Harryhausen, Dixon and Mayer - Influences

Yesterday I mentioned that I would list some of my influences, I know that I've talked alot about current comic book writers here but for this post I wanted to go farther back all the way back to the beginning. It didn't take anytime at all for me to choose these three fellows as the real formative influences in my young life.

Ray Harryhausen is an obvious choice, if you remember the Sinbad films you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yes, Star Wars was cool but the Harryhausen films were remarkable stories for a young kid to watch, there was sorcery, swashbuckling and incredible beasts, my father would always let me know when one was playing on TV and I would sit and stare at the screen, I wouldn't budge until I was sure the film was over and they amaze me to this day.

The second book was my constant companion and the best birthday gift I have ever received.

I come from a familiy of readers and my parents had no problem buying this book for me when I was just a kid. I carried this book everywhere, I can even remember the day I thought I lost it, I carried it in a milk bag inside my napsack just to make sure it never got wet. I also have "The Future Is Wild" TV series from a few years ago and I was thrilled to see Dougal Dixon's name listed as a collaborator on the show. Like Harryhausen, Dougal Dixon's fabulous beasts of the future was a huge influence and is a big part of why the animals in AHT are so unique.

Mercer Mayer's drawings captivated me from such a young age, as soon as I found his section in the kids part of the library it was where you could always expect me to go first. I love this book, he would always include funny things happening all of the page and crazy names for stores and characters. I think he'd like AHT, he'd probably see his influence for sure.

just a quick post, hope you see some old friends here too.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Puppy Headed Vegaroos! OR Day of the Do Over

I guess you'll have to click on some of the pics to enlarge them, for some reason (so confused) Blogger posted them in a descending order in size, which is not the case at all, maybe they will show differently in the post.

Yesterday was a difficult day in the land of final drafts, so much tweaking over about 20 pages most of the day was lost, not actually lost because the work needed to be done, I just would have liked to have accomplished more. Luckily today things are progressing as they should and I even had time to reinforce my neighbours belief that I am absolutely nuts by getting outside to shoot these photos.

I think the next few posts here are going to be about my influences, all the way back to being a kid, and how certain books, comic books, films, people and artists led me to the creation of Any How Town.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Tetratlogies

Here are some quick scribbles I did of Eaglet while out and about trying to decide on her "war paint" although I know that's the wrong term.

Yesterday was a great day here in Book One, I managed to do the final edits on the first 50 pages of Book One, which was pretty easy as they are the most overwritten and reworked, so that got my confidence really high about today. Well it's been five hours and I've only gotten through about 20 pages, so much for great progress.

My personal deadline is Saturday for finishing everything in Book One, wow, I just completely gapped out on why I started this post. I'll have to come back to it.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Backyard Dioarama Photos, almost finished this draft.

Here's Part Two of today's posts. In the early days of building these little wooden vehicles and buildings I used to shoot them in front of a simple painted back drop of a sky on my fridge in front of the microwave at my old apartment. The lighting was terrible and never really "sold" the photos, they just looked flat and had a horrible yellow tinge, there are many examples of these in the 2010 blog posts.

Taking all these bits into the back garden and shooting them there has improved the lighting immensely and also adds a great sense of "realism" to these very unreal photos, having all the leaves and dirt around is great and the budding plants make fine trees and add alot of depth. 

So above is the Hillbilly garage with a figure (hey Frodo!) and a vehicle and other bits, a barrel, a pile of wooed et. set pieces that help flesh out the environment, and of course a loyal dog (very important to the AHT world, dogs are everywhere and main characters in the stories).

I like to get low, lying down on the ground and just click off about twenty different shots, it's always exciting to find good angles when you shoot the dioramas, I think having the dog in the foreground works really well.

In Any How Town news I've passed the 51000 word mark for this draft, I figure it will be about 53 000 words when I finish this draft and then do one more big punch up of the text next week and then write the query letter.

I'm pretty exhausted from working on the project, can't wait until I'm finished, I'll take a day off and then jump right back into Book Two. The book has everything lots of action, plenty of jokes and some pretty colourful and unique characters, everything a person could want in an adventure.

Cheers!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Building A Popsicle Stick Garage, Hillbilly Style

This is a two or three part post with these pics I wanted to show how to build a simple, but really great looking, weathered and beaten down building, something you might stumble upo if you were lost in a swamp.

As you can see from this pieces is made of three things, popsicle sticks, tongue depressors and some really skinny dowels or broken off barbecuse skewers.

What really sells this a a mouldy shack is how it's painted, just adding that mouldy green (made of yellow ochre and a bit of black) to give a sense that lichen is growing on the metal shed.

The first picture is a front view, the second is the back where you can see it follows a lot of the same principles I demonstrated in the "Build A Popsicle Stick House" tutorial.

The side views help show how breaking some of your sticks/depressors, can give a look of something old and beaten up or assembled from scraps.

The base is covered as always in the end bits from popsicle sticks and other leftovers, glued in place and then basecoated with a brown/green mix and then certain pieces were highlighted to pop them out.

The only trick for this build was the roof, I took two tongue depressors and put them side by side and then covered them lightly with glue, I wrapped them in paper towel and let it dry. This made a "hinge" that I was able to attach to the top of the roof to give it a slant. Very easily done and looks great.

In the Any How Town Book Series I am almost finished Book One, the action has hit its peak and over the next few days I'll be polishing the ending making sure the tone is right and every question that was brought up in the beginning of the book is answered, well, not every question, the mystery of course continues into Book Two, Three and Four.

Speaking of Book Three and Four I was able to also get alot of writing done in Book Three and Four yesterday evening and there is some great stuff that will be coming in those books and I can't wait to get to them.

Send us your queries, comments and your own popsicle stick photos, I'd love to see them.

NEXT POST ; Back garden photoshoots!

It's windy out there, keep your hats on!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com
follow me on twitter or "like" my fb page "Andrew Shay Hahn (the mad craft shoppe)"
 to keep up to date on new posts.



Helicopters, Tetralogies and Warm Weather

Here are two whirlybirds that I built, I'm not entirely sure if helicopters exist in the world of AHT, they have a hard enough time keeping planes in the air so this technology may have to wait awhile.

I'm struggling through the last few chapters right now, there are alot of different people in play, kung fu monks, giant dogs, voracious lizards and armed gangs of thugs are all running around the side of a mountain and it is so important to keep it all clear for the reader so it's taking a little longer than I thought it would to get this draft finished.

On the upside I was outside doing some rewrites in Book Two and Three yesterday afternoon and it felt great to sit outside at my writing table where I spent the summer writing the first drafts of the three books of Any How Town, I made a decision that felt right. I'm just going to keep working on Book Two as soon as I finish this draft of Book One. I don't have to produce any new paintings for awhile, my next show at the Cameron House isn't until November and I have a ton of sketches ready for that so I'm just going to write as much as I can for the next three months, it's the right thing to do.

 I'm so excited to get into Book Two, the book is full of mystery and action and you get to meet an even more expanded and eccentric cast of characters, I was laughing so hard at some parts I had tears in my eyes.

Book Three is shaping up really nicely and the notes for the final part of this adventure in Any How Town are being compiled, it's one heck of a ride.

So head to the Press Club or The Wilson 96 (See the other blog, "The mad craft shoppe") to check out my artwork, maybe you'll see something you like, all purchases are going to keeping this project alive.

cheers, enjoy the weather

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter to be alerted when new tutorials, dioramas, drawings and other Any How Town news is posted!

Popsicle Stick Buildings and Books

I haven't built the doors for this piece yet, not sure why, guess it just got lost in the shuffle. This is a two sided building which is genius because it gives options for dioramas and also doesn't take up too much space.

The only really thing wrong with this build is that it's really tall, at least 18 inches and that makes it quite a bit taller than any of the other buildings I've made for the Any How Town sets.

You can see that I've used the popsicle sticks two ways on these buildings, on one side they're bricks and on the other, boards.

If you have any questions about the builds feel free to send me an email.

We're doing the final polish in Chapter 17 today (only six more Chapters to go) after taking some time off Book One yesterday to do some transcribing in Book Three, this wonderful weather is also a bit of a distraction but I'm going to get through this and have Book One and a good query letter ready for the end of the month.

Also the series is a "tetralogy", a word that I didn't know until today.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Popsicle Stick Cages, building a menagerie

These are very easy to build and are made solely of popsicle sticks, just make sure to do a rough measurement to figure out if the animal you want to go in the cage actually fits. I also reccomend (as always) to build two or three at a time, that way you'll have lots of cages to transport your animals in.

All the info you should need to build your own is in the bottom photo, just overlap your popsicle sticks to get the effect, I think it looks really cool and reminds me of the cages at the beginning of Jurassic Park. Once you've built them and the glue has dried just basecoat in a dark grey and dry brush a lighter grey over top.

The door is an easy build and just drill two holes in it and the cage and attach with wire "twists".

There are all kinds of different animals in the Any How Town books and you've seen a couple of examples here on the blog, so far I've shown you Cliff Hoppers and Gobblers this animal is called a Sugaring Bear (at least for now) I'm not going to give too much away here but I'm pretty sure you'll meet one of these in Book Three of the series.

Speaking of Book Three I may just take a one day break away from finishing Book One and get some of the handwritten text into the computer, I was riding on the subway last night with Book Three in my bag and realized that if I lost it, all the info was gone, the first fifty pages would be lost,I managed to give myself a good scare.

Wasn't yesterday a marvellous day? Anyways hope you're enjoying the posts and your anticipation to read Book One is growing. I read on twitter a literary agent was complaining that someone sent her a manuscript and then self published it right after, which is incredibly rude, I would never do that. But I am thinking about just running the series as ebooks it would be a great way to get them out there as soon as they were finished. But I think I can wait another two weeks before deciding, there's lots of polishing to do in Book One first and I know I'll finish Book Two in record time.

Hope all is well, send some comments this way,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Romantic Advice from the folks of Any How Town UPDATED

This is Denny Stinson, some folks call him Death's Head behind his back. Now there is no nice way to say this, Denny lost his lips in the war and it's made him a little crazy. He's a good kid, he's killed more people for this country than anybody and for that we owe him our gratitude, and TWO drinks, no more or we have to go fetch his brother Wash from over at the Church, either that or we have to call the Baldy's and Denny HATES the Baldy's - so we don't call'em.He knows some good jokes, funny ones, real funny.

As reported by "Twenty Fossil Duncan"                                              

  MARCH,19 2012 Update

I have no idea why this reposted up here at the top of the blog, but I'll use this glitch to explain what I've been doing. When I'm taking breaks from writing the first book in the series I'm also going back through 175 posts and taking out all the curse words. This series is for folks of all ages (maybe eight and upwards) and I don't want this blog to be the cause of any uncomfortable utterings from their children.

It has been funny to go through the early posts and really get a feeling as to how different the tone was when Any How Town was going to be a graphic novel and aimed at an audience of fifteen and older. The current story is told with the children as the main characters who are ten and eleven so even the character descriptions as relayed by other citizens in Any How Town read as much more mature .
Hope that clears things up.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

World Building On Paper

This is the view from my writing desk (indoor version, right hand side, not beloved backyard writing desk, see summer 2011 posts) and these many piles of sketchbooks and pages are the world of Any How Town in paper form, not the three dimesnsional world that I've been building, those photos will be the rest of this weeks posts.

At the back is the ever developing rough version of the map of the downtown of the city, at some point, maybe in the summer I'll draw a proper detailed version for you to see, but for now I keep moving buildings around as they need to be moved to fit the progress of the stories so I'm keeping it rough.

On the bottom right are the "character cards" that I started drawing way back in 2009 (see the earliest posts at this blog)  when AHT was going to be a graphic novel and though the focus of the stories has changed, the characters have not.

NOTE: If you're going through this with younger children, there are some swear words on the character cards, remember, AHT used to be a more mature themed story.

The big blue folder on the top is BOOK TWO of the series and I can't wait to start ripping through that book, it's so much fun. And finally the comic books are the first issues of ,"Wolverine and The X-Men" which is written by Jason Aaron and is a great, fun read and it's attitude is very similar to the narrative voice that I'm using to write AHT. The art is by Nick Bradshaw and looks great, I really reccomend picking it up and since they're only at about Issue. #7, it would be cheap to grab back issues or read it on your tablet.

In the next couple of weeks I'll be able to take all the drafts of Book One off of this table and file them away in the vault, but fear not, more piles of notes and the continued writing of BOOK THREE will soon fill the space left behind.

Any inquiries or questions about AHT or the models I've been building can be sent to me at the address below, have a great Monday.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Children's Lit Sensation Moonlights As Miniature Carpenter

Things are going really well in this (almost) final draft on Book One in the Any How Town series and I'm pretty sure I'll have a solid reading copy by the end of this week, which is an incredible feeling,

I can't wait to get into Book Two and continue Oliver and Eaglet's adventure. Almost certain I'll be able to send out my query letters soon.

Last night I stayed in and avoided St.Patrick's Day, instead I wrote about twelve pages of notes for the early stories of Any How Town that take play about thirty five years before this current series when Any How Town was a very, very different place, there's a new lead character and a whole cast of people you'll be more familiar with when this first series is finished.

I've been thinking alot about trains lately and how they play into the Any How Town story so I built a mini train depot, but it looks kind of naked without a sign, so I'll add one to this model, it's interesting how signs help things look more real.

If it's your first time visiting, welcome to the world of Any How Town, you can start your journey if you go all the way back to the 2009 entries and see how the focus of the books has changed since then, that's where you'll meet the rough drafts of the characters and what they look like. 

The first book series is four books long, then the second has been plotted as a three book series and then we jump into the past. I am having so much fun with these guys now it's making the process really speed up as it was very slow going at the end of January/ start of February.

wish me luck, we're at 46 500 words and hope to level off at about 52 000.

cheers,

A.Shay Hahn

Building Popsicle Stick Airplanes, examples

Here are some examples of Popsicle stick airplanes that I've built, I'm not sure if the airplane in the first picture is finished or not, it looks a little too simple at the front end. The second photo has more of an antique feel to it, the third looks fast and kind of dangerous to fly, the fourth is definitely my favourite of them all with the two propellors and the fifth is very modern looking for Any How Town but does show how planes are usually used in the world of AHT. Planes are more or less single engine, single passenger flying bombs, this is important for later on in the book series. So there you go a few examples to check out to help you when you're building your own planes.

A few posts ago I mentioned the wooden bits that come with prestretched canvasses, I use them all kinds of different ways for the builds, you can scroll through the blog and spot them on every kind of vehicle, I've snapped of the ends and used them to build stairs and also as large cinder block looking bricks and the best thing is that you get a whole bunch of them when you purchase a set of five prestretched canvases like the sell at your local DeSerre's art store.

If you go over to my other blog "the mad craft shoppe" you can check out my paintings and even purchase one to help fund the continued writing of this series of books.

In the writing process I'm currently on the third/fourth pass through Book One and hope to be finished and working on query letters by the end of March. Book Two is in really good shape now and I'll be moving onto it shortly.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Popsicle Stick Buildings "Fishing Shack" More Steps

I guess I'll call this a "Stepped Dock" for the sake of this "set" but I built a couple of these stepped platforms to have on hand to add levels to different sets. Levels are really important, I want characters featured in these pics to be above, under, coming from inside buildings etc. I don't want them to look flat so I built these.

If you look at the construction in the first photo you can see that each step is four wooden cubes and then I made a square out of popsicle sticks and then used popsicle sticks for the boards on each step.

When placing the popsicle sticks put a little space between each one to give it depth.

I basecoated the steps with black/brown and when it was ALMOST dry I went over it with Raw Sienna, pulling the brush up each one of the sticks individually to create some woodgrain, this is very easy to do, don't be intimidated.

The final photo here shows the three pieces together, I haven't attached them to each other, they take up less room separately and can also be used for other things. But you know what ? I think this is still a little dull looking so I'm going to add some more things to it to really give a maritime feel.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Popsicle Stick Buildings "Fishing Shack" Next Steps

Here we are at the next steps of building our Fishing Shack, I basecoated with a black/blue mix to give a steel base colour and then started adding a touch of white each time I went in to drybrush. When I got to a point that I thought the shack looked like the paint was flaking off after years of inclement weather I went in and just added some touches of rust (burnt sienna & burnt umber mix) always wait until the piece is dry before adding reds or it will blen and go pink on you which is frutrating and you may have to do some parts over again from the basecoat stage.

Next I built these four cube pillars and covered the base with odds and bits from the bottom of my "Box of Bits", once the glue was dry and I was sure it was secure I basecoated with a black/brown mix, let that dry and then went over the cubes with some of the leftover colour from the fishing shack to make concrete blocks. Then I took some raw sienna and just highlighted a bunch of the bits to make them pop.

The Fishing Shack is coming along, but it still needs some touch ups.

A.Shay Hahn

send us an email, I'd love to know how you got to this blog.

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Build Your Own Fantastic Beasts

Here is a quick way to make your own Fantastic Beasts, this is the THIRD creature building tutorial, the first was Cliff Jumping Lizards, the second was the Gobblers (you'll just have to explore this blog to find them) and here are some little demon pets. This is pretty simple and straightforward but I never seem to get tired of doing it.

STEP ONE - Ask an adult if you're too young to do this, get your Leatherman out and saw the heads of the baby cheetahs, also saw the heads off of the pterodactyls.

STEP TWO- Get your drill and put a hole in the body and in the neck of each piece.

STEP THREE- Take the small dowel and break off one piece per beast, it doesn't have to be more than about an inch long, maybe smaller.

STEP FOUR-Take your TITAN All purpose glue and fill the hole in the body, insert the small dowel piece, put some more glue in the neck hole and then attach.

STEP FIVE- Put them aside to dry, when dry you can add more glue to connect the head and body seamlessly.

Isn't this just the best?
A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Popsicle Stick Buildings "Fishing Shack" First Steps

I'm doing some writing in Book Two right now, trying to get back in the swing of working eight hours a day on the series. I took last week off to do some commissioned work (see "the mad craft shoppe" blog) and found that it was harder to get back into the rewrites in Book One than I first thought it would be. I decided I'd warm up each morning by writing here first and then going into the Any How Town book series after.

So above is a very simple building, easy constructed but dull. I'd asked over on facebook at my page, "Andrew Shay Hahn "the mad craft shoppe" for some ideas for new builds, my good friend M.Thompson suggested a "a love shack" and that got me thinking that since I bought those fish on the weekend and the water figures so prominently in the AHT stories that I'd built a fishing shack.

Like I said the first pic is pretty dull looking but if you add these coffee stirrers to it when it's ready for paint the piece will have more depth. Now this guy is ready for a basecoat and then some highlighting stay tuned to watch it evolve.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com



Building Popsicle Stick Vehicles, Airplanes!

A couple of posts ago I'd put up the tutorial about how to build a truck or a car with bits of wood, the hardest thing to secure if you don't want to spend too much morney are wheels. Wooden wheels are hard to come by an easy way to make them is to buy a large dowel and use a chop saw to cut it up into segments, but not everyone has access to a chop saw.

What I propose you do instead of building four, three or even two wheeled  vehicles is to build airplanes ! Building airplanes is just as cool as building wheeled vehicles. In the Any How Town stories airplanes do not figure very prominently and I have built a few but just for my own amusement and I promise I'll get some photos up later this week of same airplanes that I've made.

have a sunny Sunday,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com



The Heads of Flying Beasties

I also picked up these wonderful flying beasties yesterday, I think I'll have to go back for more of them as I have a few good ideas that I'd like to try with their heads. Photos One and Three are particularly exciting for me, there's a very scary event that is scheduled to go into the Any How Town books and I haven't quite placed which book the story is going into, either Book Four or Five and these heads will really help with the creature design for that story.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com