It’s with great pride (and a small bit of exhaustion) that I announce the official launch of the Rusted webcomic. Yes, Rusted is the project formerly known as the Super Secret Project, and I’m glad to finally see it get its own home. Check it out at:

http://www.rustedcomic.com

“But, Richard, what happened to the other comic ideas? What happened to T-Minus and HEAVIKROME?”

While I liked T-Minus as a concept, I realized pretty early that the story for that still needed some serious development. I didn’t want to commit myself to a comic before I knew where I wanted to take it. Rusted’s story is much further developed, and so each new piece of the story should come readily. As to HEAVIKROME, that’s also still incubating. I’d like to bring that back someday in the future, but not before I find the proper art style to do it justice. As it stands, the smooth, bright-colored style I had used for the concept work no longer fit the concept in my head.

Regardless, Rusted is now official! I intend to keep it updated weekly, but of course such things can be wholly dependent upon the whims of real life. The good news? I have all pages for August drawn, so I’m about a month ahead right now.

Please feel free to leave comments! I welcome anything constructive.

Tags: Heavy Chrome, rusted, super secret project, t-minus

This is another Twitter-originated drawing. @Rilgon from Stabilized Effort Scope requested a chibi-version of the XT-002 Deconstructor for a custom Error page, so I decided to give such a thing a whirl since “cartoony WoW characters” have been my primary subject these days. Below is the result.

Tags: rilgon, warcraft

PEW PEW PEW!

*ahem*

Sorry, got caught up in the moment there…

Yeah, so this one requires a short bit of explanation. So a few days ago I was doodling some 1950’s styled pulp sci-fi rocketships. It was purely experimental, you see—me just having some fun drawing something that didn’t have  a deadline or didn’t need to convey a story. When I do this, I keep Twitter around for company while also having some television on in the background. In essence, I just try to immerse myself in bits of inspiration. It just so happened that Futurama was on at this moment, so it helped me maintain the retro design style. Albeit, it kind of heavily influenced my sketches towards the cartoony.

Go figure.

It was around this time I noticed a Twitter friend’s tweet (it was @omgitsafox, previously mentioned in her birthday post earlier this month). She said something about “zapping some s’mores.” Now, my logical mind assumes she meant she had them in the microwave. But my creative mind, due to the over saturation of rocketships and silliness, decided to conjure an image in my head.

This picture is the ultimate result of that spark of inspiration:

To Stephanie: This one’s for you! May your adventures through the depths of space be void of … s’more monsters … and stuff. Or something. *shrugs* I dunno, it sounded better in my head than it reads on screen…

Tags: omgitsafox, s'mores, sci fi, twitter

I’ve posted a short, ten stage walkthrough of my technique for creating a page for the Rusted comic (which is, ironically, still in early development at the time of this post). And because such a thing is a little too long for a standard blog post, I created a new section on this site specifically for such Articles.

So, if you’re at all interested in how an amateur, no name starting artist does his work, please give it a read!

A Step-by-Step Walkthrough of My Art Process for Rusted
In this article I walk you through the various stages (roughly ten in all) of a page from my webcomic, Rusted (still in early development at the time of this writing). This is not a “how-to” so much as an exploration of the process I use for this particular style.

Tags: comic, rusted, super secret project, walkthrough

See? What do I keep saying. Everyone was born in the middle of the year!

This card goes out to a dear member of my World of Warcraft guild whose character is known as Shizukera Nightfury. She purrs. She’s a demon hunter. She’s … a purring demon hunter.

I should have probably drawn her purring at the tank, come to think of it… crap. Oh well, there’s always next year! Happy birthday, Shizu!

(By the way, she can be found on Twitter as @Shizukera.)

Tags: birthday, shizukera, warcraft