SCAVENGER HUUUUNT

Gerbil here again, with an insider's tip: To any of y'all attending the CONvergence festivities this coming July 2nd-5th, there'll be an extra-special fetch quest you can go on, courtesy of the Grey Bouquet gang!

Like all the best stuff in life, it's not only simple; it's free. Just check out the Free Stuff tables for fliers with the main four GBQ characters on 'em. If you can't pick them out at first sight, no worries-- there'll be a link to "greybouquet.com" right there on the flier.

If you find all four, you can match the back sides to build a super-sized, never-before-seen Grey Bouquet picture! (Or, in nerdspeak: you can form Voltron.)

What's the final product, you ask?

Pff. Cheaters. Fine, have yourselves some teaser pics...




Take our word for it: It's Hiroshima-licious.

Because being a consumer whore is downright sexy sometimes.

Hey, all! 'Tis the Gerbil! How're y'all doin'?

...
Kinda hope nobody just replied to their screen. If you did, I couldn't hear it. [Frowny face emoticon.]

ANYhow, I'm here hijacking the journal long enough to pass out an update for you fans of happy-go-lucky apocalypses out there.

http://www.greybouquet.com/
GBQ Online's up, running, and complete with (gasp, choke) content for all subsites! Yup, even the store's fully stocked.

Check it out, if you like! Run around. Get some sun in your bones, for cryin' out loud. You kids, with your working ozone layers. Pffft.

Microcon Happened

Microcon report:

I'm still cold, probably going to be sick. Gerbil sold some stuff and Maria did a pretty good days worth of drawing commision sketches. Teri also did one. We gave out massive amounts of Godseeker business cards, so hopefully we'll have lots of new readers! We didn't sell any books :(

I'm thinking of ordering some BHC business cards for my own use--I'm doing lots of networking. Fortunately, I can probably order up some free ones for the time being, since I don't care if VistaPrint puts thier webpage on the back, and I don't need them for a while.

I'm thinking of more ways to have some BHC stuff in particular that we can sell to raise some cash for the group instead of just individual members. I still wanna button maker for the group!

Any ideas?

Newsletter Post

Greetings!

This is the Black Hat Collective Newsletter. It will be a monthly newsletter, and will feature information and news and meeting times and places. If you want to get the e-newsletter, please send an email to blackhatcollective@gmail.com.

So, hello to the folks we met at Anime Detour! If you haven't, check out our blog (http://blackhatcollective.blogspot.com/). We hope to see some of you at our meetings! Studio Whipping Boy--I know there are five of you--if you'd like the newsletter to get sent to each of you individually, please let me know.

Remember: we'll be at MicroCon on April 26th. This does not mean we won't have a meeting this month--the 17th of April, at the Hamline-Midway Library (Location). We'll probably be in the basement.

We may have an opportunity to do a small gallery-type show at Sample Night Live. Who is all in? I'm thinking about doing it Sept/Oct of this year if possible. Sample Night is a lot of fun: here's their website.

For MISFITS News:
Upcoming Events:

Writing Contest deadline: May 1st.

Geek Prom, May 16th.
Since Teri and I are running it, we'd sure like y'all to get tickets. they are $10 now, or 15 at the door--though if you bring a canned food item, the door price is also 10. Theme this year is 8-Bit Boogie, and it should be a good time for all.

End of early reg for CONvergence: May 15th. For those of you who don't know--CONvergence is awesome. It's an all around geek con, and it is the highlight of my year.

I think that's it for this news bulletin, see you in a week or so!

Updating again!

Godseeker will re-start on tuesday, March 24th.

http://godseeker.comicgenesis.com/

YAY!

p.s. Nigel is my favorite person right now. All hail!

Godseeker relaunch

Hello, all

Once again, a Black Hat artist emerges from the depths to declare that this blog needs more action. So, in honour of the imminent relaunch of Lisa's and My webcomic, Godseeker, (pending website refurbishing) I thought I'd post a color test I did just before my computer broke down.

I wanted to keep the pallet simple and a bit muted, without letting it get dull or melancholy. I don't know that I quite hit the nail on the head, but I do seem to be making progress. I think browsing around colourlovers.com helped quite a bit. Comments and crit welcome. Full size version on my deviantart: http://goldfishhead.deviantart.com/

Fellow members, don't forget to update!

Need some suggestions for new comic project...

Hi folks,

This blog needs more love, so I figured I'd make a post here. As some of you may know, I'm working on a new webcomic idea that involves a main character that resembles, but is not in fact Neil Gaiman. There are also children with various supernatural abilities, and a village that can't be seen from the outside.

Anyway, I'm still working on the style I want to use for this comic, and I think I hit upon something today. This is a quickie pencil sketch I did, and colored in Photoshop Elements. I did some fancy thing with a brush set to "color" mode over the pencil lines to give them a little "pop", and I sort of like how it looks. What do you think? Could I get away with doing a whole comic in this style? (Click on the image below for a bigger version.)

The example, btw, is a gift art I did for my friend Elise, of her novel characters. Just an FYI, not that it has any real bearing on the rest of this post, aside from the fact that these characters will not be in my comic.

Feedback is very welcome!

~
Gypsy-Maria

Meeting Saturday, January 17th

The BHC will be meeting in the Hamline Midway Library tomorrow from noon to 5. Feel free to join us! (Ask the librarians where we're meeting - we've got a new room.)

An average meeting goes something like this:

noon-1:30pm - Members trickle in, sit down to draw, and chat.

1:30pm-2pm - Everyone we know is coming has shown up, so the founding members talk shop - who's going to the next upcoming convention, what we're doing with web stuff, book sales, etc. Someone brings up t-shirt designs, everyone gets excited, and then the subject gets dropped for another month.

2pm - Everyone goes back to art jamming, chatting, and listening to music. Occasionally someone says, "Hey, can I get your opinions on this?" and shows everyone the page or script they're working on. Feedback ensues.

3:14pm - Gerbil starts talking about Pokemon.

3:20pm - The Pokemon conversation shifts into fanfiction.

3:21pm - The terrified newbies slink from the room, sketchbooks clutched to their chests like shields. This will not protect them.

3:40pm - Art jamming and idle chitchat returns to a less brain-searing level. Newbies who remain gain a level in Conversational Constitution.

4:45pm - Half the membership becomes spontaneously hungry for Chinese food.

5pm - We pack up and leave, having gotten in a good stretch of comicking for the day.


I may exaggerate slightly. But you get the gist.

It's a fun time. If you're up for honest, constructive feedback on your work and enjoy a good art jam with somewhat askew geek types, stop by!

First!

The Black Hat Collective is a Twin Cities based group of comic creators. Our principles are as follows:

• Engage in constructive peer critique to improve as artists and writers
  
• Produce the best weird little comics we can
• Consume punch and pie (if punch and pie is not available, copious amounts of Chinese food will suffice)

Our club belongs to MISFITS, the Twin Cities' premier scifi/fantasy/general geekery organization. They run a convention called CONvergence every July, which you should go to. Yes, you. What? You live out of state? Go anyway. I promise there's no snow in Minnesota in July.

Black Hatters have been spotted representing our group's work at FallCon, Anime Detour, KakkoiCon, and other local conventions. In 2007 we published our first anthology of short comics, Day in the Life.

It's shiny, right?

Day in the Life is a themed anthology, filled with stories that combine elements of the everyday and the fantastic: a vampire housewife, a single mother who works as a hired thug, a little girl whose dreams come to life, and more!

You can currently find Day in the Life at The Source Comics and Games, our favorite local comic shop. We'll soon have an Etsy shop up to sell the comic, as well as some other treats down the line.

The Black Hat Collective meets once a month, usually on Saturday afternoons. If you're interested in joining us for an art jam, drop us a line at blackhatcollective@gmail.com.

Welcome to the blog! We'll try and keep it interesting for ya.