I Wish I was a Doodlebug

It's Doodle Time!

The lovely Claire is once again throwing open a doodle-based challenge to all those who read her frankly fabulous blog, A Little Piece of Me.

The challenge? To doodle, dammit!

I missed the last Doodle Week, (due to me being slightly crap at getting around to stuff) but this time I'm ready. I even have my finest crayons at hand.

The theme of today's Doodle Challenge is the Doodlebug, and so here is my take on this particular theme:

Man, I wish I was a Doodlebug. Those extra limbs would come in handy for completing the many projects and ideas I have floating about, but for which I never seem to have enough time.

Curse you, Doodlebug! Why must you mock me this way?

Talking of doodles and projects that have been neglected (God, I'm great at linking things together) today also heralds the return of my semi-successful webcomic The Carrotty Kid. It's been six long months since I last did any carrot-based cartoonery, and I have missed the little orange bugger a bit. Look, here he is now, doing some kung-fu or something:


Bless him. Why not visit the homegrown hero at his website, so I don't wind up having wasted an entire day? Please?

Right, I'm off. I think I've got artists' cramp. Then again, it might just be wankers' cramp. It's hard to tell, really. I've done a lot of drawing today, but I've also done more than my fair share of tossing, as well. Ah, well!

Next time I take on Brent's challenge, thrown down from the almighty Comma! Will I succeed, or fail terribly? And why is everyone out to challenge me, anyway?

Find out at some point this week!

Tara for now!

- Fanton.

The Shirt Off My Back

Hey, consumers!

Do you like t-shirts? Do you like wearing t-shirts? Do you like wearing t-shirts with vaguely amusing pictures upon them?

You do? WELL YOU'RE IN LUCK!

In association with the fine folk at redbubble.com, I have designed not one but TWO wonderful t-shirts for you to look at and then buy and thus keep me alive for another month.

First up, this jolly little number featuring a certain Mr. Grim Reaper:


Oh, Mr. Reaper! You'll be the death of me! Buy this shirt, HERE!

Secondly, it's the return of everyone's favourite homegrown hero, The Carrotty Kid, who has gone from failed TV pilot, to failed webcomic and is now a lovely t-shirt, ready to adorn your chest or breasts. KA-POW!


Buy that tasty little number, HERE.

Who knows? If enough people buy a shirt, maybe I can stop eating the stuff I find on the floor.

redbubble is quite a funky Australian-based site, of which the marketplace is only a small part. There is an excellent social side to the site, allowing you to meet some sickeningly gifted artists, chat to them, and then you can gaze in awe at their fabulous works. It's a bit like a gallery, except there's no creepy guards following you about making sure you don't touch the Pointilists.

I thank the sexily talented cleandemon for drawing my attention to this wonderful world of wonder.

Bye-bye!

(Buy buy).

- Fanton.

I'm Bringing Carrots Back

While I take a break from the ball-crushing schedule of updating The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely, I have begun work on a couple of new and newish projects.

The first is TOP SECRET and cannot be revealed yet, lest I jinx the whole enterprise and ruin it for ever. Not that I'm superstitious or anything. (Anyone have any four-leaf clovers or rabbit's feet on them?)

The other is the return of my other, more family-friendly creation, The Carrotty Kid.


I stopped updating The Carrotty Kid's site earlier this year, largely because I began to think that maybe I was actually no good at this cartooning lark, despite having doodled and scribbled for most of my life.

However, I still draw the odd picture for Lord Likely's site, which I've enjoyed doing, and thanks to my recent assignment of drawing comic strips for the vue cinemas newsletter, I've suddenly felt a resurgence of confidence in my (admittedly limited) abilities. Especially when I submitted the last vue comic, which I was particularly proud of, and which I've reproduced here for you to look at with your eyes:

Haha! Oh, Batman!

As well as rediscovering my artistic mojo (as it were), I've been reading a fair few webcomics which have all inspired me to pick up my pens again. Stuff like the ever-excellent Dinoballs, Jamie Smart's new venture Whubble and the legendary Beaver and Steve have all given me the cartooning itch, which I am now determined to scratch. Scratch hard until it BLEEDS.

Thus inspired and full of fire, I've decided that I am going to relaunch The Carrotty Kid's website next month. I love the little vegetable vigilante, as he was a creation I came up with as a kid and has been my most successful idea yet, earning me some paid work from the UK's finest animation studio, Cosgrove Hall Films, which in turn led to CK becoming the star of his own three-minute pilot episode which would have led to a full series, if only Children's ITV hadn't imploded in on itself. The swines.

The new-look Carrotty Kid will be a bit different from before. I'm going to re-jig the character's design slightly, and I'm going to change the site's format a bit to prevent me (and the readers) from getting bored. Hopefully the end result will be one-hundred percent excellent, and nought percent rubbish.

Of course, with me going back to cartooning, my other ventures may have to suffer slightly. Lord Likely will be dropping to a twice-weekly update schedule (from his current three posts a week), and my spoof showbiz site gaup may well be killed off altogether, unless anyone reading wants to pick up the baton and run with it.

So there you go. Get ready for the return of everyone's favourite kung-fu carrot, coming to a monitor screen near you in June 2008. Go and visit the website now to see a bit of teaser art, and an exciting countdown clock, counting down the days until CK's rebirth.

It's so exciting, you might just PEE.

In other news, please welcome back Mike Whaite to the internet. Mike was the guy responsible for pretty much all the animation in The Carrotty Kid's pilot episode (which you should go and watch and remark on how excellent it is, by the way) and a guy with whom I seemed to click instantly. He's ridiculously talented and excellent, so check out his wondrous portfolio here and fab little website Popmash. He good.

And finally, keep checking Lord Likely's site, to read some truly excellent guest posts from some fine guest writers. Everyone's done a tip-top job thus far, and I thank you all from the bottom of my trousers. Thank you.

Right. That's it for now. I've got vegetables to draw. Tara!

- Fanton.