Almost Contest Time Again

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm putting together the latest batch of (fantastic!) fan art. There's a new illustration in the works as well as a new animation (though that one's quite a while off). T-shirts will be on their way soon, too, which makes me think it's a good time for a contest! But what sort of contest should I do for a Skary shirt giveaway? Is there something you've just been wishing I'd ask for so you'd finally get your chance? Send your suggestions here!

Here there be t-shirts

As previously mentioned, your pleas have been answered, and I'm finally working on some t-shirts! Here are the top designs I'm considering:

This first set will be a limited run, and price is tentatively set for $15 each, so I need your help figuring out which design to run and how many! Answer the following anonymous survey (it's just three short questions) and pick the next Skary shirt!

START

That music!

I'm not too modest to say that I think the tracks I picked out for The Mockingbird Song soundtrack are pretty fantastic, but I had nothing to do with their creation. I just found them, thought, "Oh my gosh, that's IT!" and bought the licenses to use them. That means I can't give them to you for free, but I have good news! You can get them for yourself! And please do; independent artists can always use your support.

Those artists are Gayle Ellett and Todd Montgomery--aka Fernwood--and the tracks in question are "Cimarron" and "Mistral," both of which can be found on their truly beautiful album, Sangita. You can pick Sangita up at CD Baby or iTunes. Enjoy!

Fan Art Contest!

I'm about to embark on a journey to NYC. When I return on Sunday, I intend to post all the fan art I've been late on posting before. But I could always use more! That's where you come in.

You have until 12am, Monday the 22nd to send me a Skary picture in any medium (digitally drawn, pencil, paint, Crayon, photo, whatever you like). But the theme, you see, is vacation. How would a Skary child enjoy a trip away from home? Send me your picture using the fan art form. Judging will take place all next week, and the winner will receive any print of his/her choice (signed, of course) from the Skary ImageKind store!

Rules (gotta have 'em):

  • Your artwork must be original and by you and you alone!
  • You must use a current email address when you submit your pic. Your email won't be shared with anyone, but I need a way to get in touch with you should you win!
  • File type must be jpg, gif or png. No bitmaps, please!
  • Entries will be accepted from anywhere in the world
  • Theme must be "Skary vacation"

Remember: the deadline is 12am, March 22nd, 2010. No exceptions!

CONTEST CLOSED
Winners to be announced soon!

Frequently Asked Questions Answered

I get a lot of email from you all (which I love!), and there are a few questions I get more than others. Once upon a time I had an FAQ page, but I think it fell down the rabbit hole. I couldn't tell you what happened to it, but I imagine it's probably having tea with a festively bewigged Johnny Depp or something. So, here's a new one! [toc title="FAQ Contents:" hint="Click a title to jump down to it!" style="inline CSS style"]

What software do you use to make your movies?

Adobe Flash.

Where do you get your inspiration?

From everything around me. Memories, music, nightmares, things I thought someone said but actually misheard, shapes in the clouds, interesting patterns in half-mixed cake ingredients. There's no one source for creativity. So, if you're hoping to find a magical font of inspiration, all I can say is look around you. It's everywhere!

I have an idea for a cartoon. You could do one about...

No, I couldn't. If you have a story idea, I wholly encourage you to do something with it! Invent your own characters and make your idea come to life. Don't give it away to someone else! I just can't take anyone else's idea, no matter how great it might be. It wouldn't be mine, you see, and that's important. (But thank you for the suggestions, of course!)

Where do you get the music you use in your movies?

Sometimes friends write it for me. I've occasionally found songs in the public domain. Sometimes I purchase a license for royalty-free music, and there are a variety of places to order such tracks. I will not use anything without permission. Unfortunately, this also means you usually can't look up the tracks on iTunes and order them for yourself.

When is your book coming out? Where can I find your book?

Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow came out on August 23rd, 2011 and is available pretty much everywhere. If you can't find it in a local shop, you can most certainly order it online. BookDepository offers free shipping worldwide, so that's usually my recommendation for those of you outside the US.

What's the book about?

It's about a terrible evil that takes up residence in the woods of a small, forgotten town already cursed by dark forces and locked in perpetual autumn. People have vanished! Ghosts shriek desperate warnings! And there are signs of worse to come. It's up to three strange girls and one rather awkward boy to save this town, even though they have been cruelly outcast by it.

How do I get you to autograph my copy of your book?

Send it with return postage, preferably on a self-addressed envelope (USPS priority mail envelopes make this easy if you're in the States) to:

Katy Towell NEW ADDRESS COMING SOON

Be sure to let me know who I'm signing it for and if there are any special messages you want me to write!

Will you make a music video for my band?

How much are you willing to pay? ;-) And, well, no. Probably not. It's not that your band isn't great. It's just that animation is an arduous process for me, and I don't know how I'd manage to find the time!

Can my band make music for one of your videos?

I'm extremely selective when it comes to the music that I use, so unless I've posted a call for music submissions, I've probably already got something in mind. Also, I'd feel bad about asking for a lot of changes, and you know I would ask.

I'd like to offer my talents as a voice actor.

Thank you! ...but, just as with music, unless I've made a specific call for voice actors, I'm not really looking for anybody as I already have a list of go-to people. It wouldn't be an easy job, anyway. I'm a mean director. I made Tim Jones cry when he was working on The Little Girl. Um... don't tell him I said that. It's, uh, very upsetting for him. Yes.

How did you come up with the idea for Skary?

The Childrin were mostly inspired by the antics of actual children. I worked with preschoolers a long time ago. Loved it. But I found that kids really do say the darnedest things. The darnedest, creepiest, most disturbing things. And they have no idea how strange the things they're saying are! Yet they say it all with such sweet, cherubic smiles. Parents don't usually allow their little ones to play with sharp objects. You think that's for the kids' protection? THINK AGAIN.

Who does your web design?

I do!

Can I send you my resume?

Er... okay, but it won't do you much good. I'm a one-woman operation.

Will you answer some questions for my school project?

I usually do, but it can take me a while to get to all my email. So, please don't ask if you've got a close deadline, and I recommend having a backup plan!

Have you thought about collaborating with Tim Burton?

Sure. But has he thought about collaborating with me? I don't know! Let me call him up and ask. Hold on. Got another call. Oh, drat, it's Scorsese again. I gotta take this.

Those are all the FAQs I can think up at the moment! As always, if you have other questions, use the form and ask away.

Evelyn's Puzzle Explained

While I'm working to rebuild the missing minute of The Mockingbird Song (brief summary of What Exactly Happened: the main file and its backup were corrupt. I don't know why or how. Fortunately, there was another version saved in Dropbox that I'd forgotten about, and it's complete except for about 63 seconds, which I'm working on now. It's faster than trying to unbreak the other one), here's some news for you! As announced via Twitter and Facebook earlier last week, we finally have a winner for Evelyn's Puzzle. You thought it would never be solved, didn't you? Well, our winner has asked to remain anonymous because the prize--the original sketch of Evelyn and Mrs. Nattingbottom--is going to be a surprise gift for someone special. Congratulations, Winner (and Winner's sweetheart!) But I did promise I would explain all the clues for you once the puzzle was solved, so, here you go:

1. Find the last of the Micronesians and tell them my name Their beloved songs will tell you the place

The domain suffix for Micronesia is .fm. So, "the last of the Micronesians" means Last.fm. "Tell them my name" refers to my username, which is, in this case, my actual name. Which amounts to http://www.last.fm/user/katytowell. Finally, the location of the piece is given in the title of a track that I have marked as a Loved Track. (It's also right there in Recently Listened Tracks.)

2. go to The place where our every Word Is spoken by the sialia bird, be careful lest you fail, my friend; These birds will carry you unto your end. They'll wrap you up in silken suture Exactly as they did the great sea creature, but never mind this. come follow me... look to the background. you will see! fear not if it seems your skill is bleak. for below the horizon Rests the gift you seek.

A sialia bird is a bluebird. Birds tweet. Who has a blue bird for a mascot? Twitter. So, the piece is hidden at the bottom ("below the horizon") of my background image. Oh, and the great sea creature wrapped up in silken suture and carried by the birds? The failwhale. And just in case this was all too cryptic for you, I also spelled out TWITTER with every capitalized letter.

3. And by the side the horned beast waits with great displeasure on his face 'Tis he who'll take you to the spot where all the words have been forgot Find the treasure at its source Look for a name - and the prize, of course.

In the sidebar of skary.net is a picture of Mister Creazil. Click him, and you'll see what appears to be a page with no content. But view the source of that page and you'll see this hidden somewhere therein:

Evelyn's getting nervous. What took you so long?
http://skary.com/wp-content/uploads/lbp.png

4. Consider everywhere I go. Look in the past and then you'll know.

This one was simple. I posted the location of a piece in a comment on an old, old Facebook post at http://facebook.com/childrinrskary.

5. Find me where the memories flicker How empty is the stream! But if you add my name, it'll be much quicker and there's more than it may seem.

The piece was uploaded to my new Flickr account at http://flickr.com/katytowell. But the piece itself was (at the time - it's public now) accessible only to people I add as friends. To find it, you had to add me first. I would reciprocate, and then you'd see the piece.

6. There was a crooked man, and he had something once, and it bought him a folder containing all things new, within which was another for Evelyn's nickname, which had a ping to it like "pea ell cee oh!"

"The crooked man who had something once" refers to the crooked sixpence nursery rhyme, which was the inspiration for one of my other sites: http://crookedsixpence.com. I added a folder called "new," inside of which was another folder for Evelyn's nickname (actually, three different folders with three different possible nicknames for Evelyn - Lyn, Lynn, and Evey) and placed inside it a PNG file called plco.png.

So, there you have it! All clues to Evelyn's Puzzle explained and clarified. Congrats again to the winner, and much applause for everyone who tried! This wasn't an easy one; I admit!

Tomorrow!

Because True Blood isn't on yet.

Update 2/14/10: Technical problems. I know. Again. The day I can publish a cartoon without issue is the day the Earth stands still. But I'm working on the problem and will post Mockingbird just as soon as I'm able.

Update 2/17/10: This has been one doozie of a technical problem. I've sent the file off to someone who's good at figuring out why things break, and I hope to have a mended animation to show you soon. My apologies!

Some 'Mockingbird' Questions Answered

Two days until The Mockingbird Song! It's been a couple of years since my last long cartoon (Ida's Luck Part 2), so I'm very excited to show it off. I've been getting a few questions about it since I initially announced it, so here are a few of those answers:

  • I'm narrating it this time.
  • It's based on a Sixcast episode I wrote and recorded a few months ago; many of you may already be familiar with it. I've taken the recording down for now so that you'll have some time to forget it!
  • As mentioned previously, there are a few slight changes in the story. They are minor, but they're important without drastically changing the one you already liked.
  • It's ten minutes long! Whew!
  • It's very different from a typical Skary cartoon. Still sad and spooky (I hope), but Shawnee Jenkins is a fairly normal Kansas eight-year-old considering that, well... you'll see what I mean. ;-)
  • Those of you with young children who are also fans (yay!), I would hold off on showing them this one until you've seen it first. There's some violence and gore. Granted, it's very stylish gore with a retro look to it and all, but vintage entrails are still entrails.
  • Can anyone embroider? I would love a throw pillow that said "Vintage entrails are still entrails."

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Thoughts On Skout Kamp

In all the book craziness, I've been a tad slow with updates, but I hope to be all caught up soon! I'm still planning to wrap up "The Mockingbird Song" this month. Still working on a new illustration. And still working on the new rendition of Skout Kamp! In case you've forgotten, the Skary Skouts were essentially my street team some time back when I had more time to manage it (with the help of some Skouts). Many former Skouts have let me know it's time to bring Kamp back, so that's what I'm working to do. Hooray! Here's what's in the blueprints so far:

  • Profile page: all Skouts will have their own profile page which they can update with a little info about themselves and why they're fans of Skary. Their friends and fellow Skouts will be able to leave comments for them. It's sorta like Facebook but without the pressure to build up a 2D farm!
  • Missions: Skouts will regularly receive little missions to carry out in the name of Skary. Completing these tasks will give you points which you can save up for prizes that are only available to registered Skouts.
  • Chats with me! Every so often (monthly, perhaps), I'll host a chat at the Skout site. Ask me questions. Swap casserole recipes with each other. Whatever!
  • Exclusive content: You'll get to see more of my work in progress than anyone else. Sketches, cartoon sneak peaks, and so on.

All of this will be free, of course. Your missions will help me get the word out, and in return, you'll get to do and see some fun stuff. But there's still a lot for me to do, so it will be some time before it's ready! A few of you will receive invitations to test the new site before anybody else (you know who you are). I heard a rumor that if you retweet me on Twitter, you'll be added to the beta tester list. But you didn't hear that from me.

Clear a space on the bookshelf.

GUESS WHAT.

I've written a book.

GUESS WHAT ELSE.

I've gotten a deal with the Knopf imprint of Random House for two middle grade children's novels.

GUESS WHAT ELSE ELSE.

I'm illustrating them too.

This, of course, means you'll have to read them or, at the very least, put them out on the coffee table for company. But that day is still some time off - possibly in the fall of 2011 for the first one - so here's a little info to salivate over in the mean time.

The first book is tentatively titled Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow. It's not quite finished, but I can tell you with certainty that it will fulfill your wishes for disappearing people, frightful things in the woods, cursed towns and dark, dark times. And then there are the children.

The children in this tale are a bit different from the Childrin you're used to; they're older for one thing, and they've got a whole new kind of oddness about them. Oh, but I think you'll like them. I'm not sure I'd want to cross their paths if you didn't is all I'm saying.

As I mentioned above, you've still got quite a wait ahead of you, but you'll undoubtedly hear me talking about it here, there and everywhere along the way. You're welcome to talk about it here, there and everywhere along the way too! I wouldn't dare stop you.

(You know where else to find updates, don't you? Of course you do. It's only for those other people that I'm mentioning Twitter and Facebook)

Evelyn's Puzzle: Another clue because I'm nice.

Sadly, our potential puzzle winner never responded to the multiple pleas to actually complete his submission. But that means that the rest of you get another stab at the very first piece! So, for the rest of you, here's part 2 of Clue #1, and it's only two words:

domain

suffix

Remember to send your completed puzzle to me when you've found them all!

Evelyn's Puzzle: Do we have a winner?

A few days ago, I received a (very excited!) email from a possible winner of Evelyn's Puzzle. But, B, you used the wrong contact form and didn't attach the completed puzzle! Not only that, but it seems like you either mistyped or used a fake email address in your message. Oh no! So, this is my plea to you to try again. Until you send it in, the contest will continue! Don't miss your chance! For everyone else - if B hasn't responded by Friday, I'll post an additional clue for the notoriously difficult First Piece. Happy New Year!

(P.S. - new illustration coming soon! Of course, if you're following along on Facebook or Twitter, you might already know that. ;-))