March 21st, 2011
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My Name is Steve

Steve joined on with the Brother’s Malarkey when they needed them most, as the swarms of horrible Slimblines an even smellier cousin to Crablins, were threatening to overwhelm the party. The Slimblin’s acidic sweat had already eaten through the parties weapons and only Oscar’s fists and Vincent’s magic held them back. Although the Brother’s would never admit it, Steve’s archery skills saved them all that day.

As the brother’s got to know him, and got over their own hatred of humans, they found him to be a recluse more at home in silence than with conversations. They only thing that seemed to break Steve’s shell was his love of non-human woman. After Dromar caught Steve in bed with a distant Dwarven cousin, the infamous rogue Elhondra Thunderthighs, the party came close to fracturing but Oscar managed to broker a deal that would see Steve stay on as long as he began the five-year process to marry Elhondra. 

Steve-20100222

Oscar Malarkey

The oldest of the three Malarkey brothers, Oscar inherited his father prodigious strength and resolve and none of the wits of either of his parents. Given to being both friendly and trustworthy, he is often taken advantage of, especially by the machinations of his youngest brother Rygar. Trained at an early age by his father in the fine art of blacksmithing, Oscar created his own set of armor created from various scraps and a sculpted hammer, that he lovingly engraved as “The Hammer”.

 

Oscar-Melarkyn-20100216

Kevin’s Roommates

Haven’t had time to work on Malarkey Brothers, been busy working on a 3 panel comic for the World of Warcraft comic contest. If it doesn’t win I’ll post the comic here in a few weeks, and if it does win I’m sure you will all hear about it, although my shouts of joy may alert my neighbors first.

Kevin’s roommates are about to make an appearance, character design sketches are below. Did these on paper, which is unusual for me, but my parents were visiting. My laptop can’t quite keep up these days with what I need to do with Illustrator, so I brought out all the old sketch pad and drew these while my parents and I watched a few movies and visited.

Kevins-Roommates-20100209

Crablins

Caves Under Here are the deep dark places that even the burly Dwarves fear to tread. One of the most fearsome dangers found there are the Crablins. Given to sporadic explosions of infestations followed by long periods of hibernation, they can appear at almost any time. Unable to talk to each other, the lonely Crablins strive to find other races to befriend. If even a word is spoken to them, the Crablin will consider a friendship struck and follow the victim until they day they die. This might not be considered a bad thing if it wasn’t for the Crablin’s constant need to converse, help, and ask questions. Infected Dwarves have been known to take their own lives rather continue living with Crablins.

Crablins-20100202

Character Updates

Two characters from the beginning of this issue will be coming back soon, and I’ve updated their looks as my style has changed considerably in six months that the comic has been running. Below are some quick sketches of the original versus the new. Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Bovine-and-Sai-Sketch-20100127

Vincent Vargustus

Another preview of my comedic fantasy comic. This is one of five main characters. Smallpipe halflings live in cities made entirely of ceramic pipes. Since Smallpipe Halfling males are often made fun of for their names, they tend to be suspicious of others and have rather large ego issues. Most that leave their home nest of pipes find violent occupations. Their northern cousins, the more animalistic, Halfpipe Halflings eat anyone taller than them, and are known for their raging barbarian hordes mounted upon the backs of low flying board shaped birds called Skittles.

 

Vincent-Vargustus-20100126

Brother’s Malarkey

I wrote a novel during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) called The Brother’s Malarkey. It was inspired by my DnD game, that I run every Mondays. Since NaNoWriMo finished, I’ve been flushing out and re-writing the novel, however the further I get into it the more I feel like making it into a comic instead. I’ve been sketching it out slowly to test out what the characters would look like,  below is a rough sketch of one of the main characters and the god that he follows.

Dromar-Malarkey-20100119

And Now For Something Completely Different

Did a quick sketch yesterday for a friend, tried to cover all of her favorite things in one picture.

Pirate-Gnome-on-Ninja-a-Ponicorn

Vishnu Springs

Although Kalisoma Springs is a completely fictional place, the idea for it was inspired by an abandoned hotel called Vishnu Springs. Located near Tennessee, IL, the hotel offered medicinal water from a local spring that according to vishnusprings.org was advertised to cure a wide range of ailments including diseases “peculiar to women”.  Ownership of the hotel has changed hands several times, including at one point becoming a hippy commune, until it was eventually given as part of a larger land grant to Western Illinois University (WIU).

Having both read about and experienced the place, I couldn’t help but write up my own version of it. Although I can assure you Vishnu Springs is nothing like Kalisoma Springs in it’s history, I hope to capture it’s powerful and intriguing presence with in my own creation.

Vishnu-Springs

What 2010 Holds for Altsad

Changes are in the works.

- New Header: A new header at the top of the comic is coming next week. I doubt anyone will really notice… but it will be different… I swear.

- Altsad 2.0 Website: It’s coming some time this year. I hope to have a beta site up at some point, maybe around June. I have lots of ideas but I’m not sure which will make the final cut yet for the website. I’ll post more about it as it get’s closer to reality.

- More Art and Comics: More Wednesday art posts and some mystery guest artists will be stopping by.

- Quality and Shadows: This might not happen until the second book, but I plan on starting to shade and highlight the comic.

- Advertising: The double edge sword of supporting a webcomic and trying not to annoy the readers. This will mainly be linked with Altsad 2.0 but will also include the RSS feeds.

- 1st Book Completed: The first book will be done this year, and I hope to have it for sale around November/December. There will be multiple covers…