cards so I’m really excited about it.

EXTRA BLOG STUFF

I’ve also started doing a few more Webcomic Interviews and am planning to make it a regular thing. So if you have a cool webcomic and would like to be interviewed by email let me know.

Another thing I’m thinking of doing for the blog is a ‘Fail of the Week’ where I choose my favourite picture that’s turned up under the Epic Fail meme that week. ‘Cos I did promise extra fail didn’t I?

ADVERTISING

I decided to try out Project Wonderful because my Palace in the Sky Ad Box (a webcomic traffic exchange thingy) broke. So if you want to advertise on Epic Fail – do it! It actually seems to be working pretty well so far and I’ve decluttered the sidebar a bit so if anything it should be slightly less intrusive.  But let me know if any of the ads are really irritating and I’ll give them the boot.

That’s all for now folks! Thank you for reading and supporting Epic Fail.

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Blog Epic Fail Related

Yoru Plushie


Click on the tumbnails for full-sized image.

I made a Plushie of Epic Fail’s character Yoru! I made it using the ‘sit pattern  tutorial‘ by BabyLondonStar on Deviantart. It’s made mostly out of Felt with a short-shag fur fabric for the hair. I had trouble finding a light-grey fur for the fringe so I had to sacrifice a stuffed shark for it. Overall Plushie Yoru uses 12 types of fabric and 4 types of tread. The clothes are all made as separate pieces. The horns are just little felt cones.

It took a while, probably because I have never made anything like this before and he’s entirely hand-stitched, but I am really proud. He’s devilishly cute! I kinda want to make all the characters now!