Scurry Patreon has been revamped!

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Want to support the production of Scurry? Consider joining the Scurry Patreon.

  • Revamp underway. I'm properly tagging posts and fixing broken links. It should be easier to navigate now. I'll be posting some new concepts and videos in the next few days.
  • For only $2 a month, you get layered PSD files, hi-res pics, step-by-step progress GIFs and the occasional note or sketch I dig up. I'll also make available new brush sets from time to time.
  • Exclusive videos at the $5 level, and physical gifts mailed to $10 patrons (big movie posters on the way now). Patrons at these levels also get their name added to the thanks section in the books. 
  • Adding a lot of new posts and deleting old ones.
  • Even a dollar helps!

 

The Scurry Book 1 kickstarter has been fulfilled. Now what?

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The Scurry Book 1 kickstarter has been fulfilled and pre-orders delivered. Now what? 

Well, we'll be doing the Kickstarter for book 2, of course. I hope to get it kicked off around August 22nd. More Premium Slipcase Editions will be available as well. Sign up to the mailing list for updates.

What else has been going on?

  • I'm using a distributor in Europe to ship the book to international customers. International shipping has been reduced to $15, so if the kickstarter shipping cost was too steep, now is your chance to get the first book at a slightly more reasonable price, you can purchase the regular hardcover or softcover here: http://www.scurrycomic.com/purchase/
  • The digital version of the first book as well as the complete episode 4 are now available on Gumroad can be found here: https://gumroad.com/macsmith . They can also be had on my Patreon to all $2 patrons and up: https://www.patreon.com/macsmith
  • Episode 5 is well underway on the website. (Here come the wolves!) It will finish up at the end of July. I'm working on finishing episode 6 now and will start posting it in mid-August.
  • The Tapastic version of the comic recently surpassed 1 million views and 14,000 subscribers!
  • I plan on revamping the store soon and offering plenty of new merch.

 

Thanks so much for all your support. Sharing the project on social media really helps, too!

-mac

Scurry Book 1 delayed one month

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Hey guys, I wanted to keep you up to date on the shipping date for the first book. There will be a one month delay (to late March). Originally, the expected ship date was for some time in February, but there was a delay at the dock (due to holidays and other random problems). Once the books arrive at my distributor, they should go out within a week. I expect them to ship in late March. 

The books are printed and ready to go, it's just a matter of them getting here. As you can imagine, it's very frustrating!

Very sorry for the wait.

thanks,

mac

Advance copies have arrived. Shipping from printer soon.

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Last week I received the advance copies of the book and they look great. The colors are rich, the blacks are dark, and all the pages are in order! (something that kept me up many nights)

Here's a brief video of me flipping through the pages:

These should be shipping to backers by the end of the month. The Chinese New Year held things up for a week or two, but they are printed and ready to go. Once they get to my distributors in the US and Europe, they should start reaching people's hands a week later. Probably the first or second week of March. Those of you who got one of the art tiers will have to wait a few days later since they have to come to me first, but I'll have those mailed ASAP. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Preorder the first book here: http://www.scurrycomic.com/preorder/

thanks!

-mac

Episode 4 delayed one month, plus some revisions to the first three.

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I know I said Scurry would be back at the beginning of December, but the Kickstarter took a bit more time than I expected. That book should still ship on time, but I wanted to make sure everything was perfect, because once it's in print, it's permanent!

I've started on the second book, but need to build up a bit of a buffer before I start posting again, so when things start again, there won't be any delays with the schedule. The cover will be up around New Year's.

Speaking of book 1, during the kickstarter and printing process I was able to go back and clean up a few things. I didn't pull a total George Lucas here, but I fixed a few wonky faces, tweaked the dialogue a bit, and fixed some typos. Nothing major or story changing, but you might want to revisit it until the next chapter starts. 

 

thanks!

mac

Kickstarter is over! Huge success, topping $100k!

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Hello,

I'll have plenty more to say about the Kickstarter in the near future, but for now I just wanted to say thanks for all of your amazing support! We just creeped past the 100k mark with a couple of hours left, and had over 2100 backers! 

I'm putting together the final page layouts while I wait for the Kickstarter funds to process, and hope to get the printing process started near the end of the month.

More news to come!

Scurry Kickstarter in one week!

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Kickstarter for Book 1 begins in 2 days! 

It's almost time! Kickstarter begins on Tuesday, August 30th at 8PM PST

edit: Kickstarter is live!  100 pages! Oversized 8" x 12" pages! Hardcover and softcover (and extras). It's crazy! 

some info:

 

  • Early backers really help the project get more viewers, and helps ensure the project gets funded, so I really appreciate it if you back early on. You can always change or cancel your pledge later if something comes up.
  • I tried my best to find a decent shipping rate for international backers, but unfortunately I can't ship for less than $23 (in fact, I'll probably be taking a hit on international shipping.) Canadian shipping will be $15. I know, it sucks, but perhaps in the future I can get a foreign publisher to handle international orders (since they have the advantage of bulk sales and distribution partners.)
  • All hardcovers will include a signed and numbered bookplate.
  • The Premium Edition will include mini-prints, stickers, a bookmark and a foil stamped slipcase. This set will be exclusive to Kickstarter.
  • There will also be tiers for one-of-a-kind, hand drawn sketches and art.
  • Thanks so much for your support! This is only possible because of you and I'm very grateful!

Scurry is 6 months old! Here's how I work!

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Hey guys! I thought for Scurry's 6 month anniversary I'd post a little rundown of how I create my pages. First, I should say this isn't the way it always works out. Sometimes I do a step out of order, or work on a panel or two at a time, or get everything wrong and have to redo everything from scratch. My process is mostly chaos, but this is the basic way I do stuff.

This also isn't meant to be a full blown tutorial (I'll get to that one day), but just an overview. I won't get super detailed with how Photoshop works, or how to draw and paint. There are plenty of better tutorials out there that could explain it better than me. I've used Photoshop for well over a decade, so I've learned a lot of the ins and outs of the program. Of course, all the digital tricks in the world won't help you if you haven't studied drawing and painting (though many have tried). My best advice would be to get in there and experiment. Move the sliders, click the buttons, and screw up. You can always undo. That's how I learned. Except when I first started, Photoshop only had one undo!

 

Some notes:

  • I can do about 2-4 pages per week if I don't have too many distractions or pesky work stuff to do. I've created up to 6 before, but I force myself to do at least 2. Give yourself a goal and a time limit, and you'll be surprised by how fast you can do something.
  • The steps can take anywhere from an hour to a few days. It varies a lot, but generally the lighting and rendering take the most time.
  • I work on a couple of pages at a time to keep me moving. Sometimes I'll work on several pages at once, doing each step all the way through before moving to the next. I don't want to get hung up on one page forever.
  • I work on these several weeks in advance of posting them. This gives me a chance to put them away for awhile and look at them with fresh eyes before posting. Sometimes, I am horrified by the mistakes. Sometimes, I think "yeah that's not too awful."
  • A few days before posting I'll work back over them a bit. I don't spend more than a few hours on these revisions. Usually. Sometimes I have a disaster on my hands and have to do a little overtime on it.

Step 1: Rough Sketch

Actually, this isn't the first step. Before this, I have to write the thing, then script the pages, then do some teeny tiny thumbnails of all the pages in an episode. The thumbnails are the only thing I do with pencil and paper, and I don't have any pics handy, but you get the idea. I can fit 9 thumbnails on a piece of 8 by 11 inch copy paper, so they are little more than chicken scratch.

Anyway, I block in the panels and crudely sketch in the characters and important background details. I'm not worried about great drawing, sometimes a smiley face will do. I'm mainly worried about getting in the information that is required and experimenting with different shots. I may do this step 2 or 3 times before I get it right.

Step 2: First Lettering

I like to get started on the lettering right away. Don't wait until the end and realize you don't have any room left! I use a slightly larger font than most comics, so they take up a lot of space. I try to be as sparse with dialogue as possible. This ain't a talky book!

Over the course of working on the page, I'll constantly be tweaking the dialogue and moving bubbles around, so it's good to have them in early. 

Step 3: Line Art

Next I'll start doing the line art for the page. I try to be more careful here, making sure everything is accurately placed and characters are on model. Since this is a painted comic and the lines won't make it to the end, I don't care much about fancy line quality or detailed shading like you see from many of the great comic artists. In fact, pretty lines can be a detriment later on, because of fear of painting over the lines. I prefer to leave them ugly so I can paint over them with no regrets!

Step 4: Masks

For this step and the next two, I do something similar to the way this guy does things. Check out that video for more info. My way is a bit sloppier and cruder, but it's basically the same.

This stage and the next are great "turn your brain off for a bit" steps. Great for taking a break between the complicated drawing and painting phases.

With the lasso tool, I'll select out each character (holding shift to add, and alt to subtract) and fill each of them with a random color. It doesn't matter what color, it just helps select them later on. I usually put each one on a separate layer and lock the transparency setting on each layer (the little checkerboard icon). That way I can only paint inside those masks.

Step 5: Flat Colors

Next, using a color script for each character, I'll paint in the local color of each character over the masks, not worrying about lighting at all. just plain color: pink ears, black eyes, colored fur, etc. Pretty easy. I also give the background a flat average color.

Step 7: Lighting

This bit can get pretty complicated. Watch the video I posted in step 5 for more details. It takes a little experience with layer modes, but it's not as complicated as it looks. Of course, you can always just paint things in any number of traditional ways, but this way helps me have more control over the lights and colors and helps me keep the pages consistent.

If the rim light is too bright, for example, I can darken it without altering the whole image. I use separate layers for main lights, bounce lights, crevice shadows, rim lights, subsurface scattering and more if I want. At first it can seem like a lot of extra work, but eventually it can save you time. 

I'm still not worried about details. Just the basic forms and shapes.

Step 8: The Background Rough

Once I finally have the characters roughed out, I'll start painting in the background. Sometimes I'll use a free 3d program called Sketchup to make some blocky models, sometimes I'll work up the backgrounds the same way I do characters, and other times I'll just paint them in same as I would if I were working traditionally. For this page, I wanted to get that 80s animated DIsney/Bluth feel, so I just painted them. The lighting was a bit tricky. Took a few tries to get it right.

Step 9: Character Rendering

Still here? That's crazy. Anyway, now I'll finally get to painting and rendering out the details on the characters. This is the fun part for me. I flatten all my character layers down into one layer (still separate from the background) and paint away. This is just a first pass, but it may take many.

Step 10: Background Details

Next I'll go back to the background and paint on that for awhile. I'll go back and forth between the characters and background, but I try to keep them separate so that I'm free to cut out figures and move them around.

Step 11: Effects!

Almost there! Here I'll add the finishing touches. Little things like light rays, dust particles and motion blurs. It really makes the scene pop!

Step 12: Final comic book stuff

Now I'll finish up the lettering and draw in the speech balloons. I also redraw the panels to give them a unique wobbly look I like.

I also make any final tweaks to the artwork, and get it ready to post. I do these pages weeks in advance, so I will usually revise them later, but I try not to spend much time on revisions. Better to move on to the next page,  and not obsess over the old ones!

Final, without Lettering:

 

That's it! I know this might seem a bit daunting at first, but take your time. This isn't the fast way to do things. This is my crazy way to do things. You'll have your crazy way to do things, too. I started out just doing characters and little concepts for a few months to develop this way. But I also had many failed starts when I started working on the comic. 

Anyway, enough blathering. I must sleep! Next I'll post a book list of good art knowledge.

F.A.Q.

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Woohoo! Almost 5 months in to this crazy project, and some questions keep popping up. I'll try my best to answer some of them.

1. What the heck is going on? Where are all the people?

Ah, well... I don't really want to tell you right now :) It's no great mystery, but all will be revealed over the course of the story, though it might be hard to decide what is true and what is superstition.

2. How long does it take to create a page?

I can comfortably manage about 2 pages a week, not including the writing. I work on at least two pages at once so I don't get too picky about details and stuff. I've done up to 6 pages in a week before (the dialogue scenes usually take less time than the action ones). Also, the cats are murderously time consuming, so they take longer. 

I spend around 12 hours per page, sometimes a lot more.

3. Webcomics are ok I guess, but is there a physical copy I can buy?

First book is available here.

4. Where are you? Have you stopped updating?

I am currently working on the last few chapters, and hope to start posting again once I have about 30 pages finished.

5. This story reminds me of _______. What are your influences?

Mainly, The Secret of Nimh, lots of 80s movies like The Goonies, some Disney animated movies, George Miller's movies (from Road Warrior to Babe, Pig in the City :) ), lots of apocalyptic movies, and a handful of other things. I haven't read any Redwall or most of the other stories people have mentioned, but they are on my list of things to read.

6. Do you use a Cintiq or Intuos? Which is better?

I mostly use an Intuos these days, but I use an old Cintiq 21ux occasionally. There is no difference in quality, it's just personal preference and price. I know many professionals that use and even prefer and Intuos.

7. Are you doing commissions? Freelance?

I'm not looking for any outside work at this time. 

8. I can has your brushes?

They can be found here (these are very old).

9. Where did you go to school?

Nowhere, unless you count the one semester I was a graphic design major, but I only took one art class, and it was an art history class, so I don't count it. I'm self taught.

10. How long have you been drawing/painting?

For one billion years, but professionally only about 11 years.

11. What kind of machinery/black magic do you use to create this nonsense?

Answer:

Software: Photoshop CS 6 (and occasionally Sketchup or ZBrush)

Intuos tablet and sometimes a Cintiq, but the display isn't very good.

Razor Nostromo Game Pad (for hot keys)

Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40 Ghz

RAM: 32 GB

OS: Win 10

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660Ti

12. How did you make your site?

I use squarespace, so a lot of the design comes from them. However, SS does not have a comic template for comics. After some digging I found a guy who managed to tweak the code to make one of the Squarespace templates work as a comic template. It's not too difficult to implement in your own site. link below:

http://clayyount.com/blog/2015/6/18/no-template-style

more to follow...