Bratkitty

Cool Webcomics

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:03:33 GMT

I figured I'd show some love and post links to the webcomics that I like and read:

The Dreamer
Dueling Analogs
Evil Diva
Fey Winds
Girly
Gunnerkrigg Court
Heard
Kukuburi
Penny Arcade
Phoenix Requiem
Sugarshock
Yu+Me Dream
The Zombie Hunters

Changes on Starcrossed

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:07:43 GMT

I'm currently working revamping some things on Starcrossed to make them better. The biggest change is it's now in color. I've found it's really kind of hard to make a successful black and white webcomic. It seems like it just gets lost in the ether. There's only been a few who have done it well, and I don't think I'm one of them. :P Coloring's always been one of my strongest suits, so I guess it doesn't really make much sense not to make it look the best that I can.
I'm also slowly but surely changing bits and pieces on the website. Right now the background, and later the header. Or some other graphic. I'm just full of surprises like that.

Starcrossed #1 is available in print!

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:24:03 GMT

Interested in picking up the first issue of Starcrossed in print?
Of course you are! . . . At least I hope you are.
Anyways, Starcrossed chapter one is available on Comixpress.
So if you're interested in feeding a starving artist this coming holiday season, be sure to check it out!

*GRIN*

Writer's Block: Fright Show

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:23:07 GMT

'Tis the season for scary movies. Some rank The Evil Dead as the best horror film of all time. What is your favorite scary movie?

View 500 Answers

I have to answer this one. Evil Dead is one of my favorite all time movies. I actually didn't get the pleasure of seeing it until a couple of years ago, but man is it awesome. I'm a total sucker for B movies.

Thanks

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:18:54 GMT

Thanks to everyone for their support on my last post. I'd like to elaborate more on this, but that'll have to wait until a later time. Right now I'd like to post about the comic.

I do hope the new page is an improvement from the art in chapter one. Back in August I received a tough, but fair review on Choice Comics that reamed my artwork quite a bit. I was kind of surprised, but at the same time not by the feedback. I always expected my comics to gain attention from the art rather than the writing, and this review was quite the opposite of that.

Initially Starcrossed is as much a learning exercise as it is a serious project. Not to say I put any less work or effort into this comic than I would my other projects I have lined up. I've just never really done much narrative comic art before. My previous comic projects include Value=Dead, which is more self-contained gag comics rather than a story and Wake Odyssey which I wasn't entirely happy with and put on the back burner.

At the time when I had finished chapter one of Starcrossed, I was proud of it and happy with it. I'm still proud of it, because I stuck with it. After a while of looking at it, though, I can see what the reviewer meant by the art. I can do better. I had never done screentones much before, and I learned a lot from using them in chapter one. They're not that great, and I don't think they do my artwork justice. I'm weaning myself off of screentones in the first few pages of this chapter, and then they'll be gone almost entirely. My strength lies more in a painted effect. You'll be seeing more of that by around page four. I think it'll work a lot better. It's less time consuming, and is less distracting. I want to make this good, so don't be afraid to tell me what you think. I like being proud of my art, but there's a difference between proud of it and complacent. If you receive nothing but praise, you tend to get a little fat on creating mediocre work. I was actually kind of glad to get the critique because it gave me an objective and honest look at what I had made.

As for the writing, it's funny that that appears to be this comic's biggest draw. At least according to this review. Part of me knows how the story goes, but mostly it's free form. I don't really fancy myself as much of a writer, so I chose Starcrossed as a starting point for my comics because I thought it'd be best to start with what I know. Quinn is sort of loosely based off of me and my experiences. Similar hairstyle, freckles, we even dress sort of similar, same introspective artistic bent. Granted she's not me, but it is easy to step into her shoes and write things from her point of view.

The family's believable because, well, it's my family . . . err . . . sort of. In a comicky sort of way. The personalities are pretty much established. I actually have two younger brothers, but for this story I wanted to just have one and play up on the sibling rivalry aspect of their relationship. It's all too familiar. -_-

Quinn's brother, Roger, goes through a small design change in chapter two. I thought he looked a bit too much like Vash the Stampede with the broom hair, so I shortened it after the first couple of pages to make it more believable.

Starcrossed is actually going to be a fairly short story. It's intended to be roughly about 15 chapters long, give or take. Depending on how it evolves. I wanted something that was a fairly involved series without being too epic. I have two fairly epic projects I want to get to in the future after Starcrossed. One, being Wake Odyssey, an idea Rumor, another friend at the time, and I started brainstorming on back in 2004. We tried to do some pages for it back in 2006, but it hadn't been quite well enough planned out and the pages just didn't do it justice. We've been doing a pretty heavy reworking on it since. The other one is a brain-child I started when I was sixteen called Medusa Complex which is supposed to be a mystery/phychological fantasy. It's been redone more times than I can count because, well, I was sixteen when I came up with the original concept. Things change. :P

Anyway, I do hope you all enjoy what I have coming up for the comic. I have a lot of projects I want to get to. I think they're awesome, but I hope you guys will think so as well.

Finally, An Update!

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:18:05 GMT

So page one of chapter two is finally up. This has been a really bad month so far. My uncle was murdered on October 4th so I've been dealing with family things. I also ended up taking over a week off from school right around midterms, so I'm now entirely behind on work. I haven't touched anything comic related, or school related for that matter. I've spent the last week sitting idly on my laptop playing the Sims because it's the only thing that's kept me distracted, and remotely sane.

Now I'm in class right now posting this and studying for my art history midterm exam for later today. I figure it's about time to get off my ass and do something productive. Just sitting around being a lump on the couch isn't making me feel any better. Luckily I have a month's worth of pages ready to go.

Like I said before, I'm cutting updates down to once a week to make sure I can keep up with school and all. Expect a new page Friday from now on.

Schoolin'

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:25:52 GMT

So I just started school this week. It's nice to be back, I've been cooped up in the house all summer. So the classes I'm taking are:

Animation Studio: Intro to Maya
Illustration
Japanese
Art History: Dada and Surrealism

I'm pretty excited about all the classes except maybe the Maya one. I don't like the software that much, but it's a requirement. Bleh. I've been practicing Japanese all morning.

I'm making a point to get more Starcrossed pages done today. I don't want chapter one to finish up and be caught with my pants down.

We (Rumormonger and I) are also starting talking about another project called Wake Odyssey. It's something that we've been working on in bits and pieces for over four years now. Right now we're hammering out story details and format and whatnot. It's entirely possible that it'll be done in something other than comic form.

It's an epic fantasy story, so it'll take a while to work on so you won't be seeing it much in the near future. I'll be posting progress on it here off and on.

In the meantime, here's some art for it:

100 Questions

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:09:37 GMT

I'm kind of obsessed with these things, so it was a matter of time before I'd spam my lj with one. I'll try to restrain myself in the future. :P

1) Full Name: Erica Marie Batton

2) Male/Female: female

3) Were you named after anyone? First name is from a soap opera character (All My Children) and my middle name is from my mom's friend's mom.

4) Does your name mean anything? Erica is Norse for "ruler of all". Awwwww yeah.

5) Nick Names: Bratkitty

6) What do you think you look like? Average. I can be kinda cute when I put on make up I guess. :P

7) Date of Birth: April 14, 1984. I'm a geezer.

8) Place of Birth and Current Location: Missouri and Missouri

9) Nationality: Polish/Irish

10) Astrology Sign: Aries

11) Chinese Astrology: Rat. What lame tattoo ideas. :/

12) Religion: Agnostic, so therefore everyone feels the need to convert me. -_-

13) Whats your favorite smell? Oranges

14) Political Position: Mostly liberal

15) What do you prefer to drink in the morning? I just drink water. Orange juice if I have it.

16) Hair + eye color: Light brown, green eyes

17) Do you look like anyone famous? Not really.

18) What do you look like? It already asked this question!

19) Any unusual talents? I can draw *grin*

20) Righty, lefty, or ambidextrous? Ambidextrous

21) Gay, straight, bi, or other? pansexual, it's like a bisexual only fancier. ;D

22) What do you do for a living? I just go to school and draw comics

23) What do you do for fun? surf the internet, draw, rpg's, read

24) What are your favorite art materials to work with? I've taken a liking to ink lately

25) What kind of materials would you like to work with? Collage and fabric. Maybe when I move I'll have the space to do it.

26) Have you met your grandparents? Yeah, I'm only close to one of them though.The other just kind of exists and the other two I don't like.

27) Boyfriend/girlfriend? yes.

28) Crush? I've got my spine, I've got my orange crush.

29) What celebrity would you date if you could? Too high profile. One night stand, maybe :P

30) Current worries? getting things for our new house taken care of.

31) Favorite online guy/girl: I have several . . . ?

32) Favorite place to be? School, I'm a nerd that way.

33) Least favorite place to be? in the car. I love my car, I just don't like driving.

34) Do you burn or tan? Burn, then freckle.

35) Ever break a bone? fingers

36) What is your favorite cereal? Count Chocula

37) Person you cry with: I prefer to be alone.

38) Any sisters: no

39) Any brothers: two

40) Any pets: Me personally? None. Three ferrets and two cats in the house I live in though.

41) An illness: I have had one before . . .

42) A Pager: Yeah, back in 1997.

43) A personal phone line: Yes I have one.

44) Cell phone: I need to get a new one.

45) A visible birthmark: One on my knee, one on my theigh

46) A pool or hot tub? pool, I like to be able to move around.

47) A car: I own a 94 chevy corsica.

Describe your...

48) Personality: Calm, quirky, humorous, critical

49) Driving: Regular. I don't really speed, but like to get from point a to point b as fast as possible.

50) Your clothing style: comfort, can't afford to be too trendy

51) Room: Cluttered

52) What's missing?: money?

53) School: It's an art school. I'm just thrilled I don't have to take math. :D

54) Bed: Full size.

55) Relationship with your parents: Pretty good.

56) Do you believe in yourself? Sure.

57) Do you believe in love at first sight? Nope.

58) Consider yourself a good listener? For the most part. I have a short attention span so I tend to zone out though.

59) Have a future dream you would like to share? Making a living doing my own comics and animated films.

60) Get along with your parents? Yep.

61) Save your email conversations? If it's something important.

62) Pray: no.

63) Believe in reincarnation? I'm not sure.

64) Brush your teeth twice a day? two or three times.

65) Like to talk on the phone? I hate talking on the phone

66) Like to eat? Maybe a little too much. ^^;

67) Like to exercise? I like to play sports, I don't really like regular exercise though.

68) Like to watch sports? Just the Olympics.

69) Sing in the car? Sometimes.

70) What is a dream you have all the time? I have lucid dreams a lot

71) Dream in color? Vivid

72) Do you have nightmares? Not since I was a kid.

73) Sleep with a stuffed animal? No, but I have a second pillow I like to hold onto in my sleep.

74) Right next to you? The window.

75) On your favorite coffee cup? A santa mug my grandma bought me.

76) On your mousepad? No mousepad.

77) Your favorite flavor of gum? cinnamon or citrus.

78) Your brand of deodorant: Lady Speed Stick

79) Your dream honeymoon spot: somewhere overseas

80) Your dream husband/wife: Already have that. :D

81) Hiding in your closet? clothes and boxes

82) Under your bed? many, many shoes.

83) The name of one of your closest best friends: Emma

84) Your bad time of the day? I'm not a morning person.

85) Your worst fears? a tie between boats and small spaces.

86) Whats the weather like? Pretty nice.

87) Your favorite time of the year? Fall and spring

88) Your favorite holiday? Halloween and Christmas

89) A material weakness? I am a compulsive buyer of comics.

90) The weirdest food and drink you like: I'm pretty adventurous with food and drinks, I love weird things.

91) At the top of your to-do list: Work on my comic! >_<

92) The hardest thing about growing up: Realizing you're not getting any younger.

93) A pet peeve? I have too many to list here.

94) Your scariest moment: The car accident when I was 17. I thought I had broken my arm and leg

95) Your attitude about love: It's more scarce than you think, so take it where you can get it. However don't let it rule your life either.

96) The funniest or most desperate thing you have done to attract someone of the opposite sex: Caking on makeup on my face when I was in seventh grade. I thought I looked good, but looking back I just looked like a hooker-pumpkin.

97) The worst feeling in the world: helplessness

98) The best feeling in the world: accomplishment, being wanted.

99) Who sent this to you? Stolen

Stress: Part 2

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:21:44 GMT

About that house I mentioned in my last post. I just got a phone call and we got the house! Yay! :D

I'm so excited!

Stress

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:16:37 GMT

I normally don't make a habit to post too many personal things about myself on the internet, but what the heck, I need to vent.
This summer has been nothing but stress. My laptop broke for good. I'm waiting for my financial aid money next month to be able to replace that. Which leaves me with a desktop, making it much harder to work on things (I hate being confined to one place and I like to be able to take my work with me).
Rumor and I have been having problems with our roommate since July. Well actually it's been going on for longer than that, but it came to a head last month and has made for unpleasant living conditions since.
It started when we went to see Dark Knight. Now the movie theatre had been sold out all weekend. We had decided to go Tuesday evening after it had opened. There was a group of eleven of us. the theatre was still packed and there weren't eleven seats together. After much stumbling across the other movie goers to come to this conclusion, we ended up splitting up into two groups. Which to me, seems like a logical idea, but he still ended up angry at us and refused to speak to us for a couple of days for something that was out of our control. Whatever.
On top of that, my roommate's a slob. You can't sit anywhere in the living room without clearing a space. the living room stinks like ferret shit from a dirty cage, and the downstairs area stinks like cat shit from an unclean litterbox. I frequently have to clean the litterbox when we have company over so they don't have to smell it.
While they were gone, a couple of friends came over to help us clean the house and enjoy having a cleaned up space for a couple of days while everyone was gone.
My morale from living there hit an all time low when my friend told me she had thought about having us move in with her and her boyfriend because she felt sorry for us. Wow. I appreciated her saying that, it just sucks when everyone notices how bad it is.
And it's not like you can say anything. He owns the house, so no one feels like they can say anything. I once asked him to keep it down at nights when we had to work the next morning. (at the time Rumor and I were working twelve hour shifts and had to be there at six am and he was having a loud friend over who would scream at the tv while playing Mario Party on the Wii - - no, I'm not kidding). Rather than keeping it down, we were informed that it was our fault for having that schedule.
I've lost just about every argument I've had with him. Not because I was wrong, but because he has a talent for pissing me off into submission. Even civil discussions turn to arguments, which he twists around for the sole purpose of winning the argument and ends with me storming off upstairs wanting to punch something.
But that's ok. He never wanted me living there anyway. Which is another drama I'm not going into here.
So suffice to say the house is once again a dump. And it is staying that way because I refuse to clean up after another adult anymore.

So this is a roundabout way of saying that we're moving. Hopefully soon. We sent in an application for a house and we're waiting to hear back from them if we've got it or not. If so, then hopefully we'll be out of there by the middle of September.

I start school on Monday. I don't want to have to deal with stress at home and have it interfere with school. It's also been taking away from my concentration on Starcrossed. I'm much farther behind on chapter two than I would like to be.

And to top it all off, all the stress decided to manifest itself as an epic migraine on Tuesday and I'm still feeling the pressure on the left side of my head today.

On the bright side, I got my signals and car door fixed (both were broken) and it cost a lot less than we thought. I will be enjoying opening my driver's side door with minimal hassle these upcoming winter months.

I'm pretty excited about this house too. If we get it, we'll have a ton of space and I'll be able to have my own studio space at home. Squee!

Starcrossed Chapter 2 Updates

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:07:32 GMT

(Copied from Starcrossed's Site)

I’m slowly, but surely working on chapter two. There’s a few changes that I’m making for it. For one, I’m opting more for flat tones rather than so many screen tones you see now. It cuts down on a lot of the time spent toning the comic and getting it out.
Also after doing thumbnails for all the pages, I went through and shot reference photos for each panel. I felt the anatomy for chapter one isn’t quite up to snuff to what I can do, so hopefully chapter two will be an improvement visually.
Also after this chapter, I’m going to switch to updating once a week. The reason is I start school August 25th. I want to be able to buy myself enough time to keep at least a chapter ahead of what’s out. Between the comic and animation projects I’ll have in school, I don’t think I could keep up with a twice-a-week schedule and I’d rather stick to something I can keep consistent.

Choice Comics

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 07:43:03 GMT

I normally don't like making posts for things for plugging (other than for my own sites) :P
But I am now telling anyone who likes to talk about webcomics to go to Choice Comics and support them.
They had been around for a while before the site was hacked. But now it's back up.
I really like this webcomic community because it's all based around webcomic reviews. It also gives you an opportunity to pimp out comics that you like because you don't have to be the author to submit comics. (I've taken the time to add my favorites and review them)

Either way, this is a webcomic site I like a lot that has a pretty small community right now so I'm urging you to join. That's right, URGING. I also implore you to visit it.

Go! Now! Don't make me bust out the thesaurus on you!

Progress and Convention Talk

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:14:48 GMT

I'm in the process of working on chapter two for Starcrossed now. I'm trying to keep at least a chapter ahead of the current stuff so I can keep the updates consistent. It proves to be a useful plan because I've been seriously unmotivated over the last couple of weeks. My laptop died and I'm stuck sharing a desktop. :( It's a bit of a handicap for me because I hate sitting in one place for long periods of time while working on stuff. I need something portable. Luckily I should have the money to buy a new laptop in September after my semester starts. Which is great because I'll go nuts if I have to do all my animation projects in the school's computer lab. >_<

Also if you're in the Cincinnati area around Halloween and you like anime, be sure to drop by Sugoi Con. We will have a table in the artist alley and I'll be selling a print version of chapter one there.

We were originally going to go to Anime Iowa, but it ended up falling through.

Also AI's implemented a no fanart policy in the artist alley. You can display it, you just can't sell it. They've caught a lot of grief for it, too. While I think they could have done a better job informing the artists sooner, I can't blame any convention for doing this.

Anime companies have been nice enough over the years turning a blind eye towards artist alley's selling of fanart, but recently they've started cracking down at some conventions. I've heard Viz in particular has been going to artist's tables and asking them to stop selling fanart of anime they've licensed. The thing is they have every right to do so. Regardless of what Japanese creators think, in America the anime has rights by way of the publisher, which by American law gives them copyright over said anime or game. They have every right to cease and desist or even sue fan artists and conventions who allow the selling of fanart. Anime companies have sued conventions for allowing dealers to sell bootleg merchandise in the past. And this point has proved to be controversial when I brought it up in the past, but technically selling fanart could count as bootlegging.

Online artists have had a rather vicious reputation for defending their copyrights over the internet. All you have to do is point the finger at an art thief and provide the proof (or sometimes not) and other artists will form mobs and demand the art be taken down. Don't believe me? Just post a pic from your favorite Deviantart artist on a site that has a bunch of traffic, I dare you. Ok, seriously don't. But you get my point.

And while I think the mobs are a bit overkill at times, I completely understand the artist anger when one of their works has been stolen. I've been there myself. I once had someone try to sell bootlegged mousepads with my artwork on it without my permission on ebay. They very promptly got a very firmly worded email asking them to take the auction down from me (I didn't get a response, but the auction was very quietly taken down the next day). However what some artists fail to realize is that this can also apply to the selling of fanart. Only instead of mobs of fans and other artists, it's lawyers. Companies have as much of a right to defend their products from lost profits as artists have to protect their works from theft. It's only fair.

I'm not out to make fanartists sound like thieves. I've sold fanart at conventions myself. If I'm asked to stop, I have no room to get mad about it.

This being said, I have a stack of fanart prints left over from previous cons that I need to get rid of. Like I said, I will be at Sugoi Con in October 31 - November 2 in Cincinnati and Naka Kon sometime in February/March in Kansas City where I will be selling the last of my fanart prints. I'm not printing any more fanart for selling. The way I see it, I have my own stuff to promote and a pretty strong portfolio of original works. If I'm trying to promote my work as a professional artist, it doesn't speak very highly of my work if I have to depend on characters that aren't mine to turn a profit.

Funniest Yaoi Page Evar

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:28:51 GMT

I don't really read much yaoi. I appreciate it and all, it just has to be really good to catch my interest. That being said, however, my friend is a yaoi fiend. It's a known fact that a wandering eye will see some form of buttsecks on her laptop at any given time, as our abundantly curious straight male friend has found out. Otherwise it's considered normal.
That being said, we happened to walk behind her during one of her yaoi reading sessions to see this page (posted below). I don't know the context of some of it, and I honestly don't want to know. This was one of the most absurdly random individual comic pages I had encountered. And I enjoy it greatly.

IMA CHARGIN MAH JOURNAL!!!

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:04:06 GMT

I've been meaning to post here for a while. Now that I have a moment to sit down and do it, I find myself to be too tired to post anything substantial. But then again it is 3am.
The template is a temporary one. I plan to do something more custom. But in the meantime I like skulls . . . and purple. Spooky.
Anyhoo, for those of you who don't know me, I am Bratkitty. I'm also on Deviantart quite often. I am also the artist and co-creator for a webcomic called Value=Dead which was on an extended hiatus, but is now being slowly (but surely) necro'ed into something more awesome.
In the meantime, I have started a new webcomic:

It is a shoujo-ai webcomic brain child I've been working on. I just finished Chapter 2 earlier tonight and will probably start drawing it tomorrow. :D

I'll post more later. I just want to sleep right now.