Thursday, October 14, 2010

Introducing...The Red Bat-talion (of One!)

In an effort to make this blog a little more interesting for the casual viewer, I have decided to try a little experiment, namely, posting my very own newspaper-style cartoon strip as a regular feature.

Unfortunately I am really quite poor at drawing, and as I can't afford any fancy drawing software I'm going to have to rely on my old pal Microsoft Paint to produce it. On the plus side, this means the strip will be very colourful. On the down side, it means I am limited in what I can draw, so I'm dusting off this old cartoon character I created in my distant teenage past and putting him to work for me. It's all about recycling these days anyway, isn't it?

A handful of you (friends and family members) will remember ol' Redbats from a series of comic strips I did when I was 17 or so (2 of which appear in the very first post on this blog). This is going to be a much different take on the character though, as I put him into a proper story and turn him into a serious comic character. I have the story roughly mapped out and the first 6 - 7 installments fully plotted so...let's see how it goes. Don't let the colourful cartoony appearance fool you, things are going to get pretty nasty!

My INTENTION (hope) would be to post a new installment every week. How practical or feasible this is remains to be seen, and depends on a number of factors (mainly, how much free time I get during the week to work on it!) This first installment took 4 days to complete - with a max of 2 hrs per day being spent on it, I hasten to add - so it may end up being fortnightly...but, again, let's just see how it goes.

Anyway, enough blathering, here's the first brightly coloured episode of "Redbats", in which not very much happens but the scene is set for lots of fun things to happen in the very near future!

Dirk.




Next Episode

5 comments:

  1. I'm a little bit jealous...I'd love to do a little strip of my own like this, but have no inkling of even how to use Paint. Don't beat yourself up on the gloriously wacky art - it adds a certain amount of charm to the strip. I like it!

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  2. Redbats is back, awesome!! Art looks great to me for being done on Paint, did you just use a mouse of do have one of those electronic art pads? ANyway, look forward to reading more!

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  3. Thanks guys. Just a harmless little toon but hopefully it will be fun. Episode 2 should be along this weekend!

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  4. Hahahahahaah no way man. You are still listed on my phone as Redbats. Awesome!!!!

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  5. I too am digging this "gloriously wacky art" too! Looks cool! I would love to do a comic strip too. Perhaps that's the "kid" in all of us. More power to you! Good luck!

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