Sea Jack and Salvage Team, diffterent Steam Jacks

Will update this entry soon too! I promise

Sputterjack Racing!

Sputterjack racers (I'll write the full entry soon, when I finish the last two, that's right there's FIVE of them!)

More Cool Stuff

I'll write some stuff here later, I promise. Just lots to finish in the studio before Holidays.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Meanwhile, over on Turtle Island

I have yet to name this character, but I had wanted to do a riff on the "Floating Head in a Tank on the body of a Gorilla" villain, (see. Hellboy). It's not because I think it's stupid, I think it's great. This character had his head grafted to a monkey's body so he could better research the monkeys, he is that committed to his work. Mostly, this was just alot of fun to make, and really hard to photograph due to the "shiny, shiny" plastic that holds the head.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Even more vehicles and cool, cool stuff

I've been finishing off some more vehicles in between working on paintings, actually that's a lie, I'm just building vehicles and little set piece areas right now, I'm pretty sick of painting every day, and I hurt my finger which makes holding the brush a painful experience, but here are the vehicles and they are finally finished.

TOP: This is one of Saner Medina's delivery vehicles out scouting the countryside for stranded motorists who need gas or warm drinks.

2) This was an idea I had sketched a couple of times and will get a mini feature story somewhere in the next couple of months, this is a popular, but extremely dangerous way to navigate the waters surrounding Any How Town, this, is SHARK BOAT!

3) I builit a couple more Big Hogs, you just can't have enough of them if you want to get back and forth anywhere in the Mallory States.

4) These two lost pigs just ran into a Gardan War Jack! (on a side note, I will get around to adding some big hands onto all the "steam jack" based figures, I just haven't done it yet.)

expect some more stuff this week, thanks for your interest

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

The Temple of the Turtle

This was great fun to build and alot easier than I thought, the Temple is three pieces, a "cap" with a hole cut in it (where the Green Points Indian Warrior is standing) a section below that painted like a small river and then the section with the dude in grey. I liked working with levels for this "temple" layout. There will be more about this story later, today I'm relaxing by finishing off a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of other vehicles, a four wheeler, two motorcycles and a couple of very special vehicles that I'm really excited about.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

(of course it goes without saying that all these images and characters are my property.)

more buildings and a truck

Here are a few more Dickensian looking buildings that I've been working on while finishing paintings for the Press Club show. I hang the show Wednesday and you can come by for an Early Bird viewing from 6:30-8pm, after that is the Pivot reading series. The Opening Reception is on Friday, Dec. 3rd from 6:30- 9:30pm, it would be great to see you there.

My current and hopeful thinking is to do well enough this week to have the cash saved to work on Any How Town for the rest of the month of December and into January, I'm sure I could get "Black Tie" finished by then, it's about an 18 -20 page story, so I think I could get it done. I attended the launch of this locally published comic, http://www.twentytworeasons.com/liberated-ink-comics/ and that was very inspiring. I've also started thumbnailing and notes for the second story I'd like to do that takes place in the busy local bar.

Today I hope to have another cool "Steam Jack" suit finished, this time it's a Gargan piece, so it's more of a suit geared for war, I'll probably work on another building too while waiting for paint/glue to dry.

exciting times, glad you're along for the ride

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Buildings and more buildings

Sorry I haven't been here in awhile folks, very busy getting stuff ready for (50) my next show of paintings, the Opening Reception is at the Press Club on Friday, December 3rd, from 6-9pm, you can read about it over on my blog, "the mad craft shoppe". I have not been drawing, I've done some thumbnailing for a new story while at the pub but have been busy with commissions and paintings, I also think I'm out of illy board, so I have to go get more of that.

I have been building alot of well, buildings while I wait for paint to dry so expect to see a bunch of small structures being posted at this site. I really enjoyed watching, Harry Potter and the Whatever of Whatever and so I decided to build a little alley of shops with a Dickensian look, an older part of Any How Town, you can even drive your coal cart through the arch, pretty cool.

talk soon, there is much to do

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Marwencol, official trailer

This is the trailer for "Marwencol" a documentary that I'm hopefully going to see this weekend, I'd seen a few of his photos featured on another blog and now it's playing at the Bell Lightbox over the next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNKPEp6aEqQ

back to it,

A.Shay Hahn

Page Six

Here's what I think is page six, it might be five or seven, I did some story element rearranging yesterday, but this is my learning about sequential panels and of course, how to draw cats. I cannot believe how long it takes to draw and ink, and with the inkng I keep returning to certain panels to darken or lighten certain lines, it really is the genius of comics.

The figure at the bottom is "Remover Jacobs" you can read about him in the character profiles section of this blog.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

"Black Tie" Vol. One of Any How Town

I started it last night, sat down at the easel grabbed my pens and blue pencils and starting drawing the first page of "Black Tie" the first story from Any How Town. You don't know how happy this makes me, I have been wanting to do this for so long, I thought I'd have time to take off a month earlier this year, that didn't work out. You see all I do is make art, I don't have a day job except to paint pictures and chase money all over town, so it always feels like there will never be the money to get this started, to get that chance and have a break from painting and stressing out,but now, I figured out that there is TIME and I just have to trust that the money will come. I have no choice, I have to get this done, I don't care what happens, I made a promise that I'd have three things published by the time I'm Forty and I turn 39 in March, so here we go.

I've been feeling like I have a virus/cold that I haven't been able to kick for a couple of weeks, I think that I'm better and go out and then I feel weak again, so folks, I am not going out. I'm staying in evenings and can hopefully get one page fully inked and another drawn in every night for the month of November.

I won't be posting the entire comic online, that will come later when the first Volume is finished, I may approach a comic company to publish it so I can't have all the material here for free, but if you keep coming back you will get a full sense of what "Black Tie" is about, and if you scroll down to the character bios, past the dioramas, you'll be able to read about some of the players who appear in this issue.

Please hop on over to "the mad craft shoppe" if you want to look at paintings, find out about locations of shows in the city etc.

A.Shay Hahn

Salvage Teams

Any How Town is a busy place, full of resilient people, pictured here are one of the many freelance salvage teams who are clearing out the harbour and surrounding waters of all the destroyed ships that were sunk during the Last Good War. If you're wondering, "Is that a boar ?" Yes, it is. Only this team, lead by Palmer Caldeno (top left) and his right hand man Atwood Pinkola have a boar in their employ and also the massive Red Aucassin has joined his crew. To find out just what that story is, stay tuned. It may be the first of the Any How Town illustrated comics that I hope to do.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Big Suits!

Like I said either on this blog or over on fb, there's no point in building just one, you may as well make two, so here is another Big Suit/ Exo Ripley/ Steam Jack thing. I still have to figure out the hands, I'm thinking that I'll buy a larger figure at the Dollar Store and give each of these guys one of his hands, for the other mitt, I did go to a Toys R Us to do some pricing and they have these Jurassic Park figures that come with "grabbers" for grabbing Dinosaurs or whatever so I may buy those and attach them, currently they are out of my price range, please remember that spending over TWO dollars on anything to build these things defeats Rule #1 of Any How Town which is ,

1) Nothing Over Two Dollars.

I'm thinking of finally assembling a nice sized street scene and doing some sketches/ story boards and showing that process here. I think that would be cool, but first I have to make a wee bit of scratch and go antiquing with my long neglected girlfriend.

later nerds,

A.Shay Hahn

madcrafshoppe@live.com

Big Ol' Hogs and a shop to fix them in

There's lots of different ways around Any How Town, horses, boar, dogs, trucks, cars, jeeps and all kinds of bicycles, but the favourite has got to the be the Hog, and Hogs need repairs, and a rooftop pigeon coop to meditate at when your hog just ain't gettin' fixed quick enough.

I have a bunch of buildings on the go and it's nice to count this one as "almost finished.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

All Kinds of Vehicles and cool schtuff.

Boneyard Dogs, and then there were three

So here we have three Boneyard Dogs, I've been looking at some modder sites (people who cut up toys and make new toys out of them) and I'm (once again) kind of on my own, people tend to reproduce figures that already exist, mostly superheroes, so I'm kind of unique doing my own creations. They also tell you what bits come from where, if it's interesting I'll do this in the future.

When it comes to this shot, the dogs themselves are from a dollar store in the East End, that figure is a G.I Joe Baroness, who I have yet to alter, but will to probably make her Mother High Dispaten (see character profiles below) the dinos are these great $2.00 Dollarama kits that I have been cutting up and mixing and matching to fit onto the dogs. The newest one, which is on the right has a skull piece that was hot glued together out of two different sets to give it a different head piece, if they were all triceratops it would be dull, I have one more of these to finish and will then be moving on.

I am really going a little crazy getting everything started for my annual Christmas show of paintings at the Press Club (see madcraftshoppe links) when I'd really just rather be drawing these short comic chapters for Any How Town. I should also clarify, I think "online comic" should be changed, the comic will not be posted on this site, I will have it properly printed but here is where character info, models, sketches and thoughts will be compiled for you to enjoy the creation of 'Any How Town" to it's fullest.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Boneyard Dog

The advantage of building everything from kits/toys from the dollar store is that if you feel a model works if you want to produce more, it doesn't cost a heck of alot. This Boneyard Dog will soon have a pack to run with, the concept just turned out so well. The "zombie" figure beside him is actually one of the "Aucassin" family (see Any How Town the boy band entry) but just repurposed here for the sake of the photo.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Bounty Rhino

This is the Bounty Rhino, current thoughts are that it belongs to Stenhouse Newhouse (see Character profiles) who uses him to carry captured Gargans into The Mallory State or to the Any How Town Sheriff's Dept. (see. Deputy Blackfish). I'm really glad it's Hallowe'en so I can buy piles of skulls to add to these guys.

A.S.Hahn

Holy Cow and Pig Copter

Here are two more folks that move about "Any How Town" if I ever get a chance to draw this thing and get it going, any support, financial or otherwise would be greatly appreciated. The top image is a gig poster that I did for "Milk Run" (see, the mad craft shoppe label :Pub Life Sketches) that kind of stayed in my head.

"I have recently lowered the prices on the work at the Press Club, I am trying to raise some money to take a month away from painting to work on my graphic novel "Any How Town" (see Links section of this blog).

I've scripted and thumbnailed three short stories and I would love a chance to get to finally draw them. I thought I would have the time/savings at the end of The Cameron House show to do this project, but there were some delays that made that impossible. So if you have always wanted a framed piece of my work but found it too expensive, you can buy work at the Press Club. I am not lowering the prices because I think the work is bad, I am offering a savings to you to help me complete a project that I've been developing for over a year and a half. You can purchase the work directly from the staff at the Press Club."

-from "the madcraft shoppe" blog
all the best, hope to hear from you
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Grave Robbin' Voodoo Dog!

Currently laid up ill and working on small things from my bed, like this awesome little guy who is part of a larger Hallowe'en themed piece.

gotta go vomit,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Dioaramas currently in Progress

Top, Haunted Cottage, Warehouse side wall, Fire Truck, Graveyard Shift (the mouse house),

Gator Rides Fifty Cents

This is just the tip of the iceberg for the dioaramas that I'm building of Any How Town, as they are completed you'll be able to see sections of the town come together. Time consuming and a little crazy, but exciting nonetheless.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com