It's been a busy month, but I finally got around to judging that story contest. Big heartfelt thanks to those of you who entered the contest.

The entrants and the short versions of their arcs (in order of submission) were as follows:


A fight between Pounce and Trans results in Dr. Stanley Renfield becoming transmuted by his nanobot project into a living machine. Trans and Pounce must join forces to defeat Renfield, who has been driven slightly mad by the transformation, and seeks to destroy them both. (Read SL's writeup on Renfield's powers and mindset here: [link])


Dr. Lankanovitch, the mad scientist who inadvertently created Pounce in his own quest for physical perfection, captures Trans to extract the source of her powers.


A lost other-dimensional(?) being does his part to help Pounce face some of her inner demons, while helping Trans and Arma deal with the rampant criminal element encroaching on the city (read the full writeup here: [link]).


All of these were well written, and did what they were supposed to- helped me get my creativity moving. After re-reading all the entries, I came up with hugely ambitious storylines involving these and other characters, because they seemed to fit together rather well. I will probably end up cobbling something together using bits of all three, but this here's a contest, so I need to declare some prize thingies.

Therefore, for the art portion of the prize pool, I'm calling a tie. Everyone gets a colored pic of their new character. Period. Contestants, note me regarding poses (or states of transformation in some cases), if you have a preference.

However! There is still the matter of the subscription that offered, which is a sticky wicket, because now I have to declare a first place winner.

So, here are my thoughts on the entries, in reverse order.

:
It's a little dense, and hard to follow at times. I really like the character, but had a hard time figuring out his motivations. I got a little confused toward the end when the gangs started showing up.

However! I really liked that you set up some seven degrees of separation in the backstory, and had it play out in the course of your arc, letting it tie the characters that much closer together. I think that the story might have been stronger if you played up the connection that Blackhole was able to form between Trans and Pounce separately, and perhaps play both ends against the middle, so to speak. Maybe get to the heart of the matter and help Trans resolve (or start to resolve) the issue.

:
The story meshed with a few things that I had been mulling over, like SCIENCE! It's a pretty simple concept, and that's not a bad thing, especially as you mentioned that the Doc could/should be a recurring villain. The story you've written serves well to introduce him and give him a reason to come back, through other agents or perhaps in some sort of modified form (assuming that he was able to get over the immobility part).

The process bit at the end seemed a little tacked-on, but it didn't hurt it much. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of what you'd liked to have put in in terms of process actually incorporated into the story. I'd also have liked to see your thoughts on how Trans and Arma got their powers.

:
Out of the three arcs, I think I liked this one the best, although the other two characters, Blackhole and Dr. Lankanovitch, offer more long-term playability and opportunities for character development down the road- Renfield seems like he would have to live like an Arkham inmate, constantly going through the revolving door of a new and improved containment facility, as opposed to Dr. Lankanovitch being able to operate behind his corporation's facade or Blackhole and his secret identity.

At its core, the story's pretty much ready to play out of the box, which I liked a lot, even though that's not what I was expecting at all from anyone. Compared to the others, it seems more complete, in a way that I can't quite quantify, perhaps because the others are written with longer development in mind. It stands on its own, but not much past that, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I also enjoyed your backstory bits- especially the part about the new generations of catpeople and their socioeconomic standing.

So, now that I've said my piece, the winner of the subscription is...

His piece was better put-together overall, and on top of that, he got it in well ahead of time.

Thanks to everyone for participating. Again, note me about details for your artwork, and how you would like to be credited for your contribution(s) to the (eventually) upcoming comic.

I'm waiting for to finish his entry [link] ; he says it'll be in by the end of the weekend.

Then the judging begins.

PS: I'm grumpy, but not at any of you. It's something else that can't be fixed; I just need to get over it. I'm less pissed off than I was an hour ago, but I'm still in something of a foul mood.

It's October first. I made it through the Sketch-A-Day Challenge (although there's a companion piece for the sketch posted for the 30th), the story arc contest has officially ended (though there have been requests for an extension), and it's 30 days until Halloween.

So: The "What's My Motivation" contest will be extended to the 7th of October. Everything else is a wrap. As for myself, I'm going to catch up on some sleep as well as my backlog of watched folks, probably in that order.

Those of you watching this space have no doubt seen the last few Trans commission images I've uploaded.

Well, so has and at his blog, [link] , he says this about Trans being my OC (emphasis added):

"That's probably a typo as Trans is the FTF10 mascot... and my original character."

However, this isn't entirely true. Trans was born on the Overflowing Forum in a contest that Prophet ran while seeking a mascot for his site. She originally had the name "Dix," as a nod to Ten, but go ahead and read the thread here: [link]

If you're not in the mood to read it, there was no art direction (read as: no creative input, or any sort of investment in the character other than wanting her made,) aside from this:

"Oh, it's really supposed to be open to the artist.

If we want some parameters...

Let's call her Trans, she's a fairly shy, petite and demure girl who works at some nameless company where she often gets involved in "accidents" that result in her being transformed in one way or another.

Is that enough?"

While the NAME "Trans" belongs to Prophet, the character, the is rightfully mine.

Considering that first and foremost, she's not even the character that Prophet describes, (meaning that he had no real input as to what she looked like, did, or anything else) no rights to her were ever transferred, his exact words on the subject (emphasis added) were:

"... I'm not sure what I can offer as a prize except having your work associated with my site and my not inconsequential gratitude..."

and Prophet worked on her color scheme together when Lightfoot did a piece for the FT10 anniversary, and I use the colors because they work. Oddly enough, Lightfoot credits us both in the piece, but there is no umbrage taken there.

Furthermore, when he did another piece celebrating FT10's reaching 1,000,000 hits, he points out that he referenced my concept work for her.

In closing, this is where I stand on the whole thing:

I'm more confused and a little hurt about the fact that Prophet would claim that he made the character than anything else. The fact that I'm claiming her (as I ought to) shouldn't be an issue for concern.

If Prophet is upset because I'm claiming the character that I created for his site's contest as my creation, then there's nothing I can do about it. I just wish that he wouldn't incite other people to come bother me about it. I'm going to keep drawing her, and I'm going to keep claiming her as mine.

And the story contest [link] ends this Wednesday. I know some of you were thinking of throwing hats in, if you really need more time, let me know.

It's been over a month, and I haven't updated the journal, so here I am.

Gencon went well. I'm waiting to hear back from people about Paying Work, and keeping relatively busy in the meantime. I met briefly with the commissioner of the Super-Secret Project (Which is coming along steadily, albeit slowly), and we chatted a bit.

I'm still working on 's animation, but not as much as I want to. He's been nice about the whole thing, but really it's been hanging out too long.

Lesse... Oh, there's the story contest [link] . With three places and only one entry so far, you're pretty much guaranteed something, unless it's completely awful, or you fail to follow the rules.

In other news, I decided to take a stab at 's Sketch-a-day challenge, and that's been interesting, although it's only been 3 days. We'll see how it fares over the course of
:spooky voice:
Laaaabor Daaay Weeeeekeeennnnnd...! If anybody'd be interested in a $5 sketch (single-character), holla atcha boy.

Anyway, that's almost the end of my break. Talk to you guys soon.