F.A.Q.

Woohoo! Almost 5 months in to this crazy project, and some questions keep popping up. I'll try my best to answer some of them.

1. What the heck is going on? Where are all the people?

Ah, well... I don't really want to tell you right now :) It's no great mystery, but all will be revealed over the course of the story, though it might be hard to decide what is true and what is superstition.

2. How long does it take to create a page?

I can comfortably manage about 2 pages a week, not including the writing. I work on at least two pages at once so I don't get too picky about details and stuff. I've done up to 6 pages in a week before (the dialogue scenes usually take less time than the action ones). Also, the cats are murderously time consuming, so they take longer. 

I spend around 12 hours per page, sometimes a lot more.

3. Webcomics are ok I guess, but is there a physical copy I can buy?

First book is available here.

4. Where are you? Have you stopped updating?

I am currently working on the last few chapters, and hope to start posting again once I have about 30 pages finished.

5. This story reminds me of _______. What are your influences?

Mainly, The Secret of Nimh, lots of 80s movies like The Goonies, some Disney animated movies, George Miller's movies (from Road Warrior to Babe, Pig in the City :) ), lots of apocalyptic movies, and a handful of other things. I haven't read any Redwall or most of the other stories people have mentioned, but they are on my list of things to read.

6. Do you use a Cintiq or Intuos? Which is better?

I mostly use an Intuos these days, but I use an old Cintiq 21ux occasionally. There is no difference in quality, it's just personal preference and price. I know many professionals that use and even prefer and Intuos.

7. Are you doing commissions? Freelance?

I'm not looking for any outside work at this time. 

8. I can has your brushes?

They can be found here (these are very old).

9. Where did you go to school?

Nowhere, unless you count the one semester I was a graphic design major, but I only took one art class, and it was an art history class, so I don't count it. I'm self taught.

10. How long have you been drawing/painting?

For one billion years, but professionally only about 11 years.

11. What kind of machinery/black magic do you use to create this nonsense?

Answer:

Software: Photoshop CS 6 (and occasionally Sketchup or ZBrush)

Intuos tablet and sometimes a Cintiq, but the display isn't very good.

Razor Nostromo Game Pad (for hot keys)

Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40 Ghz

RAM: 32 GB

OS: Win 10

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660Ti

12. How did you make your site?

I use squarespace, so a lot of the design comes from them. However, SS does not have a comic template for comics. After some digging I found a guy who managed to tweak the code to make one of the Squarespace templates work as a comic template. It's not too difficult to implement in your own site. link below:

http://clayyount.com/blog/2015/6/18/no-template-style

more to follow...

One month Anniversary!

We're a month and 15 pages into the comic and about halfway through chapter 1 (its a fairly long one). I've been really surprised about the early attention Scurry has gotten so far. Thanks everyone for your support! 

notes:

-Scurry was featured on the Tapastic.com website last week and Scurry has gained over 5500 subscribers there!

- I am giving away a 30+page digital artbook. For people signing up for the Scurry newsletter. sign up here: www.scurrycomic.com/scurryartbook . I only plan on using it for Kickstarter news later this year, unless some other news comes up.

-I hope to get back to live streaming on Twitch (http://www.twitch.tv/macsmithvideo) in March, but it will probably be random sketches or concepting or fan art. Working on the comic takes up a lot of brain power (and computer power), so streaming while working on it is too distracting. I may stream a comic page here and there when I get more comfortable with it.

-Soon I will be adding a poll to the site to get some feedback on what people are looking for in a physical book. Plus stuff related to the story too.  Feel free to send me feedback in comics or email.

 

thanks! We're just getting started.

-mac