Arms and Ether - Herodotus Toy now available for download!

Uh oh, there's a wordless panel in this week's Arms and Ether. As we well know from years consuming "the funnies," a wordless panel is often the set up for a joke of some sort in the very next panel!!!! Imagine the potential hilarity. The mirth. No, don't tax yourself with that kind of trivia, just head over to armsandether.com and see the strip in all of its fullness. Also, make sure to download the eagerly anticipated 3D Herodotus Toy by clicking on the strip's 4th panel. Print and cut it out. Stick it on your Christmas tree. Stuff one in a stocking. Stick or stuff one up your @#$%^&. We live in a free world. It's okay to do that kind of thing now. You won't (or at least shouldn't be) judged.

New Arms and Ether with Download-able 3D Molo Toy

Uh oh. Molo's up late, eating Cheetos, and turning to . . . the internet. It doesn't work out for him, but maybe it will work out for you! This week's strip features a download-able 3D paper toy, perfect for cutting out 'round the fire. . . Whatever. Anyhow, read it, click it, and weep in this week's Arms and Ether. And damnit, can't we be Germanic and make "downloadable" an official word? The hyphen thing is really pretty weak.

New Arms & Ether with Downloadable 3D Hateball!

Megaleos is back and he's created a 3D Hateball toy for you to download. What are you waiting for? Head over to Arms and Ether to see the latest strip and to download your very own little black ball of hate. Therapeutic rainy day fun for nimble-handed obsessive-compulsives.

Hateball enters the 3D realm!

Okay, here's Hateball! Now I can use these to help compose my carefully crafted strips. Har har.

Hateball 3D Mock-up

I'll print him out and do a test assemble today. I will, gol-darnit.

Ludicrousness

Things have been busy on the school front, so the Comics & Animation Blog I keep for my classes has been a bustlin' -- so has the Digital Media Foundations Wiki I work on with Dennis & Warren. Clap clap. So to show I haven't been a complete failure in doing some of my own work, here are some sketchbook scans from last Thursday's Drink n' Draw. Yay. Then to bed with me. Right. Sure.

UPDATE: Actually, it's 3:30 now, but I just finished the Hateball toy. I'm going to have the first three toys to download over at Arms and Ether by the end of the week.

Sketchinesse -- Papercraft Charles Burns-Style! -- Hignite's In The Studio

Above are some sketches I did at the opening campus meetings last week. Exciting stuff! It is nice to draw from observation, though. Must do more.

More inspirational TNT from Charles Burns, courtesy of Todd Hignite's outstanding book, In The Studio which features extensive interviews with Brunetti, Burns, Clowes, Crumb, Jaime Hernandez, Panter, Seth, Spiegelman, and Ware. For anyone interested in these artists, In The Studio is a must read.

Charles Burns, Paper Theater, c 1990
from In The Studio, by Todd Hignite, 2006 Yale University Press

The book gives fantastic insight on the creative process and how each artists' work is formed by specific influences. It's nice to see how varied and wacky artists' inspirational sources are. Check out Clowes' response to Basil Gogos' cover for Screen Thrills Illustrated below. If you click on the image you can read Clowes' description of the massive impact Gogos' illustration had on his creative psyche. Buy Hignite's book, you won't be sorry.

Page from, In The Studio, by Todd Hignite, 2006 Yale University Press

Jefferson Treatment Notes

Chris Ware, Rocket Sam Paper Toy, 1996

Jefferson theater
paper toys containing Mulder's ashes for people to release
guns of the dead (toy armada)
A paper theater
sculpture
wistful
high school football lights at night - full moon
the fleeting world
yay

Chris Ware, how did you know that I'd name my son Sam? Get out of my head, you bastard.

Arms & Ether Figures! Collect Them All!

Who doesn't need a 3D Herodotus? Now to finish the dang Arms & Ether strip I started last week. Embarrassing. No. Need to sleep a bit before first day of class. . . shucks.

Gods! Finally! Herodotus Toy First Draft!

Here's the Herodotus toy. I'm going to print out the beta tonight. As I said, I'll make high res versions for the web site after they've "gone gold."
I think this Papercraft stuff is that "supplementary dimension of folding" that Deleuze and Guattari were talking about.
For folks in the class, it took me 1 hour 20 minutes to cut this thing out. Crank up Pandora, or get some friends and sit around and gossip while you do it. T'is fun.

Herodotus Papercraft & Ware vs. Clowes Depress-Off

Well, here's Arms & Ether's Herodotus. . . as a paper toy design. Still haven't put it into an actual template yet. Tomorrow, I suppose. Also, who's the more depressed comic artist Ware or Clowes?

Papercraft Realized--Molo to the Fore

Here's 3D Molo--off the page and . . . into your hearts? No, no. I'm sure that's not it.

Papercraft First Stab

My first attempt at this Papercraft bidnit. We'll be using this as an assignment in our Digital Media Foundations class this fall. The above is a lo-res version, I'll make a high-res available when I refine the design. Here's a link to the blank template at cubeecraft. And here's a link to 8-Bit Ghost's post on Papercraft.