WesterNoirs on Kickstarter

 Two WesterNoir titles are currently on Kickstarter.

Volume 3 of Josiah Black's story and the first collection of Cassidy McRae's tale that appeared originally in Quantum.

The double pack is suitably called 

WesterNoir Double Shot!

Josiah Black Figure

I forgot to post this, I worked on it as I was painting the Kingdom figure from Stephenson's Robot, but we also printed off a Josiah Black figure.

It's a bit bigger than the old figures I used to paint back when I was using them to play D&D

It was good fun though and I'm pretty happy with the end result.

We've made a few other poses so I'll be doing some more in the future, the idea is to use them as a table display.

Oh, and we'll be having a go at the other characters from the series as well.

The Josiah Black figure...

So, whilst not working with Gary Crutchley on moving WesterNoir forward in comic book form, I've also been working on something to attract a little more attention to the Accent UK table at Conventions, and this is what I've managed to produce.

I've adapted him from a Lone Ranger figure from the recent movie...

...and whilst the hat and scarf came off pretty easily, the hair was another thing entirely...

...and involved a lot of cutting away with a hobby knife and then building up the 'interesting' hairstyle that Gary has decided for him. I also had to build up his nose a bit as the Lone Ranger in the movie had a very thin, fine, nose and Josiah, well let's just say he's not that fortunate...

...the fine grained milliput is quite easy to use but when everything is white it's hard to get a feel for how it's all shaping up, so I painted him at this point, with no beard or eyebrows.
There needed to be a little more hair on the left hand side of his head.

..so I added a little more milliput whilst I was giving him his eyebrows and beard.

...and also sorted out his nose a little more.
Then it was just a case of painting him again...

until I was happy...

...with how it all looked.

 ...and there you have him.

Josiah Black...
Now all I need to do is find a display case that fits... I'm not sure how sturdy his hair piece is and I wouldn't want it falling to pieces as a customer accidentally knocks the table at the first Con and the figure falls on his face.

WesterNoir in Curiosity Of A Social Misfit's Top 10 comic books of 2013.

Yep, our WesterNoir series has been selected by Pat Challis in his ''2013's Top Ten Comic Book Releases!'' list. You can read the full list and see how high we got over at Curiosity of a Social Misfit.

We've a lot planned for Josiah Black and the world he wanders, and are planning an accompanying series called Tales of WesterNoir, which will let us tell stories about the other characters that cross Josiah Black's path. I've already written a short story about Jim Wilson, yep, the bloke who died in issue 1, and an artist has accepted the job of bringing the words to life.
I'll be meeting up with Gary sometime soon and he'll no doubt have his story written up as well. I know he also has an artist lined up but we'll announce who they are when the books are closer to seeing print.

All Quiet On The Western Front ?

I've been pretty quiet on the blog for the last few weeks. But rather than that mean that I'm not very busy it's actually the opposite. I've a number of projects in various stages of development at the moment and it's hard at times picking which one to focus on. A nice place to be.
In order of publish date I guess, I'm finishing off the final touches of Missing - Have You Seen The Invisible Man ? with art from Joe Campbell. Just playing around with the back cover, assisted as always by Andy Bloor, and then it's pretty much off to the printers.

Sample of a page from Joe Campbell

I'm also starting to pull together the script for Issue 3 of Josiah Black (WesterNoir), following a gerat couple of development meetings with Gary Crutchley, meanwhile Gary is busy completing art on Issue 2.

Gary Crutchley unlettered page

 And then there's Has Kane Mesmer Lost His Magic Touch ? illustrated by Marleen Lowe. Our follow up to Whatever Happened To The World's Fastest Man ? but obviously not featuring Bobby Doyle himself.


Marleen's artwork shows Kane Mesmer taking some down time.

A new project From SuperZero to SuperHero, is now also underway. Sebastian Velez is providing art on this one. It's my first all out Superhero book, and of course it's my take on things so you know what to expect. Seba draws a great superhero.

Seba's design for 256 (pronounced Two Fifty Six)

I've also been pretty busy at work (the day job), and even had time for a Community Day, where we are let loose on the community to do some good... or try to anyway. This year we moved weeds from a pond to a lake in a park in Bolton. A good fun, if tyring, day. Alan Rigg was the team photographer (and you can follow his blog on the right), and so I had him take a couple of extra photos for me.

Photo by Alan Rigg

I'm not sure what it is about me and rust...

Photo by Alan Rigg

maybe it's that there's something slightly 'old-robot' about it all.
No wonder I'm finding it difficult to get back into Strange Times Book 2...