Rickety Rat lives

Ahhh you guys! So much stuff has been going on. Mostly I've been preoccupied with some other comics. But this week I shall have progress! I SHALL!

First off, I've been reworking the Rickety Rat board game: A rickety road to the top. Don't want to flesh it out too much, but in a nutshell, I've made it a non-linear board, added helper and crooked helper cards along with skeleton cards, added a class system, and added money and fame tokens. This is definitely an improvement over the former version, and hopefully it will be a lot more fun. I'll work on the art and rules this week and hopefully playtest it with some friends in the next couple of weeks. Expect an extremely rough sketch of the board soon!

On the animation front, I have been working on the stumbles short, mostly just to see how long something like this would take me(answer: not a short amount of time). I'm halfway done with the rough frames and have a number of the assets already finished. I'm hoping to get something into After Effects to show this week.

In script news, I still need to rework some of the kinks. I had an idea for making a funny version and a tragic version with subtle differences, but not all the scenes work in a funny or tragic way. So we'll see how that pans out.

Also seriously thinking retooling the blog design.

Stay frosty Ricketeers!

the many faces of Stumbles

So I haven't done anything with rickety rat in a looong while. Well I have, just not very much, and just not telling you. but fear not faithful ricketeers! I've been doing Character sheets for Stumbles. Check out these lovable mugs!

Who couldn't fall in love with a big floppy face like that? Also, I did sheets of all the costumes he's wearing in his short. WARNING: may be risque.
If only I could make Stumbles Action figures. Collect them all! Well that's all I have to show for now. Tune in next time faithful viewers!

New Backgrounds!

Hey there Ricketeers! Haven't made a post on the animation in awhile. Frankly, I haven't really been working on it, but I just started rewriting the script and I've started to dabble in background design! I tried five different approaches and put Stumbles in to see how it would look with the flash characters.

I started with pen. I like these shading effects and it has a stark black and white look, but it just makes the characters look out of place.

Then I went with charcoal, which I love as a medium. It's easy and messy and has that nice dirty effect.

Ten I tried some grayscale markers, which have a nice look, but either I need bigger markers or I should fill it in areas in photoshop, which I think kind of defeats the purpose.

I just found a watercolor kit, so I figured I would try it out. Granted this is my first real watercolor piece since probably High school and I only have one brush, and I need to do it on better paper, but I really like the strokes it creates. Stumbles seems to fit in nicely.

Finally, this is a version I did in photoshop. It's easiest to do lighting effects in this medium when you have layers and apple Z, and Stumbles definitely fits in the best hear, but I don't feel like the background has enough life as it could have. I'll have to do more experimenting.

What do you all think? Which version is your favorite? What works and what doesn't? Thoughts? Opinions?

pictures of boardgame gameplay

I just realized I have not done a Rickety Rat update in awhile! I've actually been busy what with ComicCon and all. But I did get a chance to playtest the boardgame, and I even got to have the animatic critiqued! Here are some pictures of us playing the boardgame:






So what needs to happen now is that I need to tweek the boardgame(I'm leaning towards making it less boardy and more tabletop roleplayingy) and I need to rewrite, redraw and rerecord parts of the animatic until I'm sure it's amazing.

See you next time Ricketeers!

Boardgame Beta is go!

Greetings Ricketeers! I've finished a beta version of my new boardgame, A Rickety Road to the Top! And now you can play it by downloading and printing it out!

I set up a nifty link to the right of the blog right below the followers. Just click it and it'll bring you to a rapidshare download(7 megs) that will download a zip file of the instructions, the printables, and the card backs(optional for cards). It's a little rough and I'm definitely going to get more detailed and fancy later, but for now I'm glad to just have the bones all set out.

I haven't tried it out yet as I have no friends out here cool enough to play boardgames, but I'll be trying it out for the first time this weekend!

I didn't include a picture or drawing on how to put the player pieces together, but I'm sure you guys are smart enough to figure it out. Also, I feel I should note that even though this is a boardgame, there's a pg-13 rating on it, as it does contain drugs, alcohol, murder and the occasional hooker(I'm appealing to that huge 18-24 yr old who enjoys playing boardgames demographic).

If you do decide to try it out(and please do) please message me or email me(insidejoshuashead@gmail.com) about what you liked, what you didn't like, what you felt worked, what you thought should be added or taken out, any input would be greatly appreciated.

Happy Gaming Ricketeers!

boardgame cutouts!

Hey there Ricketeers! I was really hoping to have a complete albeit beta version of my game done already, but I still need to finish a number of pieces. But I do have some stuff done already that you can even print out!


Here's a sheet containing the Rickety Rat, Rascals Rabbit, Digby Duck, and Dolly Duck game pieces. You can print out the sheet, cut them out and you'll have your own little Rickety game characters! You can even make them stand on their own if you:
1. Cut on all the dotted lines
2. Fold in the creases on the bottom front
3. Fold the front bottom segment and stick it through the slit in the back bottom segment
4. unfold the front bottom creases
It works, but it may be a bit confusing. I should probably take a picture or draw a diagram.

Also here are some sample game cards:
Skeleton cards are what makes the game interesting. If you get a skeleton card, and then get an action card or land on an action space in which you get outed, then you have to go all the way back to the start. I really want to beta-test this out.

Also, here are some board pieces of the interchangable board:

I'm hoping in a couple of weeks I can have all the assets completed and I can make it available for beta-testing. Until next time Ricketeers!

cards and pieces

Hey there faithful Ricketeers! Still making assets for the boardgame and working on Character sheets. Here are some card backs I'm playing with:
Also, I made my first cut-out game piece!



I even figured out a way to make him stand pretty nicely on his own without the use of glue, tape, or a plastic stand, but it's a bit confusing to explain without instructions. Perhaps next week I'll have the whole sheet of characters done!

Next week I should have a mock game board, cards, and pieces all ready to play. Then, Beta-testing!