Damned Rabbit
by John Walker on Aug.15, 2006, under The Rest
Ok, listen.
I DO want to start Brian up again, as much of a pain in the arse as it is to make. But we have to sort a few things out.
Drawing Brian takes ages. Other cartoon sites that update multiple times a week make money from this, selling their infinite t-shirts, carrying adverts, etc. In other words, making Brian cuts into writing (money earning) time, and is fairly tough to fit two or three times into a week. So, er, that’s my lame excuse.
What I want is a new site. Nick has built some really excellent code that is the brains behind the operation – a fantastic little device that lets me upload them to the page without any effort on my part, and also automatically archives, etc. It’s superb. But it needs a better website around it. I’m *useless* at making websites. Disastrous. So I need someone to create a really sleek, really professional looking site for Brian to sit within. For, you know, free.
The second thing I want is to see if I can sell the odd t-shirt. I know people want them, and there’s been requests for other similar merchandisey things. I’m all up for that. It’s not as if Brian has a soul to sell… So advice on that, and suggestions are gratefully received. So there’s at least some sort of incentive on my part for spending all the time making it.
So if anyone is willing to dedicate time to making Brian a site, please email me. You’ll need some understanding of Proper Internet Things to co-operate with Nick’s script. If it’s you, then you are the best person of all time ever today.
August 15th, 2006 on 19:11
I’ll give that a go sometime if you like. My graphics skills aren’t that great, but if you can supply me with images to use, I should be able to write a website that displays well on pretty much every browser. It’s so annoying to see sites breaking when I scale up the font sizes, for instance.
I’d be doing that in my spare time (basically weekends) though, so I wouldn’t be able to make any guarentees about how long it would take.
August 16th, 2006 on 01:36
T-Shirt wise, I think a whole new T-Shirty Brian would be best rather than trying to decide which strip would be best suited to the conversion.
eg. Brian’s Guide to making money, 1. Establish a loyal fanbase 2. Exploit using merchandise. 3. Frolic. But you know, funny.
August 16th, 2006 on 09:41
I’m sure each Brian is a labour of love and all that, but I can’t see the actual “drawing the thing” process taking much longer than 30 minutes. Or am I being hopelessy optimistic here?
Or, as is perhaps indicated by the please for help, is the slowdown in the process caused by trying to get it on t’internets?
August 16th, 2006 on 09:46
Criminy, some awful typos crawled their way in there. My apologies.
August 16th, 2006 on 11:25
I would have thought the most difficult part would be to think of ideas for drawings that are cute, funny and insightful – all at the same time. The fact that you manage it at all is a wonder to me.
August 16th, 2006 on 16:34
See, how rude. It takes at least three hours to *draw* one alone. Each Brian is drawn from scratch each time, and requires sketching out, then being drawn over, often in multiple sections for any additional items in the picture, and then it has to be coloured and shaded in multiple layers, and then tidied and fiddled with for ages until it looks exactly as I want it.
Uploading, etc, AS I SAID IN THE POST!! is easy and instananeous thanks to Nick’s excellent code.
August 16th, 2006 on 19:57
Mr Chris: You’ve clearly never tried drawing a webcomic, then. Mine take over an hour each and I don’t put nearly as much love and care into them as I can see goes into Brian’s Guide. Just coming up with ideas on a regular basis is a challenge!
August 17th, 2006 on 11:32
*supports the agrument against Mr Chris*
I frequently have to mock up fast character design sketches that don’t look that superior to Brian’s Guide, and without a tablet the process of Pencil > Pen > Scanner > Vector Lines > Inking takes a good few hours. Hell i’d be happy to have a decent looking Pen sketch after 30 minutes.
August 17th, 2006 on 12:19
Easy tigers!
Sheesh.
I had assumed the easiest way to draw what are (relatively speaking) simple drawings would be to do it entirely in paper form and scan the thing in. And, as far as my experience goes, it’s a lot quicker drawing things on paper than digitally. If the process is more complicated than that, then obviously it will take longer. I did, you’ll note, say “am I being hopelessly optimistic?”.
Still, I sit corrected, and apologise for any offense.
/slinks off
August 17th, 2006 on 16:40
GO TO YOUR ROOM AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’VE DONE.
August 17th, 2006 on 18:32
AND NO SUPPER.
August 17th, 2006 on 19:32
:(
August 18th, 2006 on 08:53
On second thoughts, go to your parents’ room where there won’t be a tv, hi fI, dvd player nor computer – in the absence of convenient parent – go to the coal shed (quaint, huh?).
A working stylus is also an asset to this hare-raising experience.
We have not had an update on the sticky-back-plastic-and-chewing-gum repair situation for quite a while.