Hey All! And by all, I mean all 5 of you who still check out our Lazy Blog! Sorry Guys, I could make excuses for why I havent posted more but at the end of the day they are just excuses.
I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas! Hope you got everything you wanted. I know good ol Santa was pretty good to me. I got several sweet art books from France that I have been wanting. I know that was one crazy flight for Santa…because if I had to pay for shipping those here, MAN THAT WOULD BE EXPENSIVE!
Anyway I wanted to wish all of you good greetings and what not AND to share something that struck me as funny. For Christmas I was asked if there was anything
little that I wanted in my stocking…I said Anthony!
Haha
-Jesse
Hey Guys,
Jesse and I have participated in a few t-shirt contests on
Shirt.Woot! and one
of my designs has won an editor’s pick and is now on sale. Go
check it out and if you like it pick one up!
-Anthony
Ok, We have just posted our new Pretty Lines Postcards in the Amity Ink STORE! The cards come in a 12 card set and are thick as well as highly glossy.
This is our second set…the first set sold out during the Austin Con. once this set is gone we will mostlikely more on to our second series of Postcards, which means these will no longer be printed. Sooo, get them now if you want them.
While in Austin, we have began playing around with some of the designs for the second set. One of the ideas I had was an angels vs devils theme. One thing lead to another and I rolled in to a nature theme. The first ones I completed fro the second set is three cards I call the Elements. It is Land, Sea and Air. Ive posted some of the rough sketches as well as the final look of the cards. I have also put them together for a poster which I might sell at a future con.
Later gators!
-Jesse
We are very aware that we will be hammered by a few bad reviews here and there but in trying to find them we came across a few that definitely put a grin on our faces. The first that we came across was a nice little post by a site called the “Comic Book Snob.” It was indeed a flattering read. If you want to see the whole review go to…
http://comicbooksnob.com/2011/11/23/beronas-war-vol-2-fight-for-amity/Fight for Amity story is conveyed in a wonderfully large collection
of illustrated prose and comics. Labbe and Coffey seem to be drinking from some
vast hidden well of unlimited creativity the rest of us remain completely
ignorant of. Every story in this beautifully presented collection is different
in tone yet each remain true to the world outlined in Vol1: Field
Guide. Even though the war engulfing their land remains a consistent
backdrop for these stories, Fight for Amity is more a book about
individuals and their motivations than it is an exegesis on the horrors of war.
Commanders and politicians who tend to be motivated by power are left out so as
to focus on the smaller players. Separately, the well-crafted short stories (at
times no longer than a page) tell of survival, cowardice, honor, friendship,
sacrifice, etc. In fact, it’s difficult to think of a theme or personality not
explored in the highly imagined adventures and confrontations between the
Ele-Altas and the Cropones.
We also came across a few personal ratings on Amazon and Flipkart. These are always great to see when you know they are writing it for others and not for us. It always leaves us scratching our heads and asking, “do we know these guys?” Plus, when we read a review from one of our female followers, it puts a little bit of umpff into it! You can find them at
http://www.flipkart.com/books/1936393166It’s about time!
I met the both the creators a year back at the San
Diego comiccon. I picked up the first Book, Berona’s War: Field Guide and have
been eagerly waiting for this book since!!! Within the pages of this book is
everything I wanted to see in Fight for Amity. Each story has its own feel. Some
or colored, some black and white, sketchy blue pencil, some are written in pros
while others in sequential comic panels. This book is GREAT! I am really glad
these guys took a chance on this book and go outside of the box to create it.
While I can see some buyers being thrown off by it…I LOVE IT!
a special kind of book
I accidentally ran across this book while at a comic
shop. I was looking for something else and ran across Berona’s War. It was
plastic wrapped so I couldn’t see inside. I took a chance and purchased it
anyway. I AM SO GLAD I DID! I loved everything about it. The process of
storytelling that the creator chose was brilliant. Each story stands alone. I
have since purchased the first Berona’s War and love it as well. What I really
enjoy is that the creator has chosen to focus on the events on the island rather
than one specific soldier. I can’t wait to see more!
And finally…we often get some flattering emails from you that makes grin from ear-to-ear! I guess the reason that this one os so great is that it was comming from a county we didnt even know had our books! Good ol’ Australia. I have to give most cradit to one of our Cabbalus, Bret! He has a bigger fan base there than we do. Now all we want is to hear from one of our fans from Frans and Germany!
Email…
The book arrived last week. Loved the signature! Loved the sketches! Loved the book! Bret and Opie spin a mean yarn!
I wish I could take credit for Berona’s War spreading down under, but alas, ‘tis not the case. Some months ago, whilst killing time in a local comic shop, (Dee’s Comics in Belconnen, a suburb of Canberra to be precise) I spotted a copy of Berona’s War: Field Guide sitting atop a lopsided stack of trades. I don’t know how it got there, but there it was. It was wrapped tight, so I had only the front and back cover, but something about it just spoke to me. I took a chance, and I’m glad I did. It’s a steal at twice the price! (Which is good, because in Australia, it was!)
I mean, wow. My first thought was “crap. I wish I had thought of this.” And the playful, colorful art is the perfect juxtaposition to the weight of the stories. Several times I found myself laughing out loud. “What!? Snipers?! Awesome!” “What?! Spring launched gliders?! Awesome!” “WHAT?! ZOMBIES!? AWESOME!” What a fun, fun thing you guys have made. And at the end, I read the section called “Why,” (Field Guide, pp. 155) and it was like a love letter to my childhood. Like you had done all this just for me. And for that, I thank you.
And Cabbalu Tales just doubled the blinds. The warning before “Senseless” hardly prepares you. The end of “Pulling Teeth” leaves one speechless. I loved the bird. Even thought it was just an ordinary bird, and neither proud, nor sporting. And “Always Greener,” told in reverse. Bravo, gentlemen. Bravo.
I can’t even freakin’ tell you how psyched I am about “Fight for Amity.” Bring it on.
Sincerely,
Mike Horan (Your Australia fan)
Thanks to everyone for making us smile!
-Jesse
Well, it’s HERE and available everywhere books are sold!
Hey cats and kittens (if any of you still come here) I wanted to take a moment to say thanks to all of you who have ordered Book ll off line and to those who were fortunate enough to make it to WW Austin. We appreciate all of you who took the time to stop by our table.
We also had our “Pretty Lines” post cards premier at our table. We are planing on posting them in the Amity Ink STORE in the very near future. We do have a very limited set of these cards, so if you want one….be prompt!
As for the con, Anthony, Brandi and I had a pretty good time. We did our usual “First Night of BEEF!” When when to get our fix of steak and potatoes at our nearest restaurant. We bumped into our friends Pat and Josh. We treated them to a round of waters and they were nice enough to give us their bill. After all that love we thought it was only natural to share a desert…that is natural right? Four guys sharing a warm delicious desert with four spoons? No?
At the end of the con we had a pretty good time! Oh, and if you have been paying attention to any of our last posts, I wanted to say I finally found a martini I can drink! Till next time yall…
-Jesse
Still working hard on good ol’ American Stickman. All of the Soldier cards are completed so I have moved onto the Hand Held cards. These will be the cards that you can actually play throughout the game.
This is one of those really tricky things that even though we enjoy working on it, we are not sure if the job will ever see its final form as a board game. This means that there will be a lot of invested time that went into this property that will have been wasted. However if we do not do this properly, it will surely never see the light of day. So if you are a fan of a 1947 giant monster vs military theme, there is a good chance you will enjoy this game and should probably keep your fingers crossed.
Anthony and I watched a lot of scary movies throughout the Halloween month while I was working on some of the cards and I’m pretty sure some of that slipped into the drawings
I was working on at the time…notice the priest. If nothing else we’ll get a good laugh from it.
After awhile it gets a bit tough coming up with new and fun ideas for the cards, especially after you’ve done 50 or so. So I decided to change it up a bit. When I started working on the +1 Attack cards, rather than putting another typical soldier picture on the card I decided it would be fun to take a different approach. Anthony did a shirt design for Woot that I really dug. It had the dated look from the 40’s and 50’s of a woman selling a product. I was able to use that idea for this concept. So instead of just having another soldier card, I made the cards look more like ads for a weapon product. I like the way it turned out. And even more, I like that it makes it a little bit different than the others.
Hope you guys enjoy.
-Jesse
I wanted to share what I have been working on this weekend. I have completed 20 total “Soldier cards” as well as a handful of “In Hand Cards” for the American Stickman game. I am pretty happy on the way they are turning out.
We have included a ton of different types of character for everyone to enjoy and laugh at. We have some Americans, Japanese, Germans, Italians, British, Russians, Australians, and French. They are all working together to get off the dreaded Colossal Island!
Im not sure if you know this but this game is all biased after real events! Oh yes, it’s true…there really was a Colossal Island that was inhabited by some of the worlds leading powers back in 1947. And the jb of these men was to rid the world of giant monsters. How did it turn out you ask? Well, do you see any monsters?
-Jesse
Still pushing foreword with American Stickman and enjoying the ride. I have several more character added to the roster…soldiers, from all over the world, that will be fighting gallantly on Colossal Island!
I sent Anthony my first take on the layout of the cards because I wasn’t happy with them and knew he could do much better. He sent back exactly what I was looking for! So now I am just plugging in the new pictures and updating the text to go along with each card.
It’s still a VERY long way from done but at least I don’t mind the journey getting there! I figured I would go ahead and post some more of our heroes to get you a little look-see into our world!
-Jesse
I wanted to make a quick post and fill you guys in on what we’ve been working on lately… American Stickman! We are toying around with two A.S. ideas, both of them games.
The first idea, we have only just begun working on conceptually and has a long ways to go. The second idea we have been working on for awhile now…and have a long way to go! The first is what most of you are going to probably be more excited about and that is an app. The second is a board game, which I am more excited about. From what we can confidently tell you about the board game at this point is that it will be a game in which you get your character from point A to B.
We are going for a “comedy meets giant monster” feel. We are still working on exactly how the rules are going to work but in the mean time I am still working on the look. Until we get any further I wanted to share a little of what we have as far as the characters. W
We are still working on the look of the actual layout on the cards but that is more of Anthony’s strong suit, rather than mine.
Hope you enjoy
-Jesse
Awhile back we were asked to do some fan art for Humberto Ramos’ new book Fiery Quest. and were more then happy to oblige! But unfortunately the work Anthony and I did never made it into the book. But we recently saw that Humberto posted a nice little shout out to us on his FaceBook. So I wanted to share it with all of you along with his post.
You can see some of the working process that we go though to combine our styles together to form final products. My work has been cleaned up while Anthony has his work roughed out in red. From there, he cleans his work up and then I slap some color on it…Tah-Dah!
I hope yall enjoy it! Even though it never ended up in the FQ book, we still made posters of it and will be available at our table at future Conventions!!!
Humberto Ramos’ Post…
http://www.facebook.com/labbe.enterprise#!/photo.php?fbid=10150463461318976&set=a.161600028975.149301.32711668975&type=1&theater
-Jesse
So here are some of the little ladies I will be using for my contributions to the “Pretty Lines” postcards. Since we probably have quite a few younger viewers on our site I cropped a lot of these pics, plus they are not on the final postcard layouts. I will probably not use all of these girls since I have a couple ideas for some new ones after seeing some of Jesse’s. But for now enjoy this small taste of my Pretty Lines.
-Anthony
Well last time I posted I talked about a new line of characters we are working on. We weren’t sure which direction to take it but after playing around with a few options, we have decided to go forward with the postcards…Also, with the name “Pretty Lines” as opposed to Little Ladies.
So here in the next few weeks we will be designing and putting out our first selection of Amity Ink’s Pretty Lines Post cards. Anthony with take his best 6, as well will I. We will be printing 10 of each for a total of 120 cards and 12 characters! We’re still cloudy on the packaging of the cards. Not sure if we will be selling individual cards or putting them into sets or some sort.
As you can see, between my last post and this one, I have a few to choose from. The down side is not knowing what to do with all the ones that don’t get picked… Hmmmmm
-Jesse
We have been working on Berona’s War for some time now and are enjoying every bit of it! BUT we also have all sorts of GOODIES in our Amity Ink Bag!!! You know about Jona’s Ark and American StickMan, which we are still playing around with but a new addition to our family is something we have been calling Little Ladies.
We first played around with the idea while in Chicago and I have been going through a lot of lead and paper with these girls! I wanted to do something, not only different from Berona but also possibly for a different audience. When the idea first popped in my head I was thinking about the old time burlesque style playing cards. Those naughty little nudy cards…you know the ones. Of coarse ours will have a certain kind of fun cleanses to them while still crossing the line of “for all ages.”
And while exploring the idea of playing cards, we still were not sure if that was indeed the direction to take it. After all, we don’t even know if they would sell or how the fans would receive them. So the next idea that we talked about is possibly doing a small run of post cards. They would be cheaper for everybody and it would let us know how much you did or did not like them. PLUS, how perfect is it to pick up a post card from a con and send it to a buddy for a bit of a surprise?
Here is a little sample of some of my Little Ladies. Unlike our previous work together, Anthony and I have slightly different styles and takes on the design of the Ladies. I thing we will each have fans who like one more than the other. Anthony’s girls are beautify drawn and colored! I think he did a pretty damn good job and hopefully he will post them later this week . *hint hint*
Hopefully you (the ones of age MUAHAHahaha) will enjoy these as much as we do! And to give you something to look forward to, We are also working on a card game involving American StickMan. So keep your fingers crossed for this one and maybe I will be able to post something on that soon!
Later guys and sorry about the post delay…
-Jesse
Yes, we’re home…and YES we’re late on our post!!! YEA! hey, at least we’re consistent.
We had a really good time and we were happy to see a lot of familiar faces at our table. So thanks to all of you who stopped by and showed Amity Ink some love…we love yall too! And to those who stopped by for a book or Audio book and we had none left…you can thank those who got there before you. Shame on you guys.
We always get lazy when we get back from these things and I kept telling myself, “We REALLY need to post!” but I kept neglecting you. I STINK!!! And I am sorry :( But we’re back and in the rhythm of posting twice a week again.
To our surprise we had several of you who came by and showed us the coupon for a free poster AND one of you who didn’t bring it and left it on top of your computer (he talked his way into a poster anyway). So we are glad to see that some of you are paying attention to our site! We are going to try to post a few more little free surprises in the future. Soooo keep an eye out…not to be confused with the dangerous, “Poke an eye out.”
Our buddy Mike hosted another Sketch Bomb and as always we had a really good time hanging out with everyone and doing some fun sketches.
I got a good laugh when the theme “Animals under water that shouldn’t be there.” came up. Most were sketching animals with scuba gear and what not (which is actually something that popped in my head as well) but my brain ran in a different direction all together. I did little bunny Steve who tangled with the wrong people. Oh poor poor Steve. Anthony and I had a good laugh with it and decided we would like to do a little cheesy animation with little Bunny Steve, so maybe we will have that for you in the future as well.
Bret, over in Cabbalu’s Corner, is still working away with some more Audio stories, some of which I am VERY excited about. He is really doing a great job in the world of Berona. All we’re really waiting on at this point is the Media player. I couldn’t be more excited about it but it just comes down to having the time to design it. Jay, which will be making it from scratch, is under a bit of work with his own company and is trying his best to make time to get to the player….so be patient kiddos and we will have it to you as soon as we can.
And lastly, we have sold a few of our originals from our STORE page and have replaced a few of them with something new we are playing around with. “Little Ladies” is the theme for the project but at this point we really don’t know what direction we are going with it. So more on that later.
Till next time….
Lots of love!!!
-Jesse
Last week a buddy I work with had a birthday. He likes Star Wars and made a comment a while back about me making him a sith lord for his card. This doesn’t have anything to do with amity I just liked the way the card turned out, so I figured I would share it with ya’ll. Enjoy!
Long live the Ele-Alta!
-Anthony
Well its here! Another year at the Chicago con. And like always, no matter how much prepping we do, the closer the date gets here, the more unprepared we feel. It always feels like we’re forgetting something.
Having said that, we are planning on having a pretty good show! The most exciting thing we have this year is our new Audio Story Box Set.. Unfortunately we are still working on them, so we are hoping everything goes smoothly and they will be available on our table. And because they are new, we will have a VERY limited number of them at the show so it will be first come, first serve.
We are also planning to have them available real soon on in our STORE.
The Box Set will come with 5 CDs. the first 4 discs will each contain 2 stories and the last disc will have one story and some extras (Wallpapers etc.).
Also available as a Chicago exclusive, the first 10 Box Sets sold will come with a free $10 poster of the Berona Map.
As for the coupon above, just click on it, print it and bring it to the show to get your free Pulling Teeth Poster! It’s that easy. Of Coarse we do not have an endless supply of these posters so it will be first come, first serve. This is a piece from the story Pulling Teeth in Cabbalu Tales Vol. 1. Its a fun piece because it contains work from both Anthony and myself. So don’t forget to swing by and pick one up!!!
See yall at the show!
-Jesse
Here is the final piece to complete the set of territory poster. The 5 territory poster will find their way into book 2 to help fill up some extra space. Not to mention we will hopefully have them ready to sell while we are in Chicago next weekend. And if y’all happen to be going to Wizard World Chicago definitely stop by and pick up some of our new stuff. Until next time…
Long live the Ele-Alta!
-Anthony
Well here is number three of the set of 5 territory posters. This is probably my favorite design so far. I was happy with the character poses and look. The Condyle Warriors are always fun to draw and color. They have fun bone outfits as well as war paint.
The Condyle female fighter (the Whisp) is one of the most feared fighters on Berona and because of this I wanted to play around with her pose and not just have her standing there.
I also wanted to capture the feeling of being on one of their hunts for bigger game…its what they live for.
Anthony is working on poster no. 4 and should be done with it by time for his post this week. It will fit right in with the rest of the set and is going to be a GREAT asset to the group.
Bret is still pushing forward with the Audio Stories and we are really looking forward to getting our hands on them. I have read most of “Geist Falle” and am VERY happy with it so far. Just knowing that he is excited with them makes me want to read them even more.
We have every intention to have them ready to go by time the Chicago Con gets here.
If you don’t plan on going to Chicago, don’t worry, we plan to have them available on the site’s Store for purchase as well.
You guys have a great one!
-Jesse
So recently I was ask to participate in an event called Canvas for a Cause. It’s an art show were a local business passes out canvases to artist who paint the canvases and then they are sold for charity. So the majority of my time lately was spent on my canvas. Everyone may think its something really cool but to be honest the main inspiration comes from my lack of interest in painting. I was apprehensive about paint a canvas so I decided to cheat and make a paper mache sculpture coming out of the canvas. The first pic is a work in progress shot. the next ones are of the final piece and the final pic is of the lucky fan who rushed to make sure he was the first person in line to make sure he got the canvas. I believe my canvas has found a good home and will enjoy the remainder of its days being appreciated for all it’s glory. haha. until next time.
Long live the Ele-Alta
-Anthony
Just finished another of the territory posters so I figured I would share. This is 2 of 5 in the series….the Krite. I like the outcome of it but now that it is done, I think I would have liked to have seen more white space but I am still satisfied with the overall look of it.
I like the Krite a lot because they are very kind characters with big hearts. However, they are also the most brutal characters we have created. When push comes to shove…these guys push freak’n hard!!!
They are all about nature and the animals around them. They love the land more than they love life itself and will more than willing to die for it. I guess this is the factor that makes them so dangerous.
I hope you enjoy this piece. I will have the next one up soon. I am working on the Condyle poster right now and am happy with where it is ending up.
I also didn’t want to post without giving a special thanks and congrats to the new owner of our posted Original Art. Thanks Bonnye! I really liked the piece you bought, “Aries Constance” and hope you give it a good home…which Im sure you will. We will be mailing it off to you very soon! :) We will also be replacing it with another piece this weekend.
-Jesse
Ever since we started working on the Audio stuff we have also been trying to branch out with other items in the same avenue. I was trying to do a poster to match one of Bret’s stories. One thing lead to another and I started working towards a set of territory posters.
The first one I have completed is for the northern area of Berona, Jackdaw. I am always going back and forth of which division I like best. I have decided that I will most likely never be able to settle on which one reins supreme. However, having said that, I would be lying if I said that the Jackdaw isn’t always pulling ahead in the race.
So here is the first of a set of 5. This is the Jackdaw mini poster! I wanted to keep them simple with a lot of white space. I am also trying to have a piece of the poster showing the land of that territory in the BG.
I guess the reason I like the Jackdaw is because that have somewhat separated themselves from the rest of the Cropones. Some of which dont even claim to be Cropones, but a better, more sophisticated race. The are very elligant and suround themselves with bright colors. I guess I always leaned towards a Cleopatra/Egyptian type feel…maybe mix in a little Roman atmosphere. The females there are considered to be the most beautiful on Berona. And though not all the Jackdaw is snooty, most everyone on the island consider them to be.
-Jesse
I’ve been working on a few random projects now that we have finished Fight for Amity. One of them is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. It’s a paper craft Ele-Alta. I’ve seen these types of things every now and then around the web. It’s a cool little project and activity. With just a few pieces of paper and some time and effort you can end up with a pretty cool little piece to display on your desk or bookshelves. It’s not completely finished yet. I still have a few tweaks I need to do to the design and then I have to draw the character on to the design. Here is part of the design so you can see where it’s going. Once i finish it all up I’ll upload it to the media section so you can download it and build it also if you like.
Another idea I’ve been working on is another AmityINK poster. When I was down in Mississippi the other weekend and we were celebrating the finishing of book two somehow we had this joke starting between Jesse and I. However it came up, we were calling ourselves the lightning and the thunder, Me being the lightning and Jesse being the thunder. So all weekend we were joking around doing the who lightning and thunder bit and we would always end it with “there’s a storm a comin!”. I decided to rough out an idea for a poster where Jesse and I were in our lightning and thunder costumes. I’m excited to finish this one up. It’s just a funny little inside gag between the two of us.
And the last thing I have to the post today is one of the MANY reason I’m waiting for Jesse and Brandi to move back to Texas. While I was thumbing through the pics on my phone and I came across a picture I took back when I was down in Mississippi the other weekend. We had bought ourselves a couple of really nice steaks for the book celebration that Jesse and Brandi whipped up with some mashed potatoes and broccoli. I can’t wait till I get to eat like that more often. haha.
That’ll do it for now.
Long live the Ele-Alta!
-Anthony
Well, now that Book II is completed Anthony drove down for a little celebration. We (Anthony and several friends) all went out to eat Saturday night then came back to make some drinks (Banana Rum & strawberry smoothies) and watch the UFC ppv. We had a pretty good time! So we were able to have a great weekend enjoying the 4th of July as well as our step into our next project.
We did a little talking on which direction to go next with Berona. After a smooth decision making process, we have it all figured out. Brett will continue working on the Audio stories as well as pump out a few goodies for future books, while Anthony and I start on a comic book. Yup, thats the idea.
We talked about it awhile back and posted an idea but now we have time to move foreword on making it happen. We dont have the concept of the comic in stone yet but we do know for the first (of what we hope will be many) story should stand alone. That is, we dont wont the first book you pick up end up being 1 of 5….or some other number. we want the first story to stand a lone. maybe a story about a particular troop or soldier. Only time will tell for that.
So any way, I know its been awhile since we posted last so we are trying to get back to our two post a week schedule. And hope you keep reading them.
Thanks Guys!
-Jesse
After receiving another email from yall, we decided to start making some of our originals available to the you! So until now the only place you could get one of our original pieces of art is by getting them from our conventions. But now you can go to the STORE and you will see that we have posted 4 original pieces. These pieces will be removed as soon as they sell and will be replaced by another. We will try to always have 4 pieces posted at a time, never any more then that. After a period of time (undetermined for now) we will cycle through and place new ones :)
So when you get some time swing by the STORE and take a gander…if you see something you like, let us know!
-Jesse
Now that we have a little (very little) time on our hands, we are doing some of the things we put on the back burner. Jay (our Mr. Admin) suggested we put some sort of media player in our site so yall can get a little more out of our posts. I loved the idea!
We wanted to keep it simple and keep it with the same feel as the rest of the site. We had a few ideas involving stone and wood but that seemed to fit Berona more then Amity Ink itself. So we went with the sketchy look for the player. The hope is that whether you are in Cabbalu’s Corner or on our Blog page, you will have the option to listen to the post as opposed to just reading it.
Bret will also have the chance to post sample stories as well as have free story free-bees on his posts as well. Who knows…maybe a free story weekend! Plus we are working on video as well. This will lead to interviews and other fun things from the conventions.
Even though this is subject to change, here is what we are looking at as of now…
-Jesse
Well ladies and gentlemen, we are done. I cant tell you how long it feels like we have been under this book. Other than a little touch ups here and there….we are indeed done.
Anthony has missed a few posts because he has had most of the touch ups to complete, so don’t be too hard on him…after all, he now owes me several bags of candy but I think I will be trading them in for a few drinks. We earned them!
There will be several stories in this book and will not be like the Field Guide or Cabbalu Tales…but rather both. It has several types of stories in it…One page jokes, comic panel stories, written stories and so on. We really think you will enjoy diving into this one.
More to come on that later but until then, I had a few emails about the last post I did with the Berona Map. It is the opening to the story “
And It Begins” as well as the opening to the book itself. It took me A LOT longer to complete then I am going to admit BUT yes, it is done.
Several of you wanted to get a better look at it but rather then make you wait for the book to hit shelves….here you go.
-Jesse
Hey all! And by all, I also mean Australia (which has several new fans visiting our site) We are stupidly close to completion of Berona’s War II: Fight for Amity. In doing so we have had very little time for personal enjoyment. If I haven’t mentioned it…it is no longer fun trying to finish this thing up.
The first story in Book II is called And it begins (also known as the War) and it is written Cabbalu style by our very own Bret and is one sweet story. We had a lot of fun putting this one together. It is a mixture of The field Guide and Cabbalu Tales. I REALLY think you will enjoy it. Besides looking nice, it is a solid story to start things off.
But in doing so, there are there are some sacrifices that we have had to make. Some extras we wanted to include or certain things we wanted to get more into, had to be cut down.
One of the things I am trying…TRYING to get finished is a new version of the Berona Map. I would like to do it with enough detail that we can make it into a mini poster. But I It is taking me way longer than I hoped it would. If get it done in time, I will be putting it as a two page spread in the new book…so keep your fingers crossed.
Its not done yet but you can see the direction Im trying to take it…
later all
-Jesse
Well, unfortunately I’ve missed a few posts. I have no excuses. I’ve just been so focused on finishing Fight for Amity that I let my postin’ skills slide. Any who, this is going to just be a quick little post. I figured I would give ya’ll a pretty picture to look at to make up for my missing posts. This is a Wonder Woman I drew for Shane Henderson, who is a buddy that has hooked me up with more awesome art than I could imagine. A few cons ago he gave me quite a few original pieces of his and all he asked for in return was a Wonder Woman drawing. Well it took me long enough to get around to it but I finally did it during the Dallas con. Hope you enjoy.
-Anthony
Ive been sitting on this piece of fan art for some time and figured since we are so busy with deadlines and what not…I would post it now. At our last Chicago con, we got to hang out with Rantz for a bit. In our visit we played around with the idea of him doing some Jona’s Ark fan art. This proved to be a great idea!
Rantz, who is known for his ability to draw beautiful woman, knocked this one out the park. He was able to take our Jona and bring her into his world…and do it with serious style. He gave me the sketch and I slapped some color on it. I tried to leave the sketch lines visible because I believe that’s the life of this piece.
So I want to give a special thanks to him again for his contribution to Jona’s Ark.
our Jona
Rantz’s Jona
First let me apologize for our tardiness our posts last week. I had several emails letting me know that both Anthony and myself were late on our posts…ooops.
We are usually late on our posts that follow
conventions. Sorry guys. We’ll to keep you in the loop, we are still
working hard on the completion of Berona’s War II: Fight for Amity. I
indeed have to take my hat off to Anthony for pushing through the tough
stuff on this project. You have to remember that there are just two of
us working on this! So we definitely have our hands full with this one.
But still good ol’ Coffey pushes through…and let me say, he is doing a
great job. Ive seen some of the stuff he’s working on and it’s GREAT!
As for myself, I have been working very closely with our buddy Zach on
the American Stickman Project! Don’t count Anthony out of this, he has
helped us out of a few brain buster we’ve come across. Sometimes its
better to have that outside view. PLUS he is going to play a HUGE part
in this project.
We are all VERY pleased with where this one is headed. The look, the
style, the genre and the fun! This is one (for now) that I dont mind
dedicating so much time to. All we can do is hope that you enjoy this
half as much as we hope you do!
Just be aware that American Stickman is on its way…
-Jesse
Well we’re back from the Dallas Con…which was a smash hit! It was a lot bigger than we expected and full of great people.
For a two day con, I think its fair to say, we had a blast!!!
We sold out of merchandise by Sunday afternoon, so for those of you who stopped by and didn’t get the book they wanted…we are very sorry but remember you can always get great Berona stuff at our site.
We had a good laugh when we realized that Croponia Day shared a weekend with the “Rapture.” Well at least Croponia day was a success haha.
I am afraid we didn’t take as many pictures as I wanted but when Anthony posts, I think he has more pictures than I do. I only got a few when we were setting up.
Thanks again for a great weekend guys and gals!
-Jesse
HAPPY CROPONIA DAY!!!!! Its time to celibrate the National Croponian Weekend! Start up the grill!
-Jesse
I wanted to make a quick post to inform everyone that we have updated our store and included the series 1 and 2 trading cards! There are still a few kinks we are working through but for the most part the Amity Ink site is being improved upon. We are going to be updating the store with more items in the future. Some of these items will include our new addition of Audio Stories. We were even thinking about having a designated date in the future when we will be having a free give away day or something.
We will also be giving Cabbalu’s Corner a new addition as well. We are working on a video and audio player so Bret can post with several different mediums. We will even have some fun clips at our cons as well.
These are all things we are currently working on now! So hang tight and we will have them for you soon.
Yes, both Anthony and I were late on our posts BUT we have a very good excuse…we’re busy. Deal with it!
Hope all is well for you guys and we hope to see you in Dallas this weekend. And lets not forget our big day Friday!!!
-Jesse
I just wanted you to have some kinda visual for this, otherwise, plain post. So here is a quick sketch from American Stickman
Yes, my friends, you heard them right. It’s that time of year again already. The
Dallas Comic Con is coming this weekend. And of course Jesse and I will be attending the con and looking forward to seeing all your bright and shiny faces. It looks as though the Dallas Con is gaining popularity again. I was surprised and excited when I found out that Stan “The Man” Lee was going to be there. Who knows maybe he will wander by our table during one of his breaks or something. Hey, a man can dream can’t he! Anyways, it’s traditional that our excitement level rises around the start of another convention. It’s always a good reason to meet up with good friends, have some good times and meet some good fans. So if you are in the area be sure to stop on by and say hello! Peace out all you Ele-Alta lovers…yes, yes, and all you Cropone lovers too. HAHA
-Anthony
I wanted to make a quick post today (so you’ll get 3 posts this week instead of 2!) to give you a little incite into what we are dealing with. In previous posts we said that one of the tough things about having a project drag out is that as we continue drawing these characters…the characters continue to evolve. Its almost unstoppable, at least for me.
In one of my Cropone stories (in Fight for Amity) called “
Stronger, Faster, Young”, I drew three Cropone zombie slayers. As I reopened the story this week I couldn’t help but cringe when I saw how outdated some of them were. I know we are short of time but I had to do a few new updated pictures of two of my favorite characters, Elease & Merissa. I like Yount too but most of his character drawings were not too bad. But there was a group shot that I had to redraw him as well.
Anyway, I thought it would be a fun post for yall to also see some of the changes and character developments we are going through…show you some of the pictures in Book II.
-Jesse
actually, Anthony usually does it right the first time so he changes very little of his work. That’s why I hate him.
Yes yes, It was a lonely day indeed without my little buddy on free comic book day. I must say though, all went well. We had our first sale of Audio Story CDs. And sold out fairly quick! I have to say Bret did a GREAT job of putting those things together. The cds will be available by request only (at least for now) and are not available at our store. We will also try to have them on our table at future events.
We are still hammering away at Book II, Fight for Amity! I know, I know…”When can we see it?” Well we hope VERY soon. We are uploading new stories to the file as we complete them and we get a little closer to completion every day.
I will be doing some finishing touches to Dawn and the Dead, Bigger Game and Stronger Faster Young this week. Following those stories I will be filling my characters in Anthony’s Ele-Alta story, The Flag Bearer (title subject to change). I saw this story for the first time last night and have to take my hat off to Coffey. It looks really nice!
And onto American Stickman!!! We had another meeting last night working out the some of the many kinks we will be facing with the project. And we did indeed solve a few more. This is just one of those projects that comes along out of nowhere and gets crammed in your brain. The one that you cant help but think about. We are having a lot of fun with it.
-Jesse
Ok folks, the day is upon us once again. Free comic book day is this Saturday. My good buddy Jesse will be signing at
3 Alarm Comics in Biloxi, Mississippi. Unfortunately I won’t be able to join him for the event. I’ll be staying behind and continuing to work on book two. I’m sure Jesse will be super sad since I won’t be there with him, so I think any one of you that can should go by and cheer him up. And since you’ll be there anyways you might as well pick up some free comics. Either way go out tomorrow and get some comic love!
-Anthony
It feels like Anthony and I have been working on the War (this is what we are calling the opening story to Fight for Amity for now) forever! The second book itself seems to be a struggle but some stories seem to fall into place better than others. The first story is important for several reasons so we don’t want to fall short with it.
It will be a fairly long story (25 pages or so) and will be written in the Cabbalu Tales fashion. I REALLY enjoyed reading it and look forward to giving it to yall to read as well but before we can do that we have to finish it.
I have been sketching out several pages on characters that will be in the War but because this story is being handled a little bit different than the others it has become tricky. But either way I figured
I would share some of my rough sketches with you.
-Jesse
We have been working on finishing up the last few stories for Fight for Amity and as I’m drawing one of the pages I thought it might be interesting to do another post about our process. Not like we haven’t done that before but it’s always fun to see how the drawings progress.
So during the first step when I’m laying out a page I just keep things super loose. This is the thumbnail phase of the design. While reading the script or story I’ll either do very small drawings of rough shapes to work out the best shots to tell the story or sometimes I will just go ahead and work actual size on an 11X17in comic template I made in Photoshop. Either way this phase is always kept very loose and quick just to get the ideas out. I will usually work out where the speech balloons and the panel borders are in this stage.
Step One: Thumbnail
During the next step I lower the opacity on the thumbnail drawing and then sketch out the scenes with a little more detail. In this stage everything is still kept loose I just focus a little more on defining the drawing and making sure all my forms and perspectives are set up properly for the next stage. It’s important to still stay sketchy so that I can still continue defining the drawing in the next stage. Otherwise if I get too tight in the second stage I will just end up almost tracing the drawing in stage 3. Then it just feels like I’m doing the work twice and nobody likes that.
Step Two: Rough
And the next step is just the clean up. In this stage I’m still working on the actual drawing and not just tracing the rough stage. I just use the rough stage as more of a foundation and then I’ll go in and focus on the final details while drawing over the rough. Now obviously there are blank space in the clean up image and that is so Jesse can insert his characters into the scene.
Step Three: Clean Up
Well that’s about all for the steps. This story is going to be black and white or maybe it will have some gray tones. If the page has color or any gray tones that is the final step.
-Anthony
As some of you have read on our previous posts, we are currently working on a project we like to call “American Stickman!” Great name huh? And though many projects have to overwhelming nature to fall through the cracks and are forgotten forever…we will continue to work on American Stickman and pray it will some day see the light of day. We do see a light at the end of our tunnel but I can honestly say that at this point we don’t know if its the sun or an oncoming train.
We have a couple of goals for this project, both we think you will enjoy! What? tell you what they are? Ummm NO! We don’t want to jinks ourselves at this point. BUT what we can do is show you some of the concept art we are using to motivate and inspire the project into further success.
And since I cant post soon enough to lower Anthony’s last post, as my buddy Brian put it, “He got you good.” Ladies and gentlemen, I give you American Stickman…
-Jesse
Well it’s happened again. I’m late on my blog post and as most of you know that means I now owe Jesse some candy. Once I realized I had missed the deadline for my post I saw that I had a text message from Jesse notifying me of his craving for M&Ms. I kept getting this funny image in my head of my buddy Jesse waiting by the clock and doing his dance of joy once it hits 12:01. I couldn’t help but laugh every time I thought of it so I figured I would sketch it out so all of you could see what I was seeing. HAHAHA…so enjoy Jesse’s forbidden dance of joy!
-Anthony
Bret (One of our main Cabbalu) came up with the idea of taking a stab at some audio books. Well, I guess its more of an audio story rather than book. On our way to Seattle, Anthony and I tossed the idea back and forth and decided it was worth a shot. So in preparation for Free Comic Book day we are planning on presention our first audio story. Our plan is to have one or two different compact discs, each with two 25 minute stories as well as two wallpapers and a separate audio track containing music from the stories bg.
For our first cd (we have almost completed) we will have two stories, “Death of a Runner” and “the Winding.” I wrote
Death of a Runner and handed it over to Bret because after the last few stories I wrote, I find its best to hand them off to an actual writer. Its about two Cropon Runners who, though best of friends, are always trying to one-up the other. As far as stories go, I am fairly proud of it and think you will enjoy it.
Than there is
The Winding, which is pretty much all Bret’s doing! The first time I read it, I loved it. Its one of our few stories that evolves around the Ruthless! Who wouldn’t love that? The Winding is the name of their vessel and the crew who mans it is one rough bunch of lovable characters! I have no doubts that this story will be enjoyed by everyone who hears it!
I am in the middle of working for the Wallpaper for this story and have completed the design of the 6 characters. What makes this group so fun is the unlikely assortment of the crew. The twins, Lock and Cage, who refuse to believe that theyt arent really twins at all. Aldo, the huge, mean brute of a first mate who has a hard time thinking outside the box. The intimidatingly beautiful Effera, who left Jackdaw and brings the brains to the crew but who is self conscience of her looks. and there is Dink…wow…Dink.
Ill keep you posted on this project.
-Jesse
Well shortly after seeing Jesse’s last post I became inspired to start drawing some of the stuff from American Stickman. Every now and then during work I have to take a break and draw something else just so I can keep the juices fresh and flowing. It’s during that time that I decided to start working on some of the Stickman stuff. First off I sketched a typical soldier and tried to make sure and keep the gear in the correct time period.
Then after that I started to get the itch to make a simple screen shot of the game to help visualize a direction for the look of the game. Plus I wanted to play around with making repeatable tiles (something I’ve never really messed with before).
Believe it or not, it’s actually a lot of fun building a level and figuring out all the different tiles there are and how to connect them. It’s an interesting challenge. Anyways, I roughed out enough tiles to build this screen shot. Check it out and I hope you enjoy.
-Anthony
For a quick Berona change (because we’ve been doing a lot of that lately) Ive decided to change the pace a bit and work on something I like to call “American Stickman!”
Without getting too into it, it is a very simple concept involving one of my all time favorite genre…Military VS Giant Monster!!! The Military base is located on a remote island, Colossal Island! There, our highly trained and equip soldiers fight off waves of attacking monsters!
There are several avenues Anthony and I are approaching this idea with. The first is something as simple as a sketchbook. There we will have all the different type of monsters and branches of the military they will be facing.
Second, is our favorite and of coarse tougher of the two…a game app! We have a good start into the process but since we are not programmers, we will be handing it off to some capable hands and seeing if we can get some magic!
The whole idea started off with the phrase, “I cant even draw a stick man.” Which, by the way, we hear a LOT! One thing lead to another and before we knew it, we came up with our “Paper Soldiers” concept. That soon lead to American Stickman. On the island, we have all the major powers of WWII, we have America, Germany, Britain, France, Japan and so on. BUT it is the American who is being played by our friend the stick man. The other nations are simple in design but the stick man design is unique to the American Soldier.
At one point I was leaning towards the name “Island of 1953” giving you a solid look into the time period of the events. As Ive said before, its the great feel of being attacked at the drive in movie, or the scientist on the black and white screen dropping the vile with the brain from planet X! Its old school tanks lining up on the coastline blasting away as the beast approaches. These are all the things that have and always will kick start my imagination.
I’m trying to keep the look and feel of the idea loose and gritty…at least for now. Bold colors and sketchy lines remaining in the background. My first concern was if the stick man would work well in the same scene as one of the other nation’s soldiers. I played around with it for a day or so and found that it would work well enough.
This has been a fun project that has aloud me to break away from other projects that I feel as though we “have to” finish. Its something that has not been tainted with outside hands or influences and because of this, it still remains fun to continue working on.
I will try to keep you posted on the progress of this project and hopefully you will enjoy it every bit as much as we do!
-Jesse
Click to enlarge
Well there’s not a lot to report. We are just pushing hard to wrap up Fight for Amity. So I’ll keep this post short and sweet so we can get back to it. Here is a small sample of the final page of the slayer story, “Devotion”. Enjoy
Long live the Ele-Alta!
-Anthony
I know that this isn’t exactly the kind of post that most of you expect to read on the Amity Ink Blog BUT it is something that I have been working on and hope you like it…
I am a advocate user of a knife when it comes to sharpening pencils. Some pencil sharpeners work well and do a pretty good job of getting a sharp lead but as far as I go, I like a good sharp blade to get my lead just the way I like it. I can get a longer lead as well as it extends the life of your pencils.
For some time now I have had my eye on a knife used for just that purpose. The two downsides was it was WAY too expensive ($300) to justifying buying it AND it was only for use of right handers. This was a real problem considering I am a Lefty! So I decided that I could make my own. Sure, I never really made a knife before and had no metal experience BUT I had faith that I could do it.
I got a couple of strips of good stainless steal and began to make it happen. I had a quick sketch of the knife I wanted to make. It was a simple enough design and for what I was going to use it for…it could be as simple as I wanted it.
I used my drimmel for almost everything…cutting, shaping, sanding, sharpening and polishing. Once I was finished shaping it, I spent nearly a day just rubbing it over a sharpening stone to get the perfect blade. I drilled two holes in it and wrapped a piece of string around the handle for a nice grip. AND now I have a good blade I will be using from this point forward to sharpen my pencils!
-Jesse
Click to enlarge
So here is one of my little doodles from the sketch bomb we attended while in Seattle.
ASSASSIN SNAKES!!! What more do I need to say…NOTHING more, that’s what! Enjoy
-Anthony
I mentioned before in my Seattle post Anthony and I attended a Seattle Sketch Bomb! I have been to several Drink & Draws but this was my first Sketch Bomb. I can also say that as far as group sketching, this group had about as many high caliber artists as one can ask for. Dj Welsh, Mike Henry, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway, Ryan Hall, Junior Bruce, Hai-Na-Nu and many more!
We arrived a little late (we were having drinks with Mike!) and had to pick up in the middle of the theme that was almost over…Wizard of OZ. I was really getting into it when they finished and changed themes.
The Next theme was Asian (amine’) Demons. We actually had to look it up on Anthony’s cell to see what it was. As if it weren’t enough to be surrounded by such great artists, now we have to sketch something we aren’t familiar with! I was happy enough with mine by the time we were done with that theme.
Then we hit the last theme of the night, Assassin Animals (whoever came up with that topic was a genius). The opportunities were endless! After I picked the theme, we all started sketching! You better believe people were doing some amazing work! Hippo Snipers, Ninja serpents, barbarian Ferrets and SWAT team pandas. There was some sweeeet characters! One of which stuck in my head so much that the next day I actually asked the artist if I could buy it from him. Mike Henry drew an assassin giraffe. It looked awesome! He was happy that someone liked it as much as I did so he just gave it to me. I now have it on my wall in my office…thanks Mike.
Anthony did a pretty sweet character as well too. I was going to post it but I couldnt get it in time. So maybe one day down the line Anthony will put it up for one of his posts! If you and your friends enjoy drawing, I suggest one of you host a Sketch Bomb, you’ll love it!
Till next time…
-Jesse
This lovely Amity Ink poster is all thanks to our wonderful “manager” Brandi Labbe. This all started out as a birthday card/poster for her and upon seeing it Jesse immediately said, “slap our logo on it and lets use it as a poster for Amity Ink!”. And I think it was a great idea. It embodies everything that is Amity Ink. We wanted to give Brandi a drawing that showed just how much we care about her, so we just piled all the crap we give her on her back…literally. Almost everything in the heep she is lugging up the hill is in one way or another an inside joke between us all, from the cinnamon rolls right down to the grape jib-juice! HAHA just thinking about it makes my sides hurt from laughing.Thank goodness she is such a good sport or we would be out a manager and Jesse would probably have been beaten in his sleep long ago. Well she loved the card/poster and we got a really cool Amity Ink poster, so it was a win win situation. Thanks, Brandi, for putting up with everything! HAHA
-Anthony
Well it’s that time again…Tuesdays Post!!! For today’s post I figured I would keep it simple and talk about the quotes we got for our next book.
For our first book, we had a forward from Skottie Young and two quotes on the back of the book. One from Fransisco Herrera (Berona’s War is absolutely amazing. Funny characters. great graphic design and quality art…it’s a sale!) and one from Humberto Ramos (Berona’s War is a piece or art. If you’re gonna buy one book this summer, this is the one!). When we received these quotes we were, to say the least, excited! Three artist we loved, all giving us quotes we loved!
Now that we are rounding the corner to our next book we are lucky enough to receive a couple more quotes by two more people that mean a lot to us. The First is Doug Tennapel. If you dont know his name (and you should) you should know his creations. The one that most of us adore is Earthworm Jim! Man, the hours we spent on that game!!! And second, even though he is not an artist, per say, he is still on the top of our man-crush list. Sean Patrick Flanery, who stared in the Young Indiana Jones and of course Boondock Saints. We met him a few cons back and got to be buddys with him. In all sinserity he seems like a really great guy…so there was no way we were going to turn down a quote from the man of action himself!
So now you know a little more into what you will be seeing in our next book. As for the foreword, you will have to wait and see.
-Jesse
Well all that can be said about our lovely adventures in Seattle has already been said. We had a great time, We met a lot of great people and we got to participate in an amazing con. Overall I guess you could say the experience was worth all the trouble. HAHA.
So, we shall meet again, Seattle! Prepare yourself!
I’ll leave you with the pair of finished Jona’s Ark posters we didn’t have a chance to post before we left. Peace out, Berona lovers!
-Anthony
As far as cons go…this was our favorite as far as people go!!! At every turn there sat someone else we admired. We were glad to hear that Randy (Rantz) Kintz was going to be there. We met Randy years ago at a Wizard World and have been friends ever since. He is one talented SOB! And after all that’s the best kind of friends to have. We were able to go grab breakfast together one morning before the con started.
DJ Welch, What a stud!!! We were fortunate enough to meet DJ at one of the Chicago conventions and grabbed a bite one night after the last day. I’m am however sorry to say that if you are a conservationist, DJ is probably your worst enemy. You see, he alone is responsible for the mutilation of half the Rain forest. DJ sells enough prints at a convention to house a small village. What can I say, he’s a beast!!!
He invited us to a Sketch Bomb late Saturday night. Now, I have been to several Drink & Draws (which is pretty much the same thing) but I have never been to one consisting of so many high caliber artists! We had a good time, so thanks DJ for the invite. I will have to post more on that event later on another future post.
My main man Joseph! We met Big Joe a few years back (I think before we were even published) and he soon became our right hand man. If something fell short Joseph always had a solution or connection to get things where they needed to be! He is Fransisco Herrera and Humberto Ramos’ manager and go-to guy. He has since become our go-to guy as well. Talk about connections….He has them all!
Now talk about coincident, out of all the hundreds of spots we could have been placed at ECCC, we were right next to them. We knew right away that we were going to have on hell of a time! You cant put two tables full of explosives that close to each other and not expect a BANG!!!!
Then there was Ramos & Herrera!!! Men of men! Artist of Artists! We met Both Humberto and Fransisco awhile back (through Joseph) but this is the first time we actually had time to hang out. Friday night we all went to the Hard Rock Cafe’ and grabbed a bite. Well, we actually stuffed ourselves until it hurt and then topped it off with some dessert! Both Ramos and Humberto are two GREAT guys. Very talented and very humble! We were worried that they would steal all of our business by overshadowing us with there glory but thanks to out fans seeking past the overpowering glory…we had a prosperous show!
As for as Ramos (and not too much can be said about that talented machine) we HAVE to say thanks for the opportunity to do some fan art in his upcomming book Fairy Quest! If you don’t know about this book, you HAVE to check it out!!! But more on that later. In a future post we will have to show you what we are planning to do for our piece of the book.
We of course cant forget Mike Moon! We have been working with Mike since last year on a project (we cant post about it just yet) but I can say, He is good people!!! He is someone that doesn’t dance around and candy coat it. He tells you how it is and does what he can to make it happen! He is someone we are lucky to have in our “friend arsenal.” He invited us out Saturday, before the Sketch Bomb, for drinks in the downstairs bar. He introduced us to Rob Reger (the creator of Emily the Strange) and a few other colleagues. They were all great guys and we enjoyed their company! Thanks Mike!!!
Well That about wraps up my post for ECCC!!! Anthony might be posting one more on Emerald City but for now…this about does it for me! We had a great time and have every intention of doing it again! So thanks to all who supported us and all who continue to do so!
-Jesse
remember click pics to enlarge :)
Man, the Emerald City Comic Con was an amazing con to be at. We were lucky enough to get to meet and hang out with some really talented artist. We even got to sit next to two of our favorite artist, Humberto Ramos and Francisco Herrera! Talk about pressure. Those are two really nice guys. The list of talent is pretty long. We got the chance to meet up with Doug TenNapel again and he was nice enough to give us a quote for our book. We also saw Skottie Young, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway, Randy Kintz, Mark Brooks, Mike Mignola, Bruce Timm and countless others. We were definitely humbled by all the talent.
This was easily one of the best cons we have been to. Now, we just need to make sure and teach Brandi how to use the camera so we can get pics of our favorite artists that are actually in focus. haha.
We also got a chance to go and sketch with a few of the guys and gals on saturday night at a sketch bomb. There were a lot of good times had there.
Here we were lucky enough to witness a meeting of great minds. Jesse was working his magic and walked Mike Moon and Edward Mejia (both from Disney) over to Francisco’s table to give them a proper introduction. Needless to say, I think they were interested in Francisco’s work..you go Jesse!
We met our good buddy Ian on saturday. His father wrote to us and told us how big of a fan he was of Berona’s War. Apparently our book has the power to make kids popular! Thats right you heard what I said. The book was causing such a distraction among his friends that they were forced to ban it from his school. He is also the first kid ever to have his very own Berona’s War party! How cool is that! Send us some pics, Ian!
I think it is safe to say we will definitely be attending ECCC next year. Such a great event…Stay tuned for Jesse’s post with more wild and wacky stories from ECCC.
-Anthony
Well, we are back and getting settled back in to our rut. YES, I know I am late on my post! So I will indeed owe Anthony some junk food! However, I am pretty sure we will be able to get four posts out of our trip…So to start us off this is #1
We arrived in the cold rainy city of Seattle Thursday afternoon and had plenty of time to burn so we decided to roam the town. Our hotel had a great view and was in perfect location for the convention.
It was our first trip to Washington so we wanted to at least see a little bit of it before being trapped behind a table for three days. So the Three of us (Brandi, Anthony and I) walked around to see the sites. We went to the Farmers Market and walked around there for a bit and then found a little restaurant and grabbed a bite. There I had my first Martini! I figured Bond looks so suave drinking them and Bender loves them too…It must be a GREAT drink. The result…I’m not that suave. I swear, you could have fueled a rocked with that thing! What can I say, “I tried.”
We wanted to get out of the rain for a minute so we stepped inside a Borders and grabbed a hot drink. There we spotted our book (who am I kidding…we didn’t spot it, we searched for it) in the graphic novel section. Now, I can honestly say that we still geek out about that sort of stuff. Yeah, we know that its out nationally but there is something about walking into a book store on the other side of the country and seeing our book. It’s still feels pretty good.
I have to mention before I wrap up our first Seattle Con post…You know how hotels always have those little baskets with candy and snacks crammed in them? you know, M&M’s for $5 and Gummie Bears for $7? Well, we figured we could do better then that! So we did. We hit the nearest corner store and racked up! God we’re unhealthy! So between Anthony and I waging candy on our posts and us cramming our backpacks full of sweets…I’ll be dead before 40!
I even cough Anthony stealing my Bucket-O-Cheese. Come on man, that was MY Bucket-O-Cheese!!! Get your own!
But Anthony also snuck in a picture of me doing my routine yoga-power-pose!! You know, every artist does it before a show. They do right?
Stay tuned…Anthony will be posting our part 2 soon!
-Jesse
Hey ALL! I want to change the pace from the Berona Trading Cards to something new. As we have mentioned before we have several things going on in our pipeline (that’s not a metaphor) at once. One of the things, that is not Berona related, is a project called Jona’s Ark. Awhile back I posted a picture called Nature’s Gears (top left) that wasn’t quite complete. I have since went back into this project and added more gears as well as filled up a little more negative space.
Anthony has also since worked on the other part of the poster set with his character, Ark. He will also be bringing some of the green foliage up the right side of the poster to better match Jona’s piece.
The final step, which Anthony is working on now, is the Jona’s Ark Logo/Title. The title will go at the top of both posters. There is a good chance that he will be posting them again this week.
Remember we leave to Seattle early Thursday so we might not make our regular posts for a few days. We will try to make at least one more before we leave. Anthony will most likely be posting another set of duo posters for Jona’s Ark. They look really good and we are both happy with them. We will try to have a few of them for sale at ECCC.
There are a few people we will be meeting up with in Washington who are interested in this project so we have spent more time on it lately to polish it up a bit. So, I wanted to share some of the things we have been doing.
And to those of you who will be there, We will be at…
-Jesse
click to enlarge the picture
Well apparently more of you were paying attention than I though. So as a lot of you know, I try to post on Mondays/Tuesdays and Anthony on Thursdays/Fridays, and whoever forgets to make his post has to buy the other a bag of candy! Its just a fun way to keep each other fat and unhealthy.
But I was a little surprised to find that I had several emails from you reminding me that Anthony missed his post and he owes me! I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw that y’all didn’t skip a beat! RIGHT after midnight I started getting emails saying I get free candy!
And what perfect timing too. I will be heading out to Texas to meet up with Anthony to prep for ECCC. So I guess that will be a great time to collect! Thanks everyone for the reminder and thanks Anthony for the Skittles you will be buying me!
-Jesse
Well, what perfect timing. We got the
cards in yesterday giving me the perfect Tuesday post! We got them
around 5 or so yesterday and without wasting any time we took them
straight to one of our local comic shops
Heroes and Dreams where we began to open and organize them. That alone was a fun task (you cant hear it but there is indeed a bit of sarcasm in my voice when I say that).
We had to figure out which cards would go into Series 1 and which would
go in Series 2, while making sure that each series had the same amount
of Cropones and Ele-Atla. After that the card boxes were put in the
right order numbered and labeled them. From there we began to unwrap the
clear plastic slider boxes that the cards will come in. We unwrapped
100 cases on the first run, removed there lids and began to fill them
up!
So box after box after box, we
continued to sort the cards. One character at a time, the series began
to take shape. One of the up sides of this was that I did get to
actually see each of the cards and how they turned out as I sorted them.
I can honestly say that I am VERY happy with the outcome of the
printing of these cards! They are nice and thick, full brilliant colors
on both sides as well as slick and glossy!
As the cases were filled, the lids were placed back on and then a
sticker was used to seal the box up. I have to say a great feeling came
over me once I got to actually pick up a completed box of these cards.
It was like a little shiny brick! I really think that you guys will be
just as happy with these cards as we hoped you would be. Now that I have
got to actually see the final result…I feel confident about that.
I have got to give a big fat special thanks to the guys at
Heroes and Dreams for helping me out. Without them it would have indeed become more of a chore than it was. Not to mention the help they gave us in collating the
cards. In fact I have to say thanks to my friends as well who showed up
just to give us a hand. I assure you, the job would not have been
completed last night if I didn’t get their help. Thanks Guys!
We still need to figure out how this will all work with online sales. We
are not sure about shipping or when we will get in featured on the
website store BUT we will be working that out soon!
You can still contact us (like so
many of you have already done) and we will be sure to figure it out and
get you your cards in the mail, so you can enjoy them too.
Thanks all
-Jesse
remember just click the picture to enlarge…
First things first! I wanted to let you all know that there is a Berona’s War Memory Game out there! Yup it’s true. It’s a fan based game. Anthony and I saw it for the first time here recently and have got to say, ‘for what it’s worth, its pretty cool.” From our understanding, it’s on the Android now and will be joined by the iPhone shortly. AND also to our understanding it’s free…so you should check it out!
ALSO, a little birdy told me…Who am I kidding, there was nothing about this bird that was little! Not only was he grossly over-weight, his hygiene was awful! I have never seen a bird with tooth decay. I mean to say that this bird was so nasty that his beak had grown teeth for the sole propose of letting them rot! He tried to eat Anthony like a little worm. I was all like, “No birdy! You stay away from that little guy! And that’s not a worm!” I had to find a stick to save my little buddy! Long story short, I’m one hell of a hero and Anthony is missing a leg.
Oh yeah, our cards got shipped early. So the plan is, Monday I start sorting those little beauties and prepping them for Seattle….and for you guys who have been BLOWING up our email with requests for them! Its for you too :)
-Jesse
Here is a link to Berona’s War: Battleground
So now it’s time to post my sketch cards. And thanks to my earlier post Jesse is safe from me having to fatten him up with skittles. As I’m drawing these cards I agree with Jesse more and more. I definitely have some that I would like to use for cards in future series if we get to make more. So what does that mean…? Well that means the fate of our trading cards lie in your capable hands. So do your part in the war effort and support these cards!…please please please…and thats not me begging thats me willing you to want these cards!
and here is my Valentine’s trading card to match Jesse’s. It’s not as late as it seems cuz I drew them on Valentine’s Day…and you have to take my word for it cuz I say so! Enjoy!
-Anthony
ok ok…I’m planning on posting my sketch cards in just a few minutes. I just needed to be sure and get a post up before midnight. So I’m technically safe and I don’t owe nobody no skittles! (yeah I know I used a double or triple negative there) Ha Ha Ha!
-Anthony
Though we have not completely figured out exactly how we are going to work the sketch cards into the two series of trading cards…we know we are indeed going to have them.
There is no way we can put a card in every individual pack, that would just be unrealistic, BUT we are thinking of putting them in each of the “deluxe” packs. All a deluxe pack will be is a Series 1 and Series 2 box in one purchase. However this might also be a bit tricky. So far we have only received orders for both series at once. After all who wants just one? Which means we will be running out of the cards quicker than we can draw them.
So until we figure out exactly how we are going to handle these cards, we will continue to scratch our heads over the issue. I do know that at Emerald City (next month) we will indeed be placing 1 card in each of the deluxe packs and it will just be first come first serve.
We are planning on having at least 40 sketch cards by the convention. Most of them will be blue/red pencil sketches with a clean-up ink line. Few cards will be colored. Some colored with Marker, some with colored pencil and few with watercolor. So there will be no telling which card you get.
I enjoyed some of the cards so much that you shouldn’t be surprised to see them being used in future series. We’ll just scan them in, clean them up, slap some photoshop on them and BAM!…Series 3!
Dont be surprised if Anthony posts a few of his cards on Thursday. I have seen a few of them and they look great. His, of coarse, will be all the Ele-Alta characters.
So until next time…have a good one!
-Jesse
what we can look forward to…
-Jesse
(click to enlarge)
Ok folks! I know how much you have all been anticipating the debut of the most amazing Ele-Alta trading cards ever. Now I know these are the only Ele-Alta trading cards in existence, but don’t let that fool you, these cards will be awesome. We finalized all the cards tonight and uploaded the files to the printer just a few minutes ago. So now we must anxiously await the arrival of our glorious cards. And unfortunately I’m going to have to wait longer than Jesse to see the cards since they will all be shipped to his house…that lucky dog. Although that means he is going to have to bribe some friends over to help him sit on the floor and separate those bad boys into decks. Maybe not having to do that will make it worth the wait…haha. Anyways, click on the image to see it in all it’s full size glory!
-Anthony
P.S. I know the back of all the cards in the pic say the same thing. As disappointed as I know it will make you, I still need to inform you that we will not actually be printing the cards this way. We have updated all the cards with the correct bios. The image was made from cards that were still in progress.
Well here they are (mine anyway). Here is a few cards from the new series of Berona’s War Trading Cards! Anthony will be posting his Thursday (or he’ll be owning me yet another bag of Skittles) so you can see a few of the Ele-Atla cards. His are equally cool!
We weren’t sure if we were going to be announcing the news or not because we wanted to make sure the quality was Berona worthy first. But we have checked and rechecked to make sure what we are expecting is what we will indeed be getting. Having said that, We will be releasing Series 1 and 2 this month.
Each pack of trading cards will consist of 25 full color (front back) cards. They will be uv glossy and come in a plastic case. There will be no gambling here! Each series has the same cards…no buying 3 or 4 boxes in order to collect them all. NOT on our watch! Once you by the 1st series, you get all the first series cards and that goes the same with series 2.
We designed the cards much like the set up of the Field Guide. On the fron of the card will be the picture of the character and on the back will contain a bio of that character along with his stats. This will give you a little more into the world of Berona and its inhabitants. the Cropones are bordered in wood and the Ele-Alta in stone.
Also in each series are two Class Cards. These are black bordered cards that tell about a class of character rather than someone specific. You can see one on the top left in the picture above. That one is the Cropone Class card. The back talks a little about who the Cropones are as a whole. Series one also has an Ele-Alta class card. Series two has one on Slayers and one on Zombies.
It was a pretty tough call trying to see who would appear on the cards and who would have to wait. A lot of these character were chosen simply because either we liked them are y’all did. Some of them were picked because they were featured in one of the Berona Stories. Either way, we are pretty sure you will enjoy flipping through them and reading about them.
We are not exactly sure what we will be charging for a pack. We ARE pretty sure that our price will NOT be above $10. Most of this will be decided on out coasts of printing them. One way or the other, we are going to try to keep coasts down low enough so we can sell them at an affordable price.
We are even considering putting a random sketch card in a few of the sets. We hope that this too will make it worth it for you guys.
They will first be available at the Emerald City Comic Con. After that you can pick them out through our Site! Just write us and let us know what you want and we will be sure to get back to you and make sure all is good!
-Jesse
as always…click on the picture to enlarge
Ok, we’re back home and back to work! Where to begin? We had a GREAT time in New Orleans and no one was shot and we all left with our wallets! For this being the first New Orleans Convention, I would have to say it was a pretty big success, not just for Amity but for everyone.
Between Amity and our friends…we pretty much owned an entire strip of artist alley! This was a nice change because you are usually spread out all over the convention. But for the most part we were all elbow to elbow from one end of the table to the other. Our buddy Brian (Britown.com) was on one end with Shane Henderson and we had a table and Bret Kenyon (co-writer of Cabbalu Tales) was on the other.
Our only down-fall was not having enough goods for our table. It being a two day con, I didn’t think we would need to over prepare…I was wrong. Yes Anthony, you were right. We ran out of Berona’s War: Field Guides almost instantly. Don’t get me wrong, we brought a lot! However, you bought A LOT! I believe the Cabbalu Tales sold even quicker then those!
Yes, you heard right, We had Berona’s War: Cabbalu Tales! They sold better than we could EVER had expected! Who would had thunk it….people like to READ! We sold those two books until there were no more to sell. We even had a box flown to us after running out…we ran out of those too. We are already hearing back from a lot of you with your response to the newest book! I might have to post some of your emails in a future email to share with others. So far, you have made us very proud to have created Cabbalu Tales.
you will notice in the picture above that there are three different books in our hands. This is because we were in possession of a third book that we were not even aware of. Bret (on the right) is holding Cabbalu Tales, I am holding the Field Guide and Anthony is holding the black leather-bound Field Guide…the Field Guide that we didnt know existed. It you are one of the VERY few to get your paws on this book, cherish it!
Apparently this box was sent to us on accident. It will not be available in stores. This is a website buy only. We will have a VERY SMALL run of these books (like 10) and are not sure what we will be doing with them just yet. So be patient with us!
After we did our “conventioning,” we hit Bourbon Street, well what else are ya gonna do in New Orleans? We found a few good places to eat and cut loose! We had intentions of getting back to the hotel before late but I guess that didnt really happen. BUT Im not complaining, we had a GREAT time!
And just to let you all know…One of our New Year’s resolutions is to post twice a week! I will TRY to post every Tuesday and Anthony will TRY to post on Fridays! The person who doesn’t post owes the other a bag of candy (or other nummy substance)! So we will try to keep you a little more updated on things in the future. By the way Anthony, you owe me some skittles!!!
So until next time guys and Galls, THANK YOU for the GREAT weekend and we will see some of you next month in Seattle!
Actually, Anthony…you dont owe me squat. That giant green drink (Cat’s Meow) in my hand is from you if I recall…you got lucky this time buddy!
-Jesse
We just recieved our first pictures of Cabbalu Tales! They are still not in our grubby little paws yet but they are at least on their way. We are getting emails asking, “How can I get one?” Well, all you have to do is wait a little bit longer. We too are eagerly waiting and will post as soon as we have the books in hand. We will have some delivered early to the New Orleans Wizard Convention so if you will be there you can pick up your copy early but if not you can order one as soon as we get back! Until then guys, here is the pictures they sent us…
-Jesse
OOOOOH SNAP!!!! What am I looking at, you ask? This is the Newest addition to our Berona Library. This is the much awaited (even if only by us) Berona’s War: Vol. 1 “Without Perfection.”
If I said it once I said it a million times. Actually if I said it once, doesn’t that mean that I said it once? I guess that doesnt have the same ring to it, “If I said it once, I said it one time!” Hmmmm, let me try that again…
Ive said it before and I’ll say it again, “This book is not for everyone! It’s only for smart people who like to read and not just look as pictures.” See what I did there? Now you’re thinking, “Hey, I’m smart. I don’t just like pictures. I like to read.”
No honestly, This book does have its share of pictures but it is NOT anything like Berona’s War I: Field Guide or Fight for Amity. This book is the same size, same thickness, same hard cover and same quality as our other books BUT this is full of stories….fun short stories!!!
Again, we have a very limited run on these books, so be sure to place your order. For the time being, you can only purchase these books through Amity. So you can either get them from our site or you can get them from us at a convention. For the few of you who are in the area, you can get them from a local comic shop! There is talk of Cabbalu Tales being published but and available everywhere in the US but until that happens…we’re it!
Also, don’t be afraid to contact us and let us know what you think. After all, you are the reason we put this book together in the first place…because we got several emails and convention fans saying you wanted it! Well, Here you GO! only a few weeks and it will be yours!
-Jesse
We have so much stuff on our plate right now…our very small plate. Somewhere in working on everything it seems like one too many projects got crammed in our pipeline and now we need a plumber.
“Berona’s War ll: Fight for Amity” is so far behind. We only really have one story to go but man it’s a monster! Its the longest story in the book. It’s the first story in the book as well. We dont want to rush it and because of this is has become very slow going. I don’t want to say that we are not still excited about it but I can say, If it weren’t for using our magic lamp’s 3 wishes on art supplies, jaw breakers and new Futurama seasons…we’d be using it now!!! It’s so hard to stay motivated on something for the wrong reasons. Deadlines are the wrong reason. We just dont want to rush it and put crap that we arent proud of in your hands.
“Cabbalu Tales Vol. 1” is sooo close to where we want it. Now that we are putting out the hardback, we are adding more stories, more pictures and more field guide pages. It will be a book we are indeed proud of! So to all of you who have asked us for more “stories”, well they are on their way. We are trying our absolute damndist to have it on our table at the New Orleans Wizard Comic Con.
Jona’s Ark is some where on a back burner. Meanwhile both Jona and Ark are running around in the pipeline bouncing off the walls. They are dieing for our attention, and to be honest, we cant wait to give it to them. The characters are completely done as well as the story. The supporting character and environment still need some work but we feel confident that they will work out as well. That is, if we give them the time and effort they deserve. Both Anthony and I REALLY want to start getting involved in this project, I mean we want to get elbows deep in it…but we need to get some of the other work out of the pipe first.
And as for the Disney project (that we cant say too much about), it is still in the works as well. We arent holding our breath for a miracle. however, its way too tempting to NOT do any work on it. meanwhile, when we work on one project another suffers..man, when did this all turn to work? On the up-side of things, they have told us point blank that they love the idea and want us to develpoe it more so it might get put into production. On the down side, if its a “No-go” then we just lost a ton of time on a project that could have waited. *sigh*
So as you can see, we have a full plate. So please just be patient with us and we wil try to deliver the goods as soon as we can!
-Jesse
