my cycloptic soldier skin. the only thing that survived my recent laptop loss.
I do a lot of things to keep my mind in the Munch Chunky rhythm. one of those things is, after finishing the days pages (penciling, scanning, colouring) I often play minecraft. I know a lot of people squint oddly at it and think it's an odd game they would never play. but for me it's a delightfully addictive game of conquest and creation. it's also a good way to meditate after a long day of stressing the heck out. just sitting there and mining, smelting, and then the satisfaction of building something great.
my home. in the middle of the water I don't get harassed.
so the newest update came out yesterday (1.4.2) (the "pretty scary update) a Halloween update that introduces very specific things as witches and bats.
the other thing it introduces are new sounds. Suddenly find myself very aware of everything that I am doing in my minecraft world, and everything that is going on in it. why? because EVERYTHING IS MAKING NOISES!
ALL THE NOISE! GYAAAAAAH!
seriously their is a different sound for every surface you can walk on, through and over.
and it's not just me... the animals have their own walking sounds, no longer the generic walking through the grass or over dirt sound it used to make. no, it's more like a low clumping trumping sound. the sound of hooves? I don't mind a lot of the new sounds really, I especially like the creepy weird skittering sound the spiders make now as they walk. but the cows are absolutely insufferable. they have like three mooing sounds (one of which sounds stupidly like a person saying moo) and then a few snorting exhale sounds. if you have two or more cows on your farm the noise will drive you crazy. CRAZY!
i'm going to have to expand my farms.
I do like all the food I can farm now and make from recipes, carrots and potatoes being added to the bunch. and finally a use for pumpkins beyond sticking them on your head like an idiot. bake them with sugar and make them into a pie! mmmmn... well, I've honestly never had a pumpkin pie in reality. honestly it doesn't seem like it would be a very tasty pie, so i just pretend I'm making sweet potato pies. yay!
My world, Nars Hopellah.
a few other things i noticed about the update... i notice you get experience points for almost everything. mining certain minerals, smelting certain minerals and ores, fishing... yes, you get exp whenever you successfully catch a fish and then you get exp for even getting two animals to have a baby.
O_O
new cobble walls, can be used like fences and rails yay!
it seems like the antagonist mobs are more aggressive now, and will come at you from a pretty far distance on normal mode, the path finding makes it hard to run and hide from them. you reeeeeally have to put some distance and obstacles between the both of you to escape long enough to rest and recharge.
my WIP Obsidian library. built under my house. haha
I like the update mostly... except it just seems so noisy now. just sound everywhere.
also... is it just my world or is everyone getting worlds almost entirely filled with sheep? it took me forever to find any pigs or cows, and i still haven't found any wolves. this makes it really difficult to craft books or bookshelves considering the new recipe requires a piece of leather to make. I'm going to have to create a massive cattle ranch just to build my library.
poop.
It took a few weeks to get back in the rhythm of working on Goblyn and Munch Chunky at the same time after going to AWA (weird how a single convention can throw you off like that)
but none the less, Munch Chunky is back, and Season 1 for our plucky little up and comers is about to officially begin.
I'm very excited for season 1 and the nutty events that come along with it.
and to those of you who stopped by my livestream page randomly and said hi to me while I was working on the pages of this issue.
thanks and hopefully I'll be doing that more often.
The world of Eratone is old and filled with lots of ancient mysteries. that is one of the things i wanted to bring across in the pages of the comic. along with a great sense of adventure. I love adventure. especially unexpected adventure. the kind you just stumble into and in the end learn a lot and have a good time and memories in the end.
now I can draw with confidence, knowing my sweaty, greasy hands, (a bad combo if ever there was) won't smudge the pages. I was actually working from left to right on each page. I don't work like that. I draw at random. and that can lead to smuuuuuudge city.
hehe... anyway.
After last weeks reveal of THE major protagonist the CoCo King, I realised how fast this series is moving now that it's weekly. this is exciting. I'm really enjoying playing with the really different personalities of the characters. oh, and... this issue's cover is a bit misleading.
technically it should have been the cover for issue 5a, but the only other cover idea I could come up with ruined what I thought was a good visual reveal.
you'll see. tho it may be less significant to you than me.
a new take on the Enoroo shop scene from the animated Munch Chunky
So, I'm going to start this thing here on the site, called Munch Chunky Mondays.
I'll be talking about news and updates about the different things that will be happening to me, the comic, and within the world of Munch Chunky.
I'll also be adding videos, each week. some of them I may be talking in, while others might just be speed art videos with music I composed like the one below.
beyond that... all I can say is.
I'm working behind the scenes on the Munch Chunky Databook,
and that should be launching next week, if all goes well.
that's all for now... see you soon and enjoy the video.
I think this is the first time I have put out an issue of this comic on time.
like it was 100% finished before the clock hit 12.
I think it has to do with this new schedule.
suddenly my stress is low, and I'm blasting through pages and having a ball while doing it.
I'm thrilled about how the colours in these last few issues have been coming out.
there's very little to no fighting for attention in any one frame.
i think now that I'm coming up on four issues, and I have introduced a ton of characters I should begin a Munch Chunky Databook. I figure if i start now, I'll be able to update it as the issues come out.
yeah?
we'll see.
haha.
also... new song this week for the Munch Chunky OST
Ixia beat.
it's named after the big blue creature they meet in the forest
the first issue of Munch Chunky on my new weekly wednesday schedule.
this one was a cool down from the momentum of the last few issues.
a lot of running in those other ones.
of course the next issue just starts the running all over again
hahaha!
but I can tell I'm getting more comfortable with MC and really starting to have fun with the colour pallet.
that's good, because i was really worried that things would look really bland. it's a slightly simpler looking book than Goblyn, and the colours have fewer passes and gradients as well.
i wanted to play with symbology and symbolism in this series a lot. both in shapes and in colours.
This past weekend I went to a convention. it was a really good show and a lot of really nice people showed up and came by my table. When I got back from the convention I thought about how much I want Munch Chunky to have a regular update schedule.
But with the other series I'm doing Goblyn, it makes it almost impossible to be consistent.
almost...
I figured out a way to publish Munch Chunky along side Goblyn (and possibly a 3rd series) on a weekly basis. I reduce the page count. yup. starting this week I'm bringing the page count down from 55 pages to 25-30 pages. but the benefit to this is that the series will be able to come out WEEKLY.
C:
It balances out to the same amount of content as if I was working bi-weekly, but just in smaller chunks.
In all honesty, it's to save my artistic sanity. I've been driving myself mad trying to work on multiple series at the same time, and I'm not willing to give any of them up because I love them all too much. So this is my solution. It's not a sacrifice in story, just in the amount of content per week. but it balances out since Munch Chunky would come out more often. yay.
a speed art edit of me colouring and making the cover for Issue 2b of Munch Chunky fun! :3 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The music is by Mobal Sute which is essentially just me C:
but you can check it out at http://mobalsute.bandcamp.com/album/munch-chunky-ost where you can listen to the full version of the second song used in this video called Exit Strategy.
While I was finishing colouring pages of Munch Chunky in between colouring pages of Goblyn, I was digging through my old boxes, and rediscovered my old Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia.
it was a very awesome book that my mom got me and my sister when we were little kids.
some how I still have it after all these years.
it's great!
it's over 600 pages and has really good illustrations of all the animals, and their family groups, geographical locations, distinguishing traits... all sorts of stuff. it's built like a wiki, which makes sense, considering it's an encyclopedia. haha
seriously tho... I've been going through it page by page every night before i go to sleep, reading about a new set of animals, and finding some of the most amazing and weirdest looking creatures.
it has inspired me to just pic random animals from it, and from reader suggestions that I'm going to draw, in the style of a citizen of the world of Munch Chunky.
just thought it would be fun.
some of these animals are really going to let me stretch my creative muscles.
C:
first one... a shrew
I seriously suggest yo grab a copy if you're into drawing animals, or just like them and want to know some cool facts about them. since this book is now out of print, copies can be grabbed at amazon.
So after quite an uphill battle finishing the kickstarter video for my other comic Goblyn, I'm back on track and nearly finished colouring the pages for issue 2a of Munch Chunky.
I've been broadcasting on my livestream while i colour the pages. every day from 8am to about 4pm EST
I decided this is what I'll do with Munch Chunky from now on, as an effort to not always be in my cave like the bearded hermit I am. and just cause I thought it might be fun for you.
I'll answer questions if anyone actually shows up.
but considering the time frame. I'm not sure if anyone ever will.
you'll get spoilers if you care about that sort of thing, but I'm only colouring right now... not lettering.
that comes last, and I will probably stream that as well. or part of it at least.
I'm loving getting to draw all these animals. I love how strange and diverse the animal kingdom is.
you can really find some weird animals out there.
and while I tend to not stray too far from the core animals people are all familiar with.
I do have plans to get pretty exotic once Bojo and the gang get their adventure underway.
well, I hope that more people will come to like MC and the characters, I know it's still in it's proving ground stages, but I have very big plans for it and I hope you'll stick around for all of them.
as soon as I get everything set up behind the stage, I'll be adding and updating a World Databook section, about all the characters and such to the world of MC.
for now, i should go and pencil the last pages of this issue before I get too tired.
one of those weird relics from my childhood that has persisted in haunting me and at the same time inspiring me.
even tho it was only a part of said life briefly.
I just caught myself singing the theme song used in the commercial.
it's not the first time, and that got my gears turning.
after some time thinking about it. I came to the conclusion that this is definitely one of the core inspirations for Munch Chunky.
I'll be honest. as a kid i had no idea what the story was with these things. I just knew, they were animals that wore mech armor and had weapons and elemental powers.
what explanation more does a kid need?!
ultimately there's nothing super special about the Battle Beasts it's a pretty straight forward rock, paper, scissors, kind of deal.
the thing i found most interesting while looking them up, was that they were originally a part of the Transfomers universe.
i know right!
nuts.
but when Hasbro brought them to the states from Japan, they cut all relations to the robots in disguise.
I'm okay with that. it would have just confused me as a kid anyway.
my entire obsession with these silly little toys is all based on the commercials.
the brief action packed animation segments in them ignited my imagination back then, and apparently this concept of animals getting all decked out in mech armor and running around with weapons and elemental abilities really stuck with me.
I'm not embarrassed, I mean it's at the heart of Munch Chunky about as much as a lot of stuff I grew up with.
that's the way it works right?
the cycle of inspiration keeps going.
alright... next post. about me making comics, LIVE.
C:
btw... here are some links to BB related stuffs if you're even slightly interested.
So far so good. I've recently shifted my page colouring shedule to the mornings, which seems to work better for me, and for the out put of pages. it's not taking 10 hours to get through a days set of pages. and i'm generally in more of a good mood. maybe it's because I have the rest of the day free to think and relax, draw and speculate on the size of the universe. hrm... XD
or maybe it's all the paper mario music!
it just puts me in the right mood for making Munch Chunky.
give it a listen. tell me it doesn't change your mood.
Munch Chunky Issue 2a isn't going to come out this week.
it will come back on April 8th.
the reason isn't that I'm going on a hiatus,
but because I'm working on a Kickstarter campaign for the other series I work on Goblyn.
If I thought I could do both I would. but making comics is a full time job.
and like all full time jobs it doesn't really allow for much else to get done while you're doing it.
I've been trying to get everything in order to get the Goblyn KS campaign up and running,
for a few months now.
(it's a long and boring story)
But now I finally have all my ducks in a row, so I have to push away from the table this week so I can actually get this thing finished and out the door.
I'll keep updating the news blog, and posting Munch Chunky related artwork.
I've finally started working on the development blog and about sections of this place.
So back when I was trying to do Munch Chunky as an animated series, all by myself.
(a foolish endeavor if ever there was one)
I had created an actual musical score to run in the background of the episodes.
Most of them were each of the main characters themes Bojo's theme, Turtles theme, & Diddles theme, or remixed variations of those.
but then I realised i couldn't do the animated series the way I wanted in the time allotted to me.
but I still had the soundtrack, and the need to express Munch Chunky in music.
when I see this art I hear songs, and I've been building a little library of those songs for a few years now.
I'm not proud of them all, but most make me very happy, because they capture the spirit of Munch Chunky 100%
from Munch Chunky issue 2b on, with each new half issue ex. 2b, 3b, 4b, 5b, and so on... I will add a new track from the Munch Chunky OST collection on my Mobal Sute Bandcamp page.
you can listen to them and if you like them, download and collect them.
I've added an original sound tracksection here to listen to the OST tracks that are being uploaded to Bandcamp.
I just thought it would be fun to share a bit of the music I hear when I work on Munch Chunky.
I've been drawing these goofy looking mech suits for so many years.
I'm a big mech, super giant robot enthusiast. seriously.
I spent a huuuuuge chunk of my childhood reading watching stuff like Voltron, Tranzor Z
(or Mazinger Z if you want to be a purist about it) and yes... of course, Gundam.
but of all the mechs and robots out there i say that i was most influenced by Shirow Masamune'sAppleseed manga series when i was a kid, which was filled with all these wonderful personal sized mechs he called landmates.
Shirow would used these really great organic shapes that often reminded me of insects, and that just pulled me in further into his magic. seeing smaller, one man, personal mechs was a revolution to my mind, and I immediately was drawing personal mechs in everything I created.
with Munch Chunky i wanted to continue with that tradition, but since MC is a lighter more fun story i didn't want the designs of the mechs to be too overwhelming.
Since the series is about things like food and adventure, i wanted them to be very organic and bouncy in shape.
for me, they had to have a look of functionality without being to visually complex. I wanted them to look like they could run around, while still looking funny, but not absolutely cumbersome.
Silly, but still kind of cool. like the G generation SD Gundam model series.
C:
they're also made this way so that i can customize each one for a new rival team at the drop of a dime and without the design really slowing me down.
they all have the same basic shape underneath, and then i start slappin' on all the extra bits that make them fun and flashy, as I go.
i did decide a while back that some teams would customise their mechs to the extent that they would have very specific advanced functions only used by that team.
it's all regulation of course.
ha ha
