It’s All About You: T-Shirt Sale at Retropolis Transit, Saga Shirts, and Hot Wax Tees

Filed under Works in Progress

No one knows self interest like the Big Brain. Once you have that much self inside your massively enhanced cranium, well, there’s not always room for anything else.

So the Big Brain watches the calendar with great interest at this time of year: because when the days have ticked over… wait for it… to now, he knows that any perfect present he can conceive of would be doomed to spend the holidays in the Post Office.

Now, you see… the Big Brain’s time has come.

Now the Big Brain can buy a present for himself.

And I, being fully in support of that plan, am pleased to announce that from now through December 27 the Big Brain, by which I mean you, can save up to 20% on a T-shirt order of $25 or more from my Retropolis Transit Authority, Saga Shirts, and Hot Wax Tees sites.

There’s this complicated mathematical thing that happens when you use the coupon code 2010LOVE during checkout. Technically I think the discount could go as high as 25%, but that would only happen on a very large order, as far as I can tell. In the real world you can expect a discount of up to a fraction more than 20%. So that’s what I’m calling it: up to 20% off. You just have to enter the coupon code 2010LOVE when you’re checking out with an order of $25 or more.

Then… while you pack your minions’ stockings with tiny gifts of total destruction, you can smile quietly to yourself in the certain knowledge that it’s not just cookies and milk for you, Big Brain. Oh no. Muahahahaha, and so on.

Thrilling Tales update: Osgood Finnegan and I are not in Tahiti

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

So here’s some proof that I haven’t packed up and taken off for Tahiti. Or is it? I guess I could get Internet access there, now that I think of it.

But, no – really!- I’m here in the wintry seclusion of the Secret Laboratory where I’m still making progress on the first thirty or so illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book. (Quick recap: once those first pictures are done the story will start its regular updates at the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site, while I get to work on Part Two of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS – until the Clockwork Book starts to run low on updates, at which point I’ll scurry back over to that project again.)

I’ve got over half of these first images done with just a handful to go until I’ve finished Osgood Finnegan’s story. Once that’s done I’ll be a lot closer to the story’s launch than it seems.

That’s because the remaining images – though there are quite a few – all take place in the Clockwork Book’s room. As I’ve mentioned before, things go much more quickly when I’m using the same location a bunch of times.

I doubt now that the story will start by the end of the year, as I’d planned. But I shouldn’t be late by too much.

Signed copies of ‘Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves’ are back in stock; also, other stuff

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

A little while back I actually ran out of signed copies of Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves – but now I’ve got another batch of ’em, so they’re available again at the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual web site. (The unsigned copies, I hasten to add, were always available and still are.)

I’m not sure that my signature means anything but you also get a pair of spiffy Thrilling Tales bookmarks.

And since we’re talking merchandising here (well… I am, anyway, and you’re doing whatever you’re doing while I do it), there’s also a splendiferous series of Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual T-shirts, not to mention the uncanny Thrilling Tales beverage containment devices, which themselves are totally eclipsed by the outright wonder of the Thrilling Tales posters and 2011 Wall Calendar.

Which is quite a lot of wonder, now that I think of it.

So while you wonder about that, I’ll let you know that the first tale in The Lair of the Clockwork Book has now got all its illustrations. I’m working on the second set, for something that I think is called Osgood Finnegan and the Orb from the Stars, or Osgood Finnegan and the Mysterious Stranger, or Osgood Finnegan and the Tale That Has Yet To Be Named.

Indecision’s an awful thing.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time building and texturing Osgood’s 19th century wagon, so I guess I should cram it into as many of the illustrations as possible. Though that would be cheating.

Thrilling Tales: the adventure continues

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

I’m making pretty good progress on the illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book, even though I’m not as far along as I’d like. I’ve just finished the last of the pictures that takes place in Lew Stone’s lab during his adventure (which may be called Big Headed Guy and the Big Ball of Doom) but I’ve taken longer to get them done than I’d hoped.

Because I Think Too Much, I’ve been considering why that is, and why that is interests me, although your mileage may vary.

The biggest difference between this and the mildly interactive Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves is that this story’s linear. When Lew powers up the Chiralitron and begins his experiment he will always do that, in the same way, and the same thing will always happen. This is Captain Obvious speaking, by the way.

As a side effect of this linearity there are fewer things that can happen – and so fewer illustrations – in any one location in the story. Why isn’t fewer faster?

The problem is that building a complicated environment takes lots of time. Making a single picture in that environment takes awhile, too, but nowhere near as much. So the more illustrations that happen in one place, the less time – on the average – they take. You could say that I’m amortizing the time I’ve spent building the pieces that make the pictures.

So I built Lew’s pristine laboratory and made the four pictures that take place there. Then I had to build Lew’s demolished laboratory and make the four pictures that take place there. If I’d needed to make twelve pictures in each state of the lab, the average time it took to make the pictures would be lower. See?

Why didn’t I, then?

So it’s not terrible news – things are just a little bit slower than I expected. This really bothered me until I did the math and understood why. But for the final set of pictures in Lew’s story I have some very different settings to create and those, thankfully, will go much more smoothly than the sets up to now. I’m concerned about what that does to the Clockwork Book‘s launch date – I’d hoped to start posting the story by the end of the year – but I don’t think I’ll be set back by all that much.

iPhone & iPad Cases at Retropolis; Celtic Ornaments at Ars Celtica

Filed under Works in Progress

Yep, it’s that time of year when all sorts of new merchandise becomes available just when everyone would wish things could settle down a bit for the holidays. But we can handle it.

Today’s big news is that I’ve added these swell hardshell cases to my Retropolis site. They’re Speck® cases, which have a fabric back stretched over the body of the case, and it’s on that fabric that I’ve been able to print my designs.

The fabric back – in addition to looking pretty neat – gives the back of your iPad or iPhone a much more grippable surface, or in the case of the iPad, a little more traction on your lap. That’s a practical observation that has nothing to do with what you were just thinking.

I forgot to mention last week that I’ve also added a bunch of hanging ornaments (or pendants) to my selection of swag at Ars Celtica. They’re ceramic ornaments that measure nearly three inches across, with designs on both sides.

And of course in the middle of all that commercial product mongering I’m trying not to lose ground on The Lair of the Clockwork Book. I’m well along with the demolished version of Lew Stone’s lab, and once that’s all done I’ll be able to turn out the next four illustrations. This is always a crazy time of year for me; but if it was easy, they’d have got someone else to do it.

Do Not Trifle With the Big Brain! Also, a T-Shirt sale

Filed under Works in Progress

The Big Brains have moved into Retropolis this week: their teeming minions started out by invading my T-shirts, but before I knew it they’d moved out from that beachhead into my coffee mugs and mousepads. The way things are going I can’t predict where they’re likely to show up next. It’s a problem.

In order to solve that problem, at least on the T-shirt front, there’s a sale this week on my shirts: you can save $5 on an order of $25, $10 on an order of $50, or even a big brain-boggling $20 on an order of $100. That sale runs through November 20: note the informative banners at the sites where the sales are running.

That’s the T-shirt sections at Retropolis, as well as the Celtic design shirts at Saga Shirts.

So where did these invaders with the immense brainpans come from, anyway? They’re based on a minor (but important) character from my Thrilling Tale in progress, The Lair of the Clockwork Book. Once I saw how the little guy turned out I couldn’t help but put him on shirts and whatnot aimed at the Big Brained among us. Because there’s just not enough rampant holiday merchandising that’s aimed at people whose brains are bigger than Venus, is there?

Hey, I find a niche, and I decorate the crap out of it. It’s my mission. Or at least that’s what my mind believes is happening… ever since the Big Brain trained his glowing, thought-controlling eyeballs on me. Also, I make him sandwiches.

Thrilling Tales: Lew Stone’s Lab, Continued

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

I think I’ve got the major elements of Lew’s laboratory pretty well set: there was a lot of shifting and moving involved because at one point, which you’ll see if you embiggify the image, Lew’s experiment is underway and you have to have a pretty clear view of what’s going on.

I still need to do a little rework on the Chiralitron (that’s the big machine in the left foreground) and run some cables across the lab. But it’s pretty well set at this point.

Of course I’ve paid so much attention to that important view that when I pull back out to look at my other angles I’ll find some more to add. But it’s definitely getting there, if by "there" you mean here, but a little more so.

The first couple of dozen illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book include Lew’s adventures, which begin in this room and end up somewhere inside the orbit of Venus. I decided to do this bit first because I want to be fully back up to speed when I work on the opening scenes and the illustrations of the Book itself.

Genuine Thermos Thermal Containment Units Available at Retropolis

Filed under Works in Progress

‘I wouldn’t dream of entrusting my thermally sensitive materials to anything less than a genuine Thermos® device.’

– Harry Roy, Shift Supervisor, the Ferriss Moto-Man Corporation

Harry Roy knows his thermal containment devices. As you can guess, his work at the Ferriss Moto-Man Corporation demands the most effective thermal containment possible in today’s modern world: whether Harry brings a flask full of coffee to work or – daringly! – if he abandons convention and brings a flask of lemonade instead, Harry’s position requires him to keep that vital fluid at a constant temperature.

But how can it know? How can any thermal containment unit keep hot things hot, while also keeping cold things cold? How can it possibly know the difference?

Well, it’s just lucky for Harry (and for you!) that the mad geniuses behind these stylish, stainless steel Thermos® units have solved that problem for us all.

It’s great to live in the Future, isn’t it?

Yep. Like Harry Roy, you too can keep your hot things hot and your cold things cold without wondering which way to throw the switch, through the advanced retro-futuristic technologies of Retropolis, and those Thermos® guys.

Thrilling Tales: Yet Another Mad Scientist’s Laboratory

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

I’ve got a small backlog of neat things I haven’t yet linkblogged to because once again I’ve got my nose pressed to the wheel, which is sort of uncomfortable, and honestly, a little embarrassing, should anyone notice… but I digress. That sentence was meant to end with a description of what I am doing but you can see a little piece of that above: click on it to see a bigger version of the whole scene.

This is a work in progress view of Lew Stone’s laboratory for his story in The Lair of the Clockwork Book. I guess it’s my third mad scientist’s lab for Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual. I’m enjoying the way they each have a different atmosphere because all three scientists are such different people. Cornelius Zappencackler’s lab (even more fireproof!) has a cozy and cluttered character; Doctor Rognvald’s lab is shadowy and sinister; and Lew’s lab, shown here, is a bit lighter and more… well, rational, because Lew’s greatest problem as a student is that he isn’t really insane enough for his vocation.

I have a couple of devices to add, all part of Lew’s experiment in progress, and then some additional set dressing after that – and just to make things more interesting I’ll also need a demolished version of this room. Because, you know, that’s just what happens.

In other news, I took a few hours off yesterday to explore. I was looking for a good used book store in my adopted area – after six years I’ve yet to find one that makes me want to take a deep breath of dustiness and mustiness, make myself at home, and trade in my excess books. I think this is the biggest thing I miss about living in California: near pretty much any of my old neighborhoods in Long Beach, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, Ventura, or Los Angeles I always had a fantastic assortment of used book stores to haunt. Here, on the other hand, I’ve found just one that was sort of interesting. It’s a sad state of affairs, I can tell you.

There’s just one more possibility I know of, out toward Cleveland, that sounds promising: but I’m not sure if I’ll get there before Winter sets in.

More Enhancements to the Retropolis Mug-O-Matic: Now with Optional Randomness

Filed under Works in Progress

I’ve been welding enhancements onto the Mug-O-Matic with no regard for my personal safety, and lots of regard for automatically generating the strangest pulp sci fi titles in history… on coffee mugs. Because coffee is important. And it gets all over your lap if you don’t use a mug.

The Mug-O-Matic now has a panel you can use to enter your very own, not-random titles; also, I’ve added a selection of premade mugs with some of my favorite titles, like "Vengeance of the Librarian of Chaos", "The Atomic Brain of Doom", and "The Astronomer That Misplaced the Galaxy".

I’m thinking about decaf now. It might be a good idea.

[tags]random title generator, title o tron, retropolis, mug o matic, pulp science fiction, coffee mugs[/tags]