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

The New Studio and piles of cars and trucks and four wheeled terrors

I can't believe it's only been about a year since I started building for AHT, creating the city in three dimensions to help me tell my stories, it began as a graphic novel and then as a series of online models and now is going to be a series of books for print. When I look around the new studio I am stunned at how much stuff I built while painting, watching movies, hanging out in the backyard, sick in bed, I was always making something out of scrap bits of wood, popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, shish ka bob spears, coffee stirrers etc. You haven't even seen HALF of what I've made. So now that the stories are finally ready to be written, notes compiled, research photos done we will STOP building and START writing!
 I'm very excited to start banging out the first book of AHT, think Enid Blyton meets Steam Punk (or "Farm Punk") in this case with a liberal dose of Star Wars poured on top and you have the stories of Any How Town.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

also over the next few weeks I promise I'll go back and fill in all those posts that I said I was going to fill in.

Crazy Times with Crazy Glue (cont'd)

Yep, I just can't stop gluing animal heads onto other animal bodies, this is an unfinished piece but I wanted to post it because I crack up every time I see it. I don't know what this animal is called, what is does, if it's friendly, what it eats or if it can play the trombone, but I'm sure somewhere down the line it will come mosying (sp?) into AHT.  Why ? Because there have been a few sightings of strange animals appearing down in the dark alleys of the Lower Market, here is one of the GillSpine Boys (a waterfront gang) displaying his animal and to be sure, no one knows what to make of it, not even me.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

The Monks of Osolin Sugar Monastery

Even the toughest of the tough and the meanest of the mean clear the way when a procession of monks from the Osolin Sugar Monastery descend from the highlands outside of Any How Town and enter to sell their wares. Guarded by their well kept Marafin Shepherds (pack dogs so smart it is rumored they have their own language) the monks deliver their carved statuary or carry into town, on their backs eighty pound bags of their highly sought after Sugar which they pound by hand with their staffs (see that guy's hand). The Monastery was established almost twenty years ago after the Last Good War, the monks came to AHT and invited any veterans of the war to join them in the pursuit of peace and discipline. A life that consists of meditation and pounding cane into sugar, you should see these men and women when they remove their robes, they are as hard as the cliff they live on.

The Osolin Sugar Monastery is an important place to remember and figures prominently in the first book of Any How Town stories.

Find out more soon!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

(and yes I know these are action figures from other films etc, I did not make them, merely using them as place holders until I get my own line of action figures going.)

Other small cities to read about

Here are a couple of cool links about giant train sets and matchbox highways that I think are great and fit in perfectly with Any How Town.
http://gizmodo.com/5813387/monstrous-metropolis-ii-cityscape-treats-matchbox-cars-to-a-true-infinite-loop

and the tragic story of this giant model train set

President of the Montreal Model Railway Club Pierre Lalanne makes an adjustment to a segment of the model at the club in Montreal, Wednesday, June 1, 2011. In a warehouse in Montreal's historic Griffintown neighbourhood, model train enthusiasts have spent 38 years engaging in a labour of love.Inch by inch, they've constructed what is believed to be Canada's largest fully operational model railway. The CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Sidhartha Banerjee

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1007279--masterpiece-of-model-railway-building-yields-to-cn

 

enjoy,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

A Typical Morning in Any How Town

                              (CLICK TO ENLARGE AND GET FULL FRAME)
Life in Any How Town starts early, most folks are up at the crack of dawn and here is a typical scene. To the left we have a railrider courier coming in from Millay or one of the other cities in the Mallory States to deliver some special cargo (more on Rail Riders later) . Beside him in the black apron is Leod of "Leods Reckoning Hook" the best butcher shop in the Upper Market (you might not want to buy meat in the Lower Market, just a warning) and he's standing with one of the most recognizable faces in AHY, Jadis Stout owner of "The Monday Hatred" the busiest bar/restaurant the Main Street has ever seen. The immediately recognizable three wheeled trucks and blue coverall wearing worker means that a suppy of Orrow Water is being delivered, either for sale at the apothecary or to be delivered to the hospital, the Orrow Water Bottling Plant employees live on site and don't mix much with the citizens of AHT. To his left that's Quatro Aucassin young leader of the Aucassin Clan coming up to the Monday Hatred to deliver a particularly HUGE lobster to Jadis Stout and supervising it all is Deputy Blackfish riding his Guard Dog, Schutzy, now there aren't often that many troubles this time of morning but the Deputy likes to make his presence known, not that anyone ever really notices him.
hope you enjoyed the tour, expect another tomorrow
cheers,
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

If there's a map, it's real.

After a year of thinking and tweaking I finally sat down yesterday on a beautiful afternoon and drew the map of the main down town core of Any How Town, it's a terrible photo and a lot of the street names haven't been decided on but this was a HUGE step in making Any How Town a much more real place for these crazy characters to run around in.
In the top photo you can see our two current main characters "Dolly" Oliver Stimson and Eaglet Rainesville and beside them the much maligned Deputy Blackfish. To the left is the current notebook where I am plotting the first FIVE books of Any How Town, that's right FIVE. I have to plot it this way as there are many mysteries, histories and menageries to deal with and knowing when to reveal the right secret is sometimes difficult. I started to actually write Book Three of Any How Town first just to find my way into the main mystery and know what I had to reveal in Book One and where we'd be by the end of Book Four.
And me being me of course I couldn't stop there and began writing the next lead in for Book Five, where an even BIGGER mystery presents itself to Olly, Eaglet and their friends.
It's a lot of work, but first and foremost it is alot of fun, and these sunny days help alot too.
I'm going to try and post almost daily as I do the work so you can see all the things that are happening in the town as I develop the map more and show you the shops, peeps and vehicles that make Any How Town such a cool place.
Eventually there will be an Any How Town exclusive email address, but for now you can ask me questions at the email below and I'll answer them here on the blog.
best,
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Eat Your Head Off, er, Heart Out Jurassic Park!

Here's a cool detail shot of a birthday dioarama I did for my nephew, check out how good these boys look in natural light! I can't wait to set up some scenes (nothing to give away the new Rule #1) but just to make some cool tableaux of scenes around A.H.T with folks you already know, and if you don't feel free to read about them in the blog listings below! And check my other blogs "the mad craft shoppe" to see my paintings and sketches and "the alphabet shoppe" to see the letters I paint for kids.
we'd love to hear from you,
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

the word of the day is "Clutch"

I've learned to never walk away from a cool dollar store purchase, I'll just inevitably end up obsessing about buying the item (or items in multiples). Yesterday I saw these great "Action Hunter" sets for a dollar each and knew I needed a couple not for the figure but for two great items. 1) the giant spiked collar which I know I'll be able to use on some animal builds and 2) EGG CLUTCHES! look at these great textured egg clutches (I told you it was the word of the day) so I quickly grabbed them and ran home to get to work painting them up. I used the same dry brush method explained in the Cliff Jumper post (see below) and ended up with these as the finished product. Now I would love to post the animal these belong too but it would be giving away too much. I made some new rules and rule #1 is Don't post anything until the story is written! That's right we are working on the Any How Town stories and hope to have one finished by the end of the summer and then I'll decide whether to publish it digitally for sale or search for a publisher. But for now you'll have to just be satisfied with hints along the way.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Puppy Headed Vege-Roos !

And here's a photo of Puppy Headed Vege-Roo's feasting on foliage! Like this doesn't just make your day!
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Make Your Own Rock Jumping Chameleon Pack Whatevers!

I figure everyone in the World probably wants to know how to do this, either for themselves or to impress their children, so here we go. One important factor when purchasing a dog, tiger etc to attach the head of your TRex  or raptor to is to make sure that the necks of both animals are approximately the same size. Here the tiger and TRex were close, but I wanted to blend them more so I added a mixture of sawdust and glue (also known as "pig poo") around the area.

STEP 1: Cut the head off of both animals, this is easily done with any old knife, make sure that the animals you buy are HOLLOW and this won't be a problem, if they aren't hollow, you'll probably need a saw.

STEP 2; (SEE PHOTO ONE) get Super Glue, I like the Dollar Store Super Glue Gel for this job and rim around the neck of the animal, push dinosaur head and tiger body together, hold for about a minute, add extra gel where needed and let dry to a ROCK HARD finish.

STEP 3: (SEE PHOTO TWO) Base coat the entire animal with a mixture of black and brown Dollar Store acrylic paint, brush off any excess paint, you don't want to put it on too thick! Let dry

STEP 4: (SEE PHOTO THREE) Do another light coat of just brown on the animal, you should see variation between the two colours, and once again, don't let any excess paint fill in the grooves of the fur or scales, we're going to need those for, wait for it and Ding Dong....

STEP 5:(SEE PHOTO FOUR) Do a very light "dry brush" coat of browns, sienna's, ochre and finally little white highlights on the teeth and claws. BUT WAIT!  What is drybrushing ?

Okay, this is very important and will make all of your models look great and you won't be a loser anymore, it's this easy. Mix some of the brown with a lighter colour, a sienna or ochre, then on a rag or your pants, remove a bunch of the paint from your brush, once you think there's only just the slightest amount of paint on your brush, lightly dust it over the figure and you will see the details of the animal's scales and fur really start to POP. You can add a little more of a lighter tone and continue to add subtle coats of drybrushing to the figure until you think it looks amazing.

And there you go! I've made four already, think you can catch me ?
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Puppy Headed Vege-Roos ! (Rainy day activities Part II)

This part of the project was my girl's idea and I think they'll look great when they're all painted. I'll get some fake trees and do some shots of the Vege-Roos having a treetop meal. I hope a great publishing company finds this blog soon.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com

Rock Jumping Chameleon Pack Lizards!

Rainy Weekend Activity! buy four plastic dinosaurs and four plastic ( I stress PLASTIC) dogs and swap their heads! Never a dull moment in Any How Town! That's right, boredom is for boring folks and I can always find something to do, come to think of it, this would be a great activity to share with your kids all you need are dollar store animals, superglue, a sharp knife and a paint set.

                     What happened to the Dog's heads and Dinosaur's bodies? STAY TUNED!

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

The Work of Marc Gai-Miniet

Every once in a while you get pointed towards an artist whose work you instantly admire, this is Marc Gai-Miniet and some of his boxes or "boites" I can't reccomend checking this out enough. Here's the link.
http://www.marc-giai-miniet.com/page19.html  so maybe actually building Any How Town isn't so crazy after all.
A.Shay Hahn
madcraftshoppe@live.com



Battlefield Captain America and Me

This is Battlefield Captain America, I am obsessed (for no good reason) with this action figure, I look at it everytime I go into the Silver Snail. I have never spent over $3.99 for a figure at the Silver Snail, when I buy figures I try to buy the MOST NORMAL looking dudes you ever did see. People who look like they could live in AHT. You see there aren't any "super" heroes in AHT, there are people who are tall, strong, very smart etc. There is a comic hero in AHT and I have yet to introduce him on this blog. But I think the real reason that I stare at this figure so much is that it's the same size as the on SALE figures that I buy, it's made of the same materials, comes in similar packaging and COSTS TWENTY DOLLARS! I will not list the things that I can buy to advance my life with $20.00 but I tell ya brother, that list is long and I'm sure yours is too.

I will not buy this figure and it doesn't matter, the minute I can actually afford the ludicrous price I will march into the Silver Snail and this thing will be gone, but if you want to get it for me and mail it to the studio I will not protest.

nuff said.

A.Shay Hahn

                                                            madcraftshoppe@live.com



The Mud Bug (TM) Construction Company cont'd

The Mud Bug (TM) Construction Company Lil' Big Digger,

with driver,( or can be rented)

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

The Mud Bug Construction Company vehicles #1

Shown here is the Mud Bug (TM) Construction Company's Chainsaw rig. Mud Bug have a variety of rig's based on Sputterjack designs and are available to build in almost any environment. These highly maneuverable machines can negotiate the tightest passages to get in and get the job done.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Big Daddy Style conversion

I have about twelve Deep Sea Diver action figures (see "Salvage Teams") they were at the Dollarama being sold as "Team Calypso " something, anyways, I bought them all. Water figures very prominently in the mythos of Any How Town and things hidden in the water are featured in almost every story that I've started to write.

Most of this week I've been building AHT instead of painting pictures, my interest has been firmly placed with building a few more sets and vehicles, but this weekend I decided to do the above (see above). I bought Bioshock 2 and starting playing it last weekend, it's possibly the best designed video game I've ever seen, I am almost positive my success with the Deep Sea Diver paintings in May of last year (see other blog, madcraftshoppe) was because of BioShock bringing them back into the mainstream consciousness.

I've been looking at the el cheapo ninja figures at the Dollarama for some time and decided to do some mild conversions and make a larger deep sea diver, I'll post a comparison photo later (See Top) when I get some more stuff done, but on the left is what you buy, and on the right is what I made. And yes of course, I ignored my own rule when I started this figure, "If you're going to build one, build three" so I've started a second and may do a third on this long weekend.

all the best,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Hard at work goofing off

I think some people over on fb are under the impression that these vehicles and scenes that I'm building for A.H.T are whole kits, it's time to set the record straight. What I do is take many different elements, popsicle sticks, tiny dowels, dollarama vehicle kits, stray chunks of wood from carpentry shops and assemble them into sets, vehicles and whatever else I'd like to build for A.H.T, it all comes from my imagination. Pictured above is a transport vehicle and also a groovy electric wheelchair. I wanted to show some stuff at the unpainted stage so you can see that it's all me.

I have been building a ton of vehicles and sets (let's just call them sets instead of dioaramas) and have not hardly had the time to post anything here to explain what each vehicle is or the locations I'm building, at the same time I don't want it to be wasted, if I write about everything there won't be any excitement to discover new things in the stories. SO I promise that I am going to go back into the blog and write detailed things about the stuff that is already here, that way when publishers and folks in Hollywood get to the blog they can already see what will become the action set pieces in the A.H.T trilogy of movies.

enjoy, all the best, we'd love to hear from you,

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Hydrofoil thingy

Here's a Smuggler's Hydrofoil that is used to run contraband around the many tributaries of A.H.T, this is probably the most complex vehicle I've made so far.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

Mine Shaft set

I've been building alot more than I've been drawing for the Any How Town project, I find building these models alot of fun and really kind of relaxing. I've been falling behind on posting here I've been building so much. What I've been mainly doing with the models are makng these three piece "sets" that can be easily stored, as always space is at a premium. I started doing some more drawings for A.H.T, but I'm unhappy with my style, I'm over drawing everything. Maybe next week I'll go through this site and add all the text I've meant to do over the past couple of weeks.

Here's an old mine complete with coal carts and Temple of Doom swordsmen chasing down, Chicken, Cat and Pig. over on facebook I've been using them in every new set to tell a little story.

A.Shay Hahn

madcraftshoppe@live.com

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.)