Phew. We made it.

The great news is that our WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter successfully reached its £3,000 target.

We had 111 backers in the end, which is a nice number.

Now it's just a matter of getting the money in from Kickstarter and then printing the book and the special double sided art cards.

And then sending everything out to our backers.

Happy days.

The Crusaders came back.

 I couldn't resist getting some Crusaders out to man the castle.

That really took me back.

The castle project

I wanted the castle to look like it had been made from stones, but I didn't want to make it look totally different to the way my Dad had made it, so I bought some foam to work on some of the walls but decided to leave the tower walls as they were.

I needed to repair the wood in a lot of places, using wood filler (quite a lot of wood filler) but wanted it to look as realistic as possible and so decided not to worry about sanding it down completely smooth. I wanted to leave a bit of texture to the walls.

I then drew, with a biro, the stones into the foam which I had glued to the walls. 

I thought I'd do something with the arrow slits as well, and used foam to give them the effect of standing out from the tower walls a bit.

I did sand the wood filler a bit, but not too much.

And then I painted the whole thing with a grey acrylic pain from the local HobbyCraft store.

A black wash., filling all those cracks and bringing out the texture on the tower walls, worked really well.

I then added white to the base grey paint and dry brushed the stones and tower walls.

and painted the drawbridge a darker richer brown, and gave it a dark brown wash to highlight the planks.

I did some work on the inside too, wood filler in the tower tops to give the feeling of stone floors, and it was done.

I think Dad would have been pleased with it.

It was a pleasure to do it, and took me back to those simpler times.

The castle my Dad made me.

When I was around 7 I was hooked on TIMPO figures.

Cowboys... Knights... Crusaders... Romans. 

Every week I'd go to the local toyshop in Sydenham and spend my pocket money on a figure, or I'd save up for a Jail or a Wagon.

I loved pitting the Romans agains the Cowboys. Anything went really. 

And the one day my Dad turned up with a castle he'd made me out of wood.

I've still no idea how he kept it secret. It's a big thing and we lived in a 2 bedroom flat on the 4th Floor.

My Dad was always great at mechanical things and making stuff out of, well, anything really.

This was perfectly sized for my TIMPO figures and even had a working drawbridge.

I played with it for years, but like all things I guess, eventually I grew out of it and it was passed on to other family members, I think initially a cousin and from there I don't know.

About 15 years ago my Mother managed to get it back. 

It was a bit battered and people had added little bits to it over time, the shield above the drawbridge for example.

There were no figures so I bought some from Ebay and Toy Fairs and, well, wherever I saw them. And I stored the treasure away.

I told myself that one day I'd repair it and see if I could upgrade it a little.

And then time passed.

And earlier this year my Dad died.

He knew how much I treasured the castle as a young boy but I don't think he knew how I still treasured it as an adult.

I decided repairing and upgrading it would be my next Project.

Good news is that our latest WesterNoir Kickstarter is one third funded

 Yep.

And if you'd like to see more and risk being tempted yourself then please pop over to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kiawordsmith/westernoir-tales

It's coming along nicely.

WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter

The Kickstarter for WesterNoir Tales has been approved.

Here's the link to the pre-launch page https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kiawordsmith/westernoir-tales

Gator Man figure for Table Display at Conventions.

This year I've focussed my convention table more and more on the WesterNoir series.

Adding 6 inch figures of Josiah Black and Cassidy McRae to try to make my table stand out a little against the sea of tables of great comics books around me.

The figures certainly drew people to the table and I had some really interesting chats with people I would not had met had the figures not been there.

But I need to add some monsters.

I love Gary's design for the Gator Men, first seen in issue 2, and so this monster was the obvious choice.

The first thing I do when pinging figures is lay down a flat layer of the base colour. This layer is watered down a little as I want it to fill all the little cracks and holes. There's nothing worse than seeing a little bit of grey when you look in detail at your finished work.

The eyes are the first thing I actually paint as it's easier to move the skin to the eyes than it is to paint the right size and shape of eye onto the skin colour.

I was tempted throughout to paint the iris and pupil in but love the way the orange stands out against the green and so left it as is.

Putting a lighter layer for the skin gives the figure its three dimensional feel. I actually stopped the lighter green on this time, playing with it as I felt it better reflected a crocodile's skin.

Picking out the detail of the sales on his back with a little green, accentuated but a darker green circle around it ... I love the way this came out.

Then adding a dark blue for the jeans base colour. 

Yes, there are two figures, one for the Convention Table and the other for the WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter.

A nice brown belt and a simple dark brown base (I don't like the bases to be too busy as they distract from the figure).

and he's done.

Very happy with how he came out.

Just submitted my WesterNoir Tales for Review on Kickstarter

It's been a while since I used Kickstarter but am happy to say that, whilst it has changed a little, I could still work things out.

You can check it out at:- WesterNoir Tales Kickstarter

WesterNoir Tales

This weekend I'll be working on the Kickstarter for our collected WesterNoir Tales.

WesterNoir Tales is a collection of the tales in the three published Tales of WesterNoir, and includes some new tales and also things that we didn't find room for in the ongoing series.

The stories are all by Gary and/or myself but the art is from a lot of people we admire, and are friends, in the independent comic book scene.

Originally the printed tales were in greyscales but Gary and I have been colouring pages for a few months now, adding to some pages already coloured by Matt Soffe, and the book is now fully coloured and pretty much ready.

Here's the first view of the cover... by Gary Crutchley, coloured by Matt Soffe and designed by Andy Bloor, as always.

Well, that was EPIC

I really enjoy the Cons in Glasgow.

Jemma, my daughter, spent 4 years there doing her BA and I always enjoyed the city when visiting.

Steve and I have been to a few now, but this time we were forced to get an apartment in the city centre due to the ridiculously high priced hotel rooms. Turns out this worked out really well though as there were more food places to choose from and plenty of great little pubs. Also the trip in to the venue was only two stops on the train from the station that was only 10 minutes away from the apartment.

Yes, we'll be looking to do that again.

The two day event was busy for us on the Saturday and not so busy on the Sunday.

All in all we did pretty well though and were happy with the number of books we sold, the number of people we chatted to and the interest everyone showed in what we are doing. It was also great catching up with fellow creators.

I was particularly pleased that we sold some WesterNoir figures and badges.

It all helps 😀

I took this photo of Steve behind the banners
as I think it's kinder to everyone.

Had a great time and am looking forward to doing it all again in March.

EPIC Con in Glasgow

Steve and I are off up North on Friday for this weekend's ACME Con in Glasgow.

It's favourite of ours and one we look forward to.

Pop over and say 'Hi' if you're in the area.

WesterNoir TPB has a second printing.

 With a new cover...

and it looks great (thanks to Andy Bloor as always for pulling it together and making it look so professional).

For those of you who have been with us from the very beginning, yes, we've just to cover for from the very first black and white issue. I really love this cover and thought it deserved a chance to be seen again, and for a longer time.

To keep costs down we've not printed French Flaps on the Second Printing. This will make the first printings all the more special, and we will continue to have French Flaps on the covers of all first printed TPBs, the next one being the collected WesterNoir Tales, as we're now calling it.

This is also the first book to carry my new imprint West Words, although to be fair most of the words in the book are by Gary Crutchley.. hope he doesn't notice.

London Film and Comic Con

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since the Con now, and as tiring as it was I won't put the lateness of this post down to that entirely.

It was a two day event thais year, the Fridays of previous events just weren't worth the additional costs and thankfully to show organisers saw the logic in this.

Saturday was a bit quiet we found, and I think this was down to the hordes of people who had paid good money to meet Mel Gibson, for photos .. signings and who knows what else. These people buy the tickets had the knock on effect that not a lot of people interested on comics books were able, or willing, to face the queues.

We were in the smaller hall this years which pushed the comics up to the mezzanine level and whilst signage wasn't great, people did know that there was more to see upstairs. 

I focussed on WesterNoir (the poster with its back to the camera is the WesterNoir banner, letting people down below know that we were upstairs).

There was lots of interest in WesterNoir on the Sunday, comics, figures and the new badges, which was great and Sunday turned out to be a pretty good day.

LFCC is a very well organised and run show. 

The Mel Gibson factor was unexpected and there were many more signature hunters then I'd ever seen before but we still had an enjoyable weekend. 

Our table buddy this year was James Gray and we'll be inviting him back to join us next year, so he must have been ok 😀

Good fun at High Viz

Yesterday Steve, his daughter Sasha and I were at the High Viz event in Birmingham.

It's an event that I think has been going for quite a while, focussed on visual arts and mostly it seems art on buildings (is it still called Graffiti ?).

This year they were adding comics for the first time. 

To me it felt like a merging of the wonderful Portsmouth Con and the hard to get to Lakes event, in that it was very family oriented and spread across the town.

There were professional comic book people on display (Charlie Adlard, John Wagner and Hunt Emerson just to name a few) mixed in with independent comic creators (and a guys selling back issues who took cash off of me in exchange for some issues of EPIC).

I spent a lot of time chatting with Hunt Emerson, a legend of the UK Comic scene and also to a number of other creators whose work I respect. I was humbled to be asked to sign a lot of my old books and when chatting to another guy to be told how our work is respected.

A great day out. 

If you live in the Birmingham area then it's well worth a visit next year. I'll certainly go again if offered the chance.

Next weekend Steve and I will be at MaccPow (on the Saturday) and Bury Comic Con (on the Sunday). No peace for the wicked.

It was great to be back at Copenhagen Comic Con

It's been a few years since we've been to the Copenhagen Comic Con, 8 years in fact for me.

This year however my old partner in AccentUK, Colin, and I decided to go back. To catch up with our many friends over there, and see if they still remembered us :o)

This year we stayed as close to the central train station as we could, as the new venue for the event was out of town and would require us to use a train every day.

The Astoria hotel was originally built for train workers and whilst a little narrow it was exactly what we needed. Clean and safe. And the staff were very friendly and helpful.

The structure on the roof helped me locate it too.

It was a new venue, for the Con and for us, but we found it fairly easily (despite using the Metro which was undergoing engineering works that forced us to use a bus as well... reminded me of the UK). 

We found it well signposted though...

and the venue itself was well attended 

Admin was well managed and we were quickly in the hall with no hassle at all.

The Con was actually good fun, it was great to see that in Denmark the comic scene is very healthy with many comics (from the USA and Europe) having Danish translated versions. 

During and after the Con we met up with our good friend Arnie, who runs the great ArtBubble event later in the year, and he took us for a drink in the Comic Cafe (which has its own bar).

Colin and Arnie

After the event we also caught up with Soren, who used to own the Fantask comic shop. We had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening just chatting and actually found a pub that Soren had never been to before.

Colin and Soren

I really enjoyed the trip and am looking forward to returning next year.

Copenhagen Comic Con

This weekend my old AccentUK partner in crime, Colin Mathieson, and I will be at our first Copenhagen Con for quite a few years. 

Really looking forward to it.

Hope to catch up with a lot of Danish friends.

Do pop by and say 'Hello' if you're in the area.

WesterNoir Volume 1 is being reprinted.

It'll be its first printing under Time Bomb but will also have my WESTWORDS imprint (logo designed by my go-to designer Andy Bloor).

I was going to call it WESTWORLDS but I doubt anybody would every be able to find it when Goggling as WESTWORLD is too established.

And to make the second printing a little different it'll have a new cover (the cover we used for the first issue when we did these as comics).

I've decided to take this opportunity to put it on Kickstarter, and provide people with an opportunity to buy a Josiah Black versus The Gator Boys (as we call them) poster.

The posters will be A3 in height but half as wide as A3 width. Art by Gary Crutchley and coloured by regular WesterNoir colourist Matt Soffe.

Portsmouth Comic Con

What a great event. 

It has always been one of my favourites, well run, well attended and a great diversity of comic and toy related stuff on offer.

I arrived pretty early Saturday morning, you can never predict how motorway driving is going to go so I set off pretty early. I know the area around the Guildhall now though and knew the car park near the event that is easy to get stock between the two.

I was so early I interrupted a fox going about his morning business...

He gave me that kind of 'This is my bin, find your own' look.

The venue is well signposted...

and once you've managed to get your pass (a very easy experience (maybe because I was so early) and you're treated by all ECTO 1 and the DeLorean Time Machine (much bigger than my Lego version)... oh.. and Slimer...

and you're in.

I experimented a bit this year, as I was on my own I didn't have to try to persuade anyone, and only took my WesterNoir related books and merchandise, and Quantum comics.

Happy with the simpler look, sometimes I think less is actually more.

The event was great. Had lots of people spot the figures and come across for a chat (and some purchases) and then the usual mix of new customers and customers returning from previous years to pick up the latest issue(s).

I met up with a lot of people and made some new friends.

Some interesting potential future developments, but I won't jinx anything here and now, let's see how things go.

So, full credit to Kurt and the organisers, another very successfully run and fun family event. 

And the queues outside we long and well managed too...

I'll be back next year...

If they'll have me.

Portsmouth Comic Con.

I'm off to the Portsmouth Comic Con this weekend.

All on my own. 

So do take pity on me and pop over and say 'Hi' .. and also .. apologies in advance if I keep talking at you and you struggle to get away.

Cassidy figure has been painted

Following on from the last post on the Cassidy figure...

I decided to get a little adventurous with her scarf. Blue stars I thought would pick out the blue in her eyes.

and I like to make the shirts look a bit dirty, as if she'd been out in the wilds a bit, rather than sat in a nice hotel room somewhere.

Her hair isn't this long in the comics, not yet anyway, but I do like how the figure has it.

There's a lot of brown so it was nice to add a little purple to the back of her waistcoat.

Silver buttons on the front also help bring it alive a bit.

Added blue jeans trouser colour, gloves brown and gun belts a slightly different brown.

Red handle to the gun with the special bullets, to add a non-brown colour really, makes it jump out nicely.

Lighter brown boots also accentuate them against the legs and also base colour.

I like to keep the bases very understated so as not to complete with the figure.

Also added her three scars on her right cheek, the most nervous bit as it be a lot of effort to correct any mess. Interestingly I decided in the end to not make them all uniform in length and shape, not to over work it. Naturally they would all differ anyway, and I think it looks better for that.

and she's done.

Quite happy with how she came out.

DAW - No 4 - The 1972 Annual World's Best SF

 

This book encapsulates what I loved about DAW books when I was just starting to read SciFi. Different writers telling their own stories in their own style. In this case 14 different stories in the single collection by 14 different writers. Some of whom I've heard of and some I haven't. 

It may have been a book like this that first introduced me to one of my favourite authors, Larry Niven.

Some very interesting ideas amongst these stories but the idea that remained with me after finishing it was that of technology out of time. Now we're all used to having it be portrayed as magic to more primitive cultures but the idea that a primitive technology could actually be of benefit to someone living in more advanced times is a good one.

Imagine a cave man, protecting his village, throwing a spear at a more advanced invader who has a force field that deflects particle beam weapons. The far superior spaceman wouldn't actually have a chance as the spear passes through his shield, his space suit and his body.

Working on some new table display items for this year's Comic Conventions.

Those of you who popped over to our table at last year's events, and particularly Thought Bubble where we had some for sale, will have seen out 3D miniatures. Little figures of some of our WesterNoir characters.

I thought it would be cool to get a few printed much larger to help make our table look a little more interesting at Conventions.

I'm no expert on 3D printing but our printer (Gary's son Jason) told me it needed to be filament and not resin, due to the size...

and warned me that I'd need to do a bit of cleaning up, as little bits of filament stick out here and there. This is not a problem with the resin prints.

The first thing I do with all the figures I paint is to choose a good base colour, so if you miss a crack, or hard to reach area, then it will be this base colour (which should blend in better with the finished figure) that would be visible rather than black (the original 3D printed colour).

The first figure is of Cassidy McRae, and the base colour of choice is brown, which will work equally well with skin and leather cowboy garb.

I always start with the head. This needs to work well otherwise the figure won't be worth completing.

I paint the eyes in and then build up the skin colour to cover the white as much as needed. Much easier than paining all the face skin colour and then trying to add white eyes with a blue iris.

Once I've got the face looking good enough (and more highlights etc will be added later) I sort out the hair.

I'm happy with how Cassidy is looking and so will now continue with the clothing.

Forgot to mention that, in order to get a consistent colour, I do all the parts of skin showing at the same time as the face.