Automaton Works

Greetings, Weary Traveler. Rest your tired fingers and take your cramped hand off that mouse and read on (unless you have to, like, scroll down or something) for I, BK, am here to entertain you with a wonderful, fantabulous blog post (or it’s just mediocre and giving you something to stare at for a few minutes). Well, enough with the poetic stuff. You get the point.

Well the site has been up for not quite 24 hours. As you can see, though we’re live and functioning, we still have some things we’re polishing up. We mostly wanted to go live before Naka-Kon in order to let the con goers know that we do, in fact, exist and to say “Howdy”. Being from Missouri we have no unique accent or interesting words to define where we’re from, so I’m stealing (borrowing) words from nearby regions (thanks, Texas). However we do use a lot of redundancies . . . and stuff.

I have several projects in the works right now, but they were put on hold so I could prepare for the con. We will have a table in the artist alley and I will be helping with the webcomic panel. We will be selling a number of things including the usual prints (and a few new ones), and I had decided to take a break from digital art for a while and created some traditional pieces that I plan on selling (yay for markers). I’m doing some paintings also. I’ll post those as I get them photographed. I plan on working on a piece at the table, sort of a live show, for entertainment purposes. . . or educational. Whichever.

Also at the con will be Lithe Kitty, you may better know her as Deek from Value=Dead. She will not be doing the conventional art, instead she is making Gothic Lolita accessories for all to enjoy (and buy). Reality Helix will be joining our table with her art as well.

As far as projects go, I have done a little working on them here and there. I have a new comic in the works called “Starcrossed” which I have just finished a script for. I have several character sketches that aren’t scanned in, but one that I have posted at the end of this entry. (No, really)

Starcrossed is a modern fantasy/sci-fi comedy shoujo-ai story about an aspiring artist/musician Quinn whose life is changed after a celestial cataclysm hits her right in the face (almost literally). More on Starcrossed within the next couple of days.

Here’s the sketch. Enjoy!

Well I have more done as far as projects and Artist Alley matters go. I have some original drawings I’m selling at Naka-Kon. I’m posting three right now for all the world to see. Behold! My craptastic photography skillz! (these are 15″x20″ and far too big to scan in):

Yes, all fanart. I’m doing these to help support our project makings in the future. In case you didn’t know, that are: Peach and Zelda, I-no (Guilty Gear), and Sasuke (Shippuden-style). Also in the works is Ulala from Space Channel 5, and an Ichigo drawing that I plan on doing at the con.

For paintings I plan to do one of Mugen from Samurai Champloo and Motoko from Ghost in the Shell.

Also in other happenings . . . I have a sketch of the main character from Starcrossed. Her name is Quinn. I was going to call it a finalized sketch but upon coloring the shirt, I feel I might change it to something more interesting. I dunno. I’ll come back to it later and see how I feel about it.

We’re coming along smoothly withour comic goodness. Both Breath and Starcrossed are being storyboarded so we can get a better feel for the pages, but they both have scripts for the first section of story. bratkitty will be redrawing the teaser page of Breath that you see on her dA and the news page here as well. I wish I had a better schedule to tell you, other than eventually, but I don’t suspect it will be much longer before either of these comics goes up for your reading enjoyment.

We’re still around, just busy working on some things. I now have 4 pages done of Starcrossed. Unfortunately I don’t have anything scanned in to show you but they are drawn and inked. My goal is to get 10 pages done before switching gears and doing some pages for Breath. So things are coming along slowly, but surely. I’ll get something visible up for you soon. In the meantime I have my midterm exam on Chinese art history tomorrow that I must study for. Yes, being a full time student will do that to ya.

The purdy little graphic above says drawing’s complete. Don’t get too excited, this just means I’ve moved on to the tedious task of toning. I’ve done the first couple of pages and am now scaling it back a bit in order to get it done in a timely manner. I’m hoping to have it done soon. Right now I have to take the week off from it to get some work done for school.

I have an exam on the 14th (my birthday) and a paper due on the 15th. Blech. Rest assured I’m not blowing off working on the comic to party.

More info coming up soon!

I am just letting people know I’m alive. I took a week’s break to finish some assignments for school and I am now working on toning the rest of the pages for Starcrossed. I have about half of the pages done and ready for type and I’m hoping to have the rest of it finished by the end of the week and then working on the cover. My goal is to have everything done by the end of the month and sent to Comixpress in hopes that it’ll be ready in time for Anime Iowa this August which we want to attend. I’m so excited to have it done.

The end of my semester is May 15th and of course I have several finals and papers due next month. After that, my time will free up by a lot and I can concentrate on more things. Such as finishing up this site. As you can see it is far from finished. We’ve been wanting to finish it for ages but Rumor’s ad to rely on me to make the rest of the graphics for it which I haven’t been able to get to as of yet. But fear not, outside of a pimp website, we have a bunch of goodies that we will be offering for this summer. The content’s been slow coming, but we’ve both been hard at work on them to make sure it’s worth the wait.

I have finished toning Starcrossed and will now turn it over to my trusty lackey *cough* I mean colleague Rumor for laying in type whilst I work on the cover. The goal is to have it all ready to be sent to Comixpress by the end of the month.

Also I’d like to turn your attention to this cute little guy here:

The start of our actual logo.

As of 10:00 this morning (that’s US Central time) I am officially done with this semester! And a grueling path to finals it has been these last two weeks. I managed to get an A on a paper and on a presentation I did so I’m feeling pretty good about it. I am spending the rest of the day relaxing and not doing anything. After which I am going to finish the covers and have Rumor finish the lettering for Starcrossed and we will be sending it off to the printers. I feel awesome!

Yes, as the header says. Everything on volume 1 of Starcrossed is now complete. You can check out the cover art here:

Now that this is done, you’ll be seeing more site changes. We’ll be working on finishing Automaton’s site and working on Starcrossed’s site so it will be viewable online as well as book form. We will also be working on a super secret surprise project and will get it up as soon as we can. ;D