Spielbergian Petting Zoo

It's been a few days since I've written anything for AHT and I really hated being away from it, that's what tells me that I'm on the right track doing this project now at this time. I was finishing a couple of commissions and all I could think was that I'd be able to get back to writing soon. It's a good feeling, dinking around in Book Three of the series right now, rebooting the beginning of the book, had two good intros but actually figured out through the nuts and bolts that I have to COMBINE the two, so that's today and tomorrow's work.
 This may be the final work at the Press Club (850 Dundas West) to see my work there, check what's on the walls at the link "the mad craft shoppe".
 Enjoyed the last Harry Potter movie but was disappointed at the things they left out, the ghosts weren't involved, the crazy desks running after Death Eaters and of course The Boars.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

A Victory Dance is still premature, but a jig will do for now

If I work diligently today and don't check twitter every few minutes I may be able to get to the end of the first draft of Book Two of Any How Town, I'm at about 200 long hand pages and the story is rapidly approaching it's conclusion. I've got about 126 pages of book one finished and about 15 of Book Three, yes there are notes cards scattered about everywhere but this method of writing 3/4 of the first story arc simultaneously was the only way I could really chart everything properly.
 I was sitting outside this morning thinking how glad I am that I did take the time (two years) before actually writing the books, it has changed so much, it began as a graphic novel about shell shocked teens (see:Brinker Ellis, Giveny Brigg, Wash, Denny etc.) and became a story about discovery. Having Oliver and Eaglet as the central characters really opened everything up from me. That's not to say that in time there won't be a story told from say, Brinker's (the original main character of the series) point of view, AHT is a place full of stories but to introduce the town, it's citizens and the surrounding lands it was great to do it from a kid's perspective.
 So wish me luck, let's get this thing on paper
 A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Things That I Gurantee, Will Keep the Pages Turning! #5

Returning stolen goods! That's right, if it doesn't belong them Olly and Eaglet will find it's rightful owner.

 As a side note I'm sure most of you have seen this but if not, please check out "Zombie Zombie" a stop motion homage to John Carpenter's "The Thing" using G.I.Joes, it's incredibly well done and does make me a little bit curious about doing my own stop motion work, wonderful stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT7AH4JyuNs

That's all for today

 cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Things That I Gurantee, Will Keep the Pages Turning! #4

New Friends! Wherever these two go they always seem to end up making friends, (mind you they make a heck of a lot of enemies to) they can't help it, they have a natural charisma about them. What agents call the "it" factor.
This photo will be soon available as a TShirt for sale at this site.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com
and please remember to head to the Press Club to see work from "the Royal Families", the Press Club is located at 850 Dundas West, Toronto. My work will be there for the month of July, you can see what's there by clicking the link "the mad craft shoppe". I"m trying to fund this project with my own paintings please have a look, I'm sure you'll see many you like.

Things That I Gurantee, Will Keep the Pages Turning! #3

NON STOP FOILING! Oliver and Eaglet are full time Foilers to the nth degree ? Got an evil plan, they will foil it for you!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

and please remember to head to the Press Club to see work from "the Royal Families", the Press Club is located at 850 Dundas West, Toronto. My work will be there for the month of July, you can see what's there by clicking the link "the mad craft shoppe". I"m trying to fund this project with my own paintings please have a look, I'm sure you'll see many you like.

Things That I Gurantee, Will Keep the Pages Turning! #2

 Non Stop Beasty Attacks! These kids do an insane amount of cardio! Inspiring to the youth!

Slimy (and non slimy) beasties! Like the Sinbad movies!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

and please remember to head to the Press Club to see work from "the Royal Families", the Press Club is located at 850 Dundas West, Toronto. My work will be there for the month of July, you can see what's there by clicking the link "the mad craft shoppe". I"m trying to fund this project with my own paintings please have a look, I'm sure you'll see many you like.

Things That I Gurantee, Will Keep the Pages Turning! #1

Empty crates with words written on the upside down!

What were the contents ? Why was there raw meat inside?

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

and please remember to head to the Press Club to see work from "the Royal Families", the Press Club is located at 850 Dundas West, Toronto. My work will be there for the month of July, you can see what's there by clicking the link "the mad craft shoppe". I"m trying to fund this project with my own paintings please have a look, I'm sure you'll see many you like.

 

Mandatory and Therapeutic Exposure to Rats

Here's our intrepid crew led by Wash Stinson heading through the "goofy" gassed filled sewers, and what do we find in sewers? Tons and giant rats. Wash, Eaglet, Oliver and Denny brave the tunnels in the Second Book of the Any How Town series, not sure of what they'll find or if their shoes will ever be clean again!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

A Three Dimensional Version of Writer's Block.

believe it or not, this actually helped get me out of tight spot in Book Two.
A.Shay Hahn

Name That Mangy Squirrel! Neil Gaiman Totem Animal Theft

Here's Violet a beautiful pup that I  was dog sitting the other day, Violet was well behaved for being left alone with a weirdo she'd only met once before in her young life, her only display of dissatifaction with her circumstances was tearing a very young Hydrangea to pieces. Violet reminds me of Cabal who Neil Gaiman often posts about on his blog (I'm sorry I forget the name of the other dog he recently adopted).
 Also on fb I had a "Name that Mangy Squirrel" contest and the winning name is Nick Nolte! I'm partail just to calling him Nolte but its a fine choice, congrats to the winner.
 Today has been pretty good wrote a lot of pages and am currently working my way up to the next chase/action scene and in the AHT books there are many chases and many action scenes, each different from the last.
 hope your day is going well
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Not Wanted on the Voyage, Fuzzy Cuddly Animal Edition

Here's another constant companion that is with me as I write Any How Town. I don't know if you'are aware of this but in the West End of Toronto there's a famous white squirrel who has both a cafe named after him and a "Way" (which is like a lane, but shorter I guess). In the East End, I have this guy,  I am starting a contest, whoever names him, gets to KEEP HIM! Note: You must catch him yourself.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

A Conference of Dragons

A few years ago my mother wrote a great photo book for my nephews about the adventures of two dragons, Rusty and Two Two as they went on an adventure through her back garden and ended up at my old Castle Greyskull to talk to a king. This summer at our family cottage everyone is bringing their dragons and we're going to do another photo book together, which I think is going to be a great activity. The dragons go down to the water, take a trip in a motorboat or a canoe, explore a forest and get in all kinds of mischief. But as the date approaches I found myself getting a bit nervous, I dug through my piles of plastic animals and realized much to my shock that I had no dragons, I had tigers and antelopes, sharks and all kinds of beasties that I'd created myself, but no dragons. Well like the proverbs say, "Ask the Dollar Store and you shall receive" so I'm not going up empty dragon handed, I now have this guy to add to the story, now all he needs is a name.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

This is more than just a funny picture of a plastic dragon arriving at a party.

Check this guy out! Obviously it's time to stop typing and start handwriting.
 Here are just a few notes about me and what I do.
 My name is A.Shay Hahn I'm an artist in Toronto, I'm mostly known as a painter (see my other blog, "the mad craft shoppe") I currently have work hanging at the Press Club (850 Dundas West) all the while that I've been painting I've been building an entire city out of wooden bits and popsicle sticks and populating it with a series of characters that I've been developing over the past two years, yes I have lots of experience with writing, I've written several plays that were produced in Ontario and Vancouver and am also a published poet, got a gift for the gab, but have been focusing on painting for the past five years or so.
 I decided that this summer was the time to start writing the series, "Any How Town" which you can read all about here (yes, down there.) I'm currently writing the first two books of the series and have plotted the first four, and then the second arc in the series is being developed also.
 If I were to describe the books I'd say that they are adventure stories for everyone, if you like Indiana Jones, Enid Blyton, The Borribles, Winston Churchill, The Star Wars Trilogy etc. you will enjoy Any How Town. Currently  doing research about epublishing, but I'd also like to add illustrations to the books, my own paintings and sketches (creative control, I'm all about it) so more research on these platforms will have to be done.
 Please check out my artwork, I'm trying to raise enough money through sales to pay my rent over the summer and keep working.
best, thanks for reading
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Now I'm not saying this is the next Harry Potter, but I am thinking it.

Here's another of our lab experiments gone wrong. I've been creating an entire fauna for Any How Town over the past year, each slowly getting introduced book by book and that's what is driving me crazy. I want to let everyone see these crazy animals, but I can't, it would spoil too many things. So instead you'll have to make do with these rejected prototypes, which I still might take to the painted stage. You'll just have to come back and check.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com
my horoscope says to beware touting my own brilliance today, but I thought that's what the Internet was for ?

Pained and Difficult Introductions in Book Three

I've been looking forward to look back lately, writing beginning notes and jumping off points to help colour and inform the BIG, BIG story arc of Any How Town, it's interesting how things can suddenly take a turn for the serious, I though that Book Three would begin with some levity, but it's impossible to begin with levity when such adult events ended the Second Book.
lesson learned,
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Constant companions along the way (Warning May Contain Nostalgia)

Remember these notebooks ? I almost teared up when I saw them at a Dollar Store (again with the Dollar Stores!) on the Danforth, had to buy an armload. I carried these things everywhere with me as a kid, I kept notes on my favourite Micronauts in them if I remember correctly and of course of constant companion, the other Mr.Hahn. It's nice to have these blogging breaks when I've had a blank, I'm really enjoying writing this series as individual books, but they also contain a mystery that spans over four books, originally I'd plotted three books, but there was alot of extra fun that I wanted tied to the central story so we expanded to a fourth and then of course consequently there are now notes for a fifth and sixth book where the first mystery is solved and a more immediate and far more dangerous mystery begins. Having a great time with Any How Town, there's no shortage of fun characters to give voice to and action sequences (tons of action sequences) to plot.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Peter Beard flies over a Dollarama

Alright, alright, that's enough I have 25 pages to get out in longhand today before I can even think of starting to glue these guys together.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

If there's a map, it's real, cont'd

I didn't think that it would be difficult naming streets, but the truth is, well it's harder than I thought it would be, I decided to give a finite number of N/S running streets that would be 1 - 25th, the others I'd give names that would reflect the different neighbourhoods and small districts of AHT. Then, as I need them I've started plugging in the businesses and their names, the occupants of apartments etc. Expect this map to grow and get more messy as time goes on. For each book I will draw a map that goes into detail about the area as the books seem to take place in very specific locations, each location building on the overall hidden mystery of AHT. Just call me an amateur cartographer for now, and of course, all locations are subject to change.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Experiments Gone Horribly Wrong Pt. II

I also want to make sure that the kids speak as children their age do, if a kid is smarter, yes, his vocabulary will be larger, I hate the talking typewriter children that have been in TV and films over the past five years. It's not my bag, in these books the kids vocabulary grows as they discover and are introduced to new things, just like in life.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Experiments Gone Horribly Wrong in the Any How Town Laboratory

Note I don't know if I coined the term, "Farm Punk", or "Adventure Farm Punk" but they may be useful when describing the technology of Any How Town it's very 1920's very steam powered vehicles, but also gas powered vehicles, not sure, haven't done much research into the genre, sure people in AHT wear goggles, but only when they need them.
 A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Cornered by the BONEYARD DOGS!

Just a couple more fun shots of Olly Stinson cornered by the massive and ferocious Boneyard Dogs!
 A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

We're at Chapter 12 of the First Book!

Oh no! Oliver Stinson, Sinawa Eaglet, Schutzy the Police Shepherd and the stranger known as

 Twenty Fossil Duncan have been surrounded outside Twenty Fossil's camp by the vicious pack of man eaters known as "the Boneyard Dogs"! What will happen ? Who will rescue them ?

That's right we have come a long ways from the Upper Market of Any How Town our young heroes are in a really tight spot now backed up against the cliff walls near the old Harcourt Mine!

I've been writing nonstop for days now and it's coming along really well. I gave myself a foolish deadline of

trying to finish the first book by the 10th of July and after doing this I immediately got stuck, so I decided

to stage the scene I was writing and see if any new ideas came my way.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

The Upper Market, We Have Begun BOOK ONE!

I have started blasting away at the old lap top, writing the first book of the Any How Town Stories, this scene is going on right beside my lap top as I write this! Here is our hero Olly Stinson and his mother Ennus arriving at the Upper Market to unload a bunch of chickens to sell to Leod, of Leod's Reckoning Hook, the upper market butcher. Right behind them are Olly's oldest brothers, Wash and Denny ready to grab their Olly and hang him upside down.
In the upper photo you can see one of the young monk's of the Osolin Sugar Monastery and over to the left one of the soldier's who guard the main gate to Any How Town.
back to work! Six books to go!
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com