Lil bit more news

Sorry I have been away so long from these sketches and notes, but it's for a good reason. I've been working with my good friend Tony Benattar from the Liberty Boot Co. on a show that will be at the Cameron House for the month of April. The Opening Reception is the First of April from 6-9 with entertaiment by Col. Tom and also the Rattlesnake Choir. To see the work click the link to my other blog, "the mad craft shoppe". I'll be back once the show opens, I promise.

A.S.H

madcraftshoppe@live.com

News and Back Story

MARCH 19,2012.

Now I'm almost sure that was what I expected viewers to do, ridiculous.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Once again, why are you doing this ?

MARCH 19th, 2012 update, there seems to be no text here, I guess I just assumed you would click on the image and be entertained by the story of this fella.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

Take Two

I thought maybe if I rubbed some crap on it and played with the lines some that it would get better, it did not. Lesson learned, moving on....

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

The Families

Creator's Note: Obviously I got up way too early today to start drawing anything, and all of my drafting markers are kaput so after this I'm going back to bed for a quick nap. The original intention here was to illustrate the three major families in AHT, this is what I ended up with - a ridiculous boy band cover. Instead of throwing this out, I decided to post it, although the more I look at it the more it reminds me of that sort of lifeless stuff that had passed for comic art in the early 80's. OK I will have to redo this and post them side by side. I'm embarassed but the drawing stays.


From Left to Right

Stinson - The Stinson family is one of the largest families in AHT (see Denny "Deathshead "Stimson, Wash Stimson, Dolliver Stimson Jr.) primarily known as farmers, there are also many Stinson's that live in AHT proper, it's joked that the reason the Army chose the outskirts of AHT for a base was not it's proximity to the Gardan States across the sea but for the sheer number of Stinson's available to conscript.

Aucassin- The Aucassin are a large clan of fishermen who live on the outskirts of AHT. (See Quatro, Red) Originally from the State of Florenz that borders the Gardan states, the Aucassins left their hostile neighbours to settle here. Few of them speak English, they keep to themselves and rarely mix with anyone from AHT except to sell or trade their catch. The Aucassin's have a reputation for being pirates and scavengers, but this has yet to be proven.

Clan Lampo- Like the Stidson's the Lampo clan is tied the fabric of AHT by sheer numbers .(See:Resolu Lampo, Administer Lampo, Mama Ken, Banyah Butler, Lamar Giraud Lampo) The Lampo clan are known as incredible soldiers, ritually scarring their heads as a rite of passage before going off to fight in THE LAST GOOD WAR. It is rumoured that the Lampo's Elder, Mama Ken, has the power to raise the dead for periods of time, this has never been proven.

(I really wanted to write more here, but I'm whipped.)

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Why Are You Doing This? Part Three

*Third Verse, same as the first.

Drawing: I don't draw as often as I did as a kid, I am primarily known in this city as a painter, muralist etc. but you think, "Don't you have to draw to do that ?" and I say, "No, I sketch, and sketch badly, my sketches look like a drunk girls phone number written with eyeliner on a wet nap." I flesh out concepts just as much as the next guy, but they are rough and ugly sketches that usually end up covered in notes and scribbles, paint and dribbles and the usual rough treatment. I usually only do "solid" sketches when I have a client involved who wants to see process, or if I get an idea when I'm not in my studio. I'm comfortable enough as a painter that once I have a concept for a piece or a series I just get started (but that's another blog: see mad craft shoppe).


So I had to draw and draw often, the character boards were the perfect way to refine my drawing style for AHT in a way that I was comfortable with, it was also a chance to work on line thickness, the most important part of inking and the thing that I have the hardest time with. So expect alot of these character boards until I am comfortable enough to begin drawing the series. "It's like riding a bike..." - which is a load of horsedooky, it's hard.


My approach right now to AHT is to publish a page every week or so of very small story arcs that give you an idea of the place, a little tour is probably the best way to start, so I'm writing little four page stories that will show you the town from a few people's perspectives and give a good chunk of back story.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com



Why are you doing this ? Part Two

*Once again, click to enlarge.

Character Creation:This is the part that I enjoy most, and I realized that the cast was going to be huge, you can't have a town without people, merchants, musicians and of course a criminal element and even more importantly BARS. I spend alot of time in the pubs in Toronto for meetings about paintings, TShirt designs, cooling down after painting in my studio, and especially seeing bands, I wanted AHT to have a strong music scene and a pub life. I also realized that as I created these characters that AHT would be a more interesting place if just about everyone in the town at one point in their lives had served in the military, it's hard to start trouble when everyone is "a hard man". So the first move was to just fill in the background, as I hadn't decided who our main character would be, it made sense to build a strong supporting cast.

As I was drawing in the sketchbook that I dedicated to AHT I realized, I hated drawing in this dang sketchbook, I didn't like the paper, the pens I was using etc. so after doing about twelve pages I realized we had to switch to boards. The best part about working on these small boards was they dictated the size of what I could do, one board per character. I began doing one or two a day at the pub after working at my job or after painting, I needed to switch my mind off of painting and drawing characters became the way to relax.

This may sound strange to you that after a day of creating you relax by creating something else (instead of watching TV or Facebooking or the gym) but it worked for me. It also gave me something to post to get people to visit daily and have a look at who's been added to the roster and what their all about as I started to write the first rough "arc" of AHT, which I've done almost to my satisfaction, and hope to get up here by the end of March, at least the first four pages....

to be cont'd.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Why are you doing this ? Part One.

* Well I guess you'll have to click on this to read it, if you want to know anything about anything in AHT you have to read this page.

I'm going to use these "Sketchbook" pages to let you know why I'm creating AHT and since I woke up at 6 am I may as well do some actual blogging, that's what I can't stand about my life and blogging, it's not enough to draw or paint the pictures, people want some kind of explanation or a funny story or witty observation. So I'm going to tell you, reader, why I'm doing this.


I love comics, I've been reading comics since I was five or six, I think the first things I read were the last couple issues of "Devil Dinosaur", the X-Men annual where they meet Arkon (great art for it's time) and the original Star Wars run with that crazy angular art. I was never a DC fan, mostly Marvel, especially the X-Men, which I got into probably around the Dark Phoenix saga (long time John Byrne fan) and the run of the Avengers around the time of Red Ronin and the Grey Gargoyle. The only DC titles I liked were Warlord, Teen Titans (George Perez!) and The Crisis on Infinite Earths oh and I was nuts for Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.


I owe comics alot, my vocabulary was huge when I was a kid, my spelling was leaps and bounds ahead of my classmates (point of pride as a kid) it was common ground for my brother and I and my parents loved that I was reading and that it kept me quiet on long car rides to the cottage, no AC, my brother on my left side and a HUGE German Shepherd crammed in the back seat with us.


What I like best about comics is world building, I would create hundreds of characters, I would draw constantly, all my life people were saying, "You should do a comic." "Why don't you do a comic?".


The answer was easy.


I never had a story to tell. I think that as I grew older and the medium of comics became more literary I was able to start to assemble some ideas that I liked, it was the possibilities that I was seeing in the medium, Brian K. Vaughan, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Brian Wood and others revealed more to me about world building and the medium, the comics I read as a kid were for kids, the more recent comics (graphic novels) were more for me, as I matured, my ideas matured and we arrived here in Any How Town.


Any How Town has come so quickly to me in the past couple of weeks, two things were the starting point, "the Orrow Water Bottling Plant" and our "missions" in Afghanistan and Iraq. I was reading a blog written by a soldier on his return from Iraq and it was the language the he used that struck a chord, this guy was at least ten years younger than me (I am on the cusp of turning 37) and he was describing a life I could not understand, so immediately I got stuck on the idea of boys coming back from a war. "Orrow Water" was the next idea, a water bottling plant, I'm not sure where this came from, but I knew it would be a primary industry in this world I was creating, so I bought a sketchbook and dedicated an hour or so a day to creating, "Any How Town"

*This should be the last entry you read but since blogs run upside down, you will get to this part last.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

 

More Horoscopes from the mangled minds of Any How Town

(I never know where to write these things) So I'll put one here now, The fella above this awkwardly placed (maybe I'll change the alignment from now on so the image is to the left and text on the right) information is McGiveny Brigg. When Col. Reusille Hulks lowered the age of the draft in the Last Great War to fourteen years old to swell the ranks for the Last Great Charge, he also opened up the gates of Lancehead prison, conscripting all of the prisoners. McGiveny fit both criteria, so he got to be platoon leader. He's as crafty as they come, and if you don't think he's crafty, well, he'll just cut ya.

Janvia Magetal is the Engineer of AHT, one of the more settled minds, if there's a project chances are even the men of AHT will let her take charge, a natural gift for numbers and all that stuff. When her hands got blown off fixing some artillery, she just took it in stride and went to work on her next project, building herself a set of hands, actually sets of hands, that she carries in many trunks in her mobile workshop.

Gardan families have strange names, Murder, Maim and Maihem are there equivalents of John, Steve and Mark. Murder walks a fine line in AHT he was a young Gardan who fought on our side in THE LAST GOOD WAR. Folks in AHT still eye him strangely and the Gardan compounds don't want him around. He'd tell you this himself, but Marcelin Gargan and Mother High Dispaten cut out his tongue. He had become Janvia Magetal's loyal assistant.

The monks of Osolin Sugar worship the Circle and the space inside it. The monks keep to themselves at a monastery up in the hills, many soldiers who have come back from either THE LAST GOOD WAR or THE FIRST GOOD WAR end up going there to face their demons, some even stay (see. Handelin Games of Birthplace Mighty and Secure). If pounding sugar cane and stirring boiling pots, trying to draw a perfect circle and red scarves get your buns hummin' the Osolin Sugar Monastery is your destination.

"Socada" first we have to define the word "Socoda" see, in AHT there are LOTS of ghosts I'm talkin' loads of ghosts, there are the ghosts of dead sailors, the ghosts of dead lovers, the ghosts of dead dogs, the ghosts of dead murderers (see Lancehead prison) etc.etc. It's when we get to the ghosts of dead Indians (see Greenpoints) that the word "Socoda" becomes important, the Greenpoints natives use that term to describe their warrior spirits and since there are so many kinds of ghosts in AHT we have adopted the name as well to distinguish our wartime dead from all the other kinds of dead that we have. Socada Rhimas was the first soldier killed in THE FIRST GOOD WAR, most spirits of the wartime dead moved on when the War ended so many short months ago, but he's stayed in AHT, talking with his daughter, Allis, who hasn't told the rest of us why he's still here.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Encore avec les "folks"

Stenhouse Newhouse was a soldier in the First Good War, a member of one of the founding families of Any How Town, he was ambushed by a Gardan Raiding Party, beaten and left for dead. He was nursed back to health in the forests of Any How Town by badgers and skunks. He does venture into Any How Town to have a few beers and tell you just what the badgers and skunks think of you, which isn't much apparently.

There are few people I fear in Any How Town, I've seen too much to be afraid anymore, but I am deathly afraid of Mother High Dispaten, the true leader of the Gargan families that live in AHT, she's a bonafide war criminal who walks these streets uncontested. Many of tried to kill or apprehend her and collect the sizable reward on her head, none have succeeded.

Eaglet Rainland loves to come into AHT from the Green Point's forest and ask people questions, she's fascinated with all aspects of life in AHT. She's a bit of a mascot to us, that's a good thing as many of us need someone innocent in our lives.

the Donmark Patient is talking in her sleep.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Again with the folks!

Merriman Harrigan is the town Arsonist, he is also the leader of the Volunteer Fire Department in A.H.T. What can I say, the guy loves fire, he's burned about 60 % of his body in various fires, he'd hoped to have burnt more, but apparently he still has lots of time.

NOTE CHANGES: Oliver Sinson is one of the seemingly innumerable Stinsons living around Any How Town. He and Sinawa Eaglet Rainland are pretty much insperable, but whereas Eaglet just asks alot of questions, Oliver just talks and talks nonstop without pause. Some people lock there doors in Any How Town to keep out the "bad" elements, I do it to keep Oliver from getting in.

Allis Rhimas is a waitress at the Monday Hatred and a low level psychic, she can read short phrases in your mind, but she can also project into the mind also, which helps to explain why her shifts are the busiest. She spends alof of her time off talking to the ghostly apparition of her father, Socoda Rhimas, the first man killed in the Last Good War.

Time McGavin, from his notes.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

More folks

Sinawa Bullet of Greenpoint

"This guy just wants to kill you."

McGiveny Brigg

(Sinawa Bullet is the son of Cold Offering, one of the Elders of the Greenpoint Tribe, he is highly suspicious of Towners and will follow them and taunt them if they cross into Green Point lands.

Time McGavin is the Editor of the Fallen Informal, Any How Town's local newspaper (more on this later.)
EDIT Now named "Shanley McGavin and the newspaper is "The Fallen and the Formal"

Urbanfleet Carinta and her "special friend" Urbanfleet Effingham are famous athletes in the Mallory States, stars of the All Women Street Ball league. They come to Any How Town to train in the off season, they do this by carrying men home from the bars for a small fee. Sometimes there is nothing more comforting to a drunk than the sight of an eight foot tall lesbian with a tattooed face.

News from A.Shay Hahn: Hey readers sorry that I haven't filled in the character reports in as much detail as I did below. Originally I was uploading this material to Facebook, writing the character bits and then just pasting them onto this site. I have since taken down the Facebook site as their Terms of Service state that there is a question of ownership as to work uploaded to Facebook allowing them to subliscense your photos, info etc. Well, as a creator and holder of intellectual property I can't have this, or abide it, so I removed every image of my work, of course there is a "Ghost Site" where Facebook has this work, I'm no fool, but the less of me they have access to the better. I know that anything you upload to the Internet can be "Stolen" but the less places that can happen, the better.
We have finished three "Shorts" in script form and starting next week, hopefully by next Friday, we'll have ten more character shots (like these) original concept sketches and we will be starting our first pages of Any How Town.
best,
A.S.H

Happy Valentine's Day

Harmony of Moody

Any How Town has an abundance of bands. Being a musician, a fishermen or joining the military are probably the three most prevalent occupations in A.H.T. Of the solo performers in town no one can out sing Harmony of Moody, whose performances veer from ecstatic songs songs of eternal love, to crushing ballads of love lost and murder. Harmony of Moody keeps to herself and will never discuss how she got the wound on her breast, just above her heart, that never seems to heal....Happy Valentine's Day from A.S Hahn

Our Hero and some other folks

The Donmark patient, my constant companion, she just washed up on the rocks one day, battered and beaten and so beautiful. The Aucassin boys brought her to me, half alive and full of seawater, they found her just out past the shelf. I hated to have to cut her hair off, but her head was so cut up, I was like sewing up a baseball. We've put up notices everywhere, but no one has come. So there she lays still, and beautiful, like a flawed painting.

from the notes of Banyah Butler, M.D

Ah Geez, The Dep, thefishblackenpants, the Baldy, The Poo Diggler, The Deep Sea Dip Stick, I spend so much quality time with this nutter I can see right through him, well, I can see through lots of things, like time and the colour green, when the moon is at a certain tilt in the sky he looks like a skunk or half a hot crosss bun or a black and white photo of a black and white photo...someday they will write a song about Black Fish, but you can't see it, it will be way deep down in the water, where the moon looks like a stripe.

as relayed by "Remover Jacobs"

Of the three Medina Brothers, Saner is my favourite, he asks me to help him go on all kinds of errands to find things that people need. Some of the crates even have his name on them, which is rare. I know his brothers Sane and Saneste don't approve, maybe that's why he lives in the Hotel and the other two are lawyers, I don't know, family is complicated.

Brinker Ellis

He's a great boy, a war hero you know, just like all those boys that Commander Hulks sent after the Gargans at the Last Charge. I feel for him too, he's real sensitive about those scars. I don't have the nerve to tell him he wasn't that pretty to start with. But if you need a friend or someone to lend a hand, in Any How Town you can't do much better than Brinker Ellis.

Time McGavin, Editor of the Fallen Informal