So while we are on a bit of a break between chapters I thought that it would be a good time to talk about the first chapter a bit.

Bob and I have learned a ton over the last 8 strips. So much has changed since we first launched the strip back in 2000. Hardware, our methods of drawing and creating the strip, our methods of collaboration… It’s all very different from where we started.

We have talked about a lot of this again and again, but I thought that I would take the time to talk about each of the first eight Reboot to the Head strips.

Reboot 01

Well, of course I can’t find it, but this strip originally looked a lot different. Instead of a sleek, modern skyscraper that Phinn was busting out of, the first panel showed a window into a stone-walled building (looked like an old English cottage, or a classic Irish Pub). Second panel had the cracks on the window and the third panel was, well… blank at the time.

Bob redesigned and we get to see that these Cat-creatures-things live in a futuristic world with flying cars instead.

The first strip is the only one where we see a neon sign on the side of the buildings. Bob originally was thinking something like Blade Runner, I think, with neon signs all over the place.

Let’s be frank. It was too much work to try to put that amount of detail in, so we stopped with one. I’m pretty sure that the Neon Sign in the first strip says “Your Ad here” in Kitty-ese.

You will also notice that none of the buildings are lit, and there are nice reflections of the buildings across the street in this one. Maybe we are just very lazy.

Reboot 02

Not much else to say about the second strip that we haven’t already written here. Take a look at the Behind the Scenes page when you get a chance.

Reboot 03

This is the strip that nearly killed us. It looks pretty simple. but the problem is that while a lot is happening, the scene does not change all that much. It was a lot of tedium getting everything drawn and colored correctly so that it looked consistent. It also suffers from what a random internet person referred to as “Color-form” syndrome. There isn’t a lot of apparent depth of field because we are lined up perpendicular to the buildings in the background.

At one point I was blurring the backgrounds to create some depth of field. Below is a test of what that looked like.

We didn’t like it one bit.

You will also note that this is the first strip where we “lit” the buildings. It’s a great effect. It started to really pay off in the next few strips where we were able to put less detail into the buildings in the panels where it wasn’t as important and focus our time on the foreground.

The second panel here drove Bob nuts. He redrew it at least twice. It came out great in the end.

Reboot 04

I love the first panel here. I think that we just nailed it.

The second panel shows the less detailed, but even more effective, in my opinion, buildings in the background.

You will also notice in the second panel the brand of Phinn’s shoes. It’s a call-back to previous strips. D’OH brand shoes. Multiverse favorites!!!

Reboot 05

Not a lot to say here except that we forgot to add in the grapple-line falling in the last panel. Phinn in the last panel is a great drawing!

Reboot 06

Jetpack gets lit! I did about eleventy-billion versions of the color on the rocket nozzles. The final version is much cleaner and looks great.

The last panel was sketched by Bob on paper, captured on his handy-dandy iPhone camera, and added it to be digitally inked. Nifty!

Here is the shot of the drawing that we added in.

Reboot 07

The first strip that we missed getting posted on Friday. Darn Superbowl…

We were a bit slap-happy to get this one and 8 done as on-time as we could after we missed the strip 7 date.

We generally have versions of more than one strip being worked on simultaneously. While Bob was finishing up strip 7, I was doing some color on the parts of strip 8 that I could.

One of the cars there just looked to me like a Ferengi Marauder. In all fairness, it doesn’t but that “car” was sort of colored like one and was referred to as the “Ferengi” car from then on.

So, that sets us up for Strip 7 stupidness.

So Bob was worried about the last panel. In that panel, Phinn is bathed in light from oncoming headlights from the truck that ends up blowing him up in strip 8. (GOOD RIDDANCE SAYS I! TOO MANY COLORS ON THAT ONE!)

The concern was that it wasn’t obvious. Bob decided to put in the “sound” of a horn honking.

I decided to do it myself first. Take a look at the last panel. I also snuck in a new car design up in the first panel…

Bob then did me one better. Take a look at the first panel in the final version of the strip. A stylized Klingon Bird of Prey. Yeah baby!

Reboot 08

The last chapter, or as I call it, the one where Phinn goes Boom.

If you look under the truck in the first panel, you will see those pesky Ferengi.

Also, if you didn’t notice, take a close look at the last building on the right in the panel. Happy egg-hunting!

What… back so soon? Yeah. It’s obvious.

We have done it before and will probably do it again.

We hope that you enjoyed these strips.

Sorry about blowing up Phinn. It had to be done.

Come back soon to find out who we blow up next!

Just letting you know about a few minor tweaks to the site. We have removed the links section over there on the right sidebar, and put in two new links to follow Towne Pub on Twitter and to become a fan of the new Towne Pub Facebook page.

We added a link to the menu bar at the top of the page to easily get to the latest strip without having to dig for a link in one of the posts.

Under each post and on each page you will find a Share This button to share content on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Email, Digg, Delicious, and so on.

Our resident writer and artist is having issues with the latest strip. At 10:31am he tells me that he finally decided that the strip kicks hiney.

At 10:36am, he comments on his post saying that it is not great and that a new version might go up.

What say you?

Update:

The pictures to the left of the post there are small parts of other strips. On the old, non-WordPress site, you could click on the images to see what strip they were from. Now you can again!

I just fixed up the DB (read, HACKED) and wrote (read, mangled) some PHP to make it happen.

If you were ever wondering why there was a giant Volton-looking dog robot that showed up here every once and awhile, click away and you can find out.

I also added two new portraits from two of the new strips.

Have a great weekend. If you see Bob, tell him to put down Mass Effect 2, and get inking!

We just made a couple changes which will fix a few broken things around here.

First, the associated Comic posts will show up here on the main page, so yay for that. No more double posting

Second, the archives are fixed now too. Feel free to go check out the Classic Towne Pub and the One Shots!

Come back on Friday for another new strip!

I hope that you are all enjoying the new strips!

First off, we have to apologize. We had re-sized the first two strips down inadvertently. I just fixed that and re-uploaded strips one and two. We were off by 161 pixels in width! OOPS! Looks a lot better now!!!

Also, as it is Tuesday, we have something NEW for you.

Click on that “BTS” link up in the menubar and take a look at how we go about creating these strips!

I have a feeling that we will add more to this page as we go on.

ALSO ALSO, we have moved the wallpaper that was posted last Tuesday over to the Goodies page.

Enjoy!

The Storyline chapters are missing right now too.   Working on it.

Let me know if you encounter anything not working right.

Also, look at our pretty urls now!

I need to move a bunch of styles around in our CSS so that I don’t break things once I upgrade to the new version of Wordpress.

If things look super wonky, worry not!  I will fix it shortly.

Update:   All upgrades are complete and everything looks as it did before.  Yay me!

It has been a long time since I have gotten to work on a new TP strip.  I’m a bit rusty to say the least, but like Stella, I think that I have gotten back my groove.

Bobby is knocking it out of the park with his new technique of drawing with a pencil between his toes! 

It’s quite an improvement over anything that we have done before in terms of the quality of the digital file itself.  The new drawing/inking method with his Wacom tablet allows for us to always be dealing with a digital image, forgoing the step of scanning in his drawings.   It also allows for more flexibility with the drawing itself as we can deal with each element as its own layer.

We have two strips currently in development.  One would probably be considered done in the past, but we disagree with our past-selves so are continuing to work on it.

We are building up a bucket of stuff so that we can get a bit ahead and stay on task.

Once we start posting, we would really like to be able to stick to some kind of a schedule, even if it is only once every month, or once a year or so to start off.  It would still be an improvement on our recent posting schedule!

It is very easy to let this get away from us and not publish new strips for LITERALLY YEARS and neither of us wants that to happen again.

Anyway, hang in there because we have some fun coming your way!

If you are interested in following either of us on Twitter or Facebook, click the links over there on the right.

It’s really the same Four Years Old and Older content with a fancy new engine driving us down the information superhighway, but it is new to us.

However, Bob just posted some new stuff under Pub Art.   CHECK IT OUT!

Be sure to click on the headline to see any news post that might be associated with the drawing!