Announcements, Art, Crossposted

Big Dumb Cover Art: The Zero Audio Edition

Over the weekend I had insomnia, and decided to stream my work on the Big Dumb Objects cover. That video is now available on YouTube.

The audio wasn’t working, and it took me a minute to realize I wasn’t being heard, so I’ve positioned the video at that point in the clip above. I decided not to troubleshoot the audio, and to instead focus on making art.

I’ll be doing this again, only with working audio, so be sure to follow twitch.tv/howardtayler for notifications of the live stream. The next pass of inks will really shape the picture, and should be fun to watch.

We’re still on-track with the Big Dumb Objects Kickstarter, and our first pin design proofs are now pictured on the page. It looks like the pins will be unlocked as add-ons today or tomorrow, so be sure to check them out!

 

Announcements, Crossposted

The Five-Year Summer

Yesterday we posted our first update to the Big Dumb Objects Kickstarter project.

It is entitled “The Five Year Summer,” and it is an abridged account of why this project is running in October instead of in June. Which means, I suppose, it is an abridged excuse, though given its length, the term “abridged” is getting a nice long stretch of the sort Olympic athletes might get before a workout.

You can read it here! It includes pictures of flood-cut walls, new flooring, and a jackhammer pirate named Val.

Crossposted, Journal

Big Dumb Objects: Pre-Orders Begin Next Week!

Big Dumb Objects, Schlock Mercenary Book 16, is almost ready for the printer!

This coming Tuesday we’ll begin the pre-order process using Kickstarter¹. The project will run for about a month, ending shortly before Thanksgiving, and will include some fun and fancy stretch goals like Planet Mercenary content, challenge coins, and stuff so cool (but so not-yet-approved) that we don’t even dare hint at it.

The project will definitely include a slipcase fitted for books 12 through 16.

We’ll also do some videos for this one. The cover art isn’t done yet, so we’ll take this opportunity to stream its creation over at twitch.tv/howardtayler, starting with pencils, and moving all the way into final inks. (The coloring won’t be streamed. Travis colors these things off-camera.)

We hope you’ll join us next Tuesday (or maybe Wednesday?) and help us fund the creation of a book so big we promised ourselves we weren’t going to do a book this big².

¹ We’re aware of Kickstarter’s position with regard to unionization. We support the unionizers at Kickstarter United, and agree with them: boycotting Kickstarter will hurt all the wrong people. (Yes, including us.)
² At 256 pages Big Dumb Objects is the same size as Massively Parallel — the book which convinced us to stop doing books this big. Maybe putting words for “large” in the title is the problem here.

Writer, Illustrator, Consumer