Hot Mess

Posts Tagged ‘stupidfox’

9 results.

Hot Mess Episode 77 – Needless Excitement

by Geoff on November 23, 2011 at 10:13 pm

Comic

Hot Mess Episode 77 – Needless Excitement

For our fans in the U.S., Happy Thanksgiving!! And instead of our usual holiday card-style post, we’ve got a regular strip… and it’s about food (kind of). It’s more about the crazy amount of crap in our prepared foods.

I had wanted to find a way to comment on the menu stats restaurants are now required to post ever since they started doing it, when I noticed that my favorite dish at an eatery that shall remain nameless – a dish which I thought was at least relatively healthy – was chock full of insanely bad ingredients and way over-the-top when it came its nutritional deficiencies. Needless to say, I never looked at salad the same way again.

└ Tags: anna, bad food, diana falzone, Emily Chan, Geoff Skinner, hot mess holiday, stupidfox

73 Comments

Hot Mess Episode 71 – “Character Polish”

by Geoff on October 3, 2011 at 4:42 pm

Comic

Hot Mess Episode 71 – “Character Polish”

Three in a row! We’re on a roll

See you guys next week!

└ Tags: diana falzone, Emily Chan, geoff skinner slumper, scooziecat, stupidfox

2 Comments

Hot Mess: Pinup #3 “IndyAnna Jones” by Robyn Seale

by Geoff on June 24, 2011 at 1:57 pm

Comic

Hot Mess: Pinup #3 “IndyAnna Jones” by Robyn Seale

We had a lot of fun with this week’s pinup. I had been wanting to do a series of homages to movies and pop culture moments that I love and cherish for quite a while now, and how perfect is it that the wonderful artist Robyn Seale had not only the chops, but the inclination to humor me in this silly obsession of mine? I love her style, especially her colors, on this pinup – I think it captures the mood of the film, while of course, letting the characters of Hot Mess have their own fun.

Just in case you missed them, here are links to our first two pinups:

“Scooziecat is Displeased” by Emily Chan, and
“Spring Day” by Ben Chamberlain

Robyn comes to us from her own webcomic called “The Watcher of Yaathagggu” (pronounced yah-THAG-goo) which I love for a variety of reasons. First, I’m a nut for all things Lovecraftian. If you give me a choice between silly slasher movies and “R” rated stuff like “Saw” or visually tame, but psychologically frightening movies and books, I’ll take the latter every time. For my money, my imagination can scare me far worse than anything I see on screen, which is why the works of H.P. Lovecraft, with their insinuations and suggestive language rather than outright graphic horror, work better and stay with me far longer.

Robyn plumbs the depths of the Lovecraft mythos and gives it her own spin, and what I love about her art is the way she uses color and light to great effect. She’s also proof of my “Grand Theory of Webcomics” – if you have a story you want to tell and are willing to do the work, you can have your very own webcomic that has the potential to reach fans around the world. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never had formal art training, or you have no idea how to create a website. Modern technology has made it so easy to create and publish on the web, that the barriers to entry that used to stop a comic from getting out into the ether (i.e. having a publisher, a distributor, advertisers, etc.) no longer exist. It’s something I’m working to cover more in depth in my blog series of “How to Make a Webcomic” which I hope to launch soon.

From the Yaathagggu website:

Yaathagggu (pronounced yah-THAG-goo) is a city surrounded by eldritch horrors and absolute darkness.

Pieta Gaolwynne is a perimeter watcher, tasked with guarding the city by keeping her lighthouse running and survey the ocean, which stands as the greatest threat.

But things aren’t right with her tower or with the city, and one unlikely protagonist is thrust into a plot of mystery, intrigue and madness.

And below take a look at a few of her pages… enjoy (and click through to see them on her website):

└ Tags: cosimo, diana falzone, Emily Chan, fribble, Geoff Skinner, indianna jones, pinup, rafella, slumper, stupidfox, The Watcher of Yaathagggu, Watcher of Yaathagggu Robyn

15 Comments

Funday Sunday on Hot Mess – Designing Anna (part 1)

by Geoff on April 3, 2011 at 8:02 am

Blog »
Comic

Funday Sunday on Hot Mess – Designing Anna (part 1)

Happy Sunday, everyone! Today is the first of three Funday Sunday posts which I hope will give all of you a little insight into how we developed the look of Hot Mess – specifically that of our main character, Anna.

But before we can talk about Anna, we have to talk about the big picture: the world of Hot Mess.

After the initial spark hit us to do a high school-based comic (more on that will be revealed in a future blog post!), we wanted to make sure we took our time during the early stages of creating our little webcomic series. Best to start out on the right foot, rather than spending TONS of time correcting bad choices we would have inevitably made if we rushed it. After a few creative discussions with Emily, as well as working out what we wanted to accomplish with the writing (in broad strokes at this point), we had all decided on a ‘look’ for Hot Mess that we felt perfectly complimented our vision for what the comic would look and ‘sound’ like when the series debuted.

In my opinion, this is the most important place to spend your valuable time when creating a webcomic: making sure the look fits the story. I always relate it to music. I’m sure you’ve heard songs where the instrumental music is perfectly complimented by the singer’s voice. Almost as if the singer and musicians were genetically designed and destined to create that song together. Conversely, there are many, many songs I could name where the beautiful instrumentals are ruined by a singer’s voice, or vice versa. It could be a band whose entire catalog sounds like they were trying to force a square into a circle, or it could be a band you love trying out a new style on a song that just doesn’t work. It’s not to say either one was bad, or one was worse than the other, but more that the two just don’t compliment each other.

I know I’ve seen more than a few webcomics, or comics for that matter, with stupendous writing and great art, but somehow the two just don’t click. In a lot of those cases, the creatively muddled results aren’t any one person’s fault – but rather the writing/art team making bad choices from the get-go. We were determined to get this right, and hopefully we did – you tell us!

So after establishing what the Hot Mess world would look like, we just needed to make sure that our star character would be able to visually project all the emotions we needed her to within the boundaries of the style we had chosen – so Emily sketched out this “expressions” test first. We liked what we saw on her first try, and all decided to move onto the next step… which we’ll discuss next Funday Sunday!

Ok, so a bit of site stuff:

Wow, wow, wow. Thanks to you, in March we zoomed from somewhere deep in the 300s all the way up to the mid-60s! And it was only half-a-month that I was bugging you guys for votes. Amazing!!! Ok, now I don’t want to push it with you all, but how about we see if we can go higher in April? Let’s prove Slumper wrong!

There’s now just under a month to enter the Contest, so get those entries in, we want to see them! Take a look at Category 1 (personal avatars) and Category 2 (riffs on the Hot Mess characters)! We’d love to see your masterpiece win!

And you can check us out on Facebook for site updates, special content and exclusive art!

└ Tags: art contest, creating a webcomic, design, diana falzone, Emily Chan, funday sunday, how to create a webcomic, origin, stupidfox, web comic, webcomic, webcomic series

1 Comment

StupidFox has his own Stupidsite

by Geoff on March 28, 2011 at 3:07 pm

Posted In: Blog

Emily Chan, artistic mastermind behind the look of Hot Mess, created another series called StupidFox (as if most of you didn’t know). And now, that silly StupidFox has his own site. Personally, I think her work there is brilliant, elegant, and consistently funny.
You can see it HERE!

└ Tags: Emily Chan, site news, stupidfox, web comic, webcomic, webcomics

Comment

Hot Mess Art Contest 2011

by Geoff on February 23, 2011 at 8:26 am

Posted In: Blog

Hi everyone, I’m proud to announce the next Hot Mess Art Contest. The Amazing Emily Chan is running this one through her Deviant Art site, and she’s really upped the ante. More prizes (including StupidFox plushies!), more winners, and a really cool theme. I’ve reposted some of the rules below, but to enter, just go over to silentreaper.deviantart.com – and let the creativity begin!

WHAT IS THE CONTEST?

CATEGORY 1: Draw yourself with at least one animals/creatures representing a part of your Psyche! Your Psyche-Entity can be in the form of a real OR made-up animal/creature, but cannot be another person or personified inanimate object . Then, write at least 3-5 sentences telling us about what part(s) of your Psyche the animal/creature represents. You must include yourself in the piece, but it does not need to be an accurate depiction

CATEGORY 2: Draw at least one of any of the characters from “Hot Mess” (Person or Animal)! This can be done in your own style or you can follow the comic’s style. (Judging for this category will be based mainly on Artistic craftsmanship.)

Judging for Each Category is as follows:

CATEGORY 1: Artistic Quality
In Category 1, entries will be judged based on the following for Artistic Quality:
- Use of Line and/or Color and/or Craftsmanship.
- Composition and Placement.
- Time and Effort based on Amount of Detail shown (OR) Cleanliness.

CATEGORY 1: Thought & Creativity
In the Artistic Creativity Category, entries will be judged based on the following:
- Meaningful and Relevant Character Design(s) without over-designing.
- Depth of Concepts and/or Ideas.
- Depth of Concepts and/or Ideas related to the “Hot Mess” web-comic.

CATEGORY 2: Artistic Quality
In Category 2, entries will be judged based on the following for Artistic Quality:
- Use of Line and/or Color and/or Craftsmanship.
- Composition and Placement.
- Time and Effort based on Amount of Detail shown (OR) Cleanliness (OR) Thought in Design.

GENERAL RULES:
1) Although mentioning the title “Hot Mess” in the artwork itself is not required, it is required in either the Deviation Title (OR) Artist Description for reference.
2) Entries may also be disqualified for the following: Vulgar or adult material, works suggesting any racial or sexual discrimination and works with clearly offensive intentions.
3) The following mediums will not be accepted: Photography, Paper-Craft, 3d Renders, Actors & Cosplay, Animation and Flash.

4) All Artwork must be 100% created by the Artist (Exception: collaborations). Any work suspected of plagiarism in any way will be automatically disqualified.

5) Only one (1) entry allowed in one (1) category per person. If in any case two submissions are received from the same person, the newest submission will be disqualified as a repeated entry; no exceptions. If a new or updated entry is uploaded over the first entry, the update will be ignored since entries will be saved externally from DA as they are first received. Therefore, make sure your entry is your final entry before you send it in!

ENTRY RULES:

1) Submit your entry to DeviantArt as you usually would.

2) In the description area, please include the following requirements:

All materials and/or programs used.
Mention/Write “Hot Mess” in the Deviation Title (OR) Artist Description for reference.
(CATEGORY1 ONLY) – In a short paragraph, describe to us what part(s) of your Psyche the animal/creature represents or how it relates to you.

3) Send me a note with the subject “Contest Entry”, and include a link to your entry. Make sure this link works. You will know if your entry has been accepted when I add it into my collection.

4) DEADLINE IS: APRIL 30, 2011 @ 10PM PST

PRIZE LIST

(*STAR MEANS : Prize will be unlocked once a certain number of entries are received! Once unlocked, the star will be removed.)

CATEGORY 1: Grand Prize
- 1 StupidFox Plush
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*
- $50 USDGift-Card/Cash Prize* (Redeemed Online)

CATEGORY 1: Artistic Quality> First Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*
- 1 Original, drawn card of a Hot Mess Animal of your choice or of StupidFox* (OR) StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*
- $20 USD Gift-Card/Cash Prize*(Redeemed Online)

CATEGORY 1: Artistic Quality >Second Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*
CATEGORY 1: Thought & Creativity > First Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*
- 1 Original, drawn card of a Hot Mess Animal of your choice or of StupidFox* (OR) StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*

CATEGORY 1: Thought & Creativity >Second Place

- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*

CATEGORY 2: Artistic Quality> First Place
- 1 StupidFox Plush
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*

CATEGORY 2: Artistic Quality >Second Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*

Read on for the FAQ!

A couple of the prizes:

└ Tags: art contest, Emily Chan, prizes, stupidfox

2 Comments

Announcing the 2011 Hot Mess Art Contest!

by Geoff on February 22, 2011 at 4:10 pm

Comic

Announcing the 2011 Hot Mess Art Contest!

WHAT IS THE CONTEST?

CATEGORY 1: Draw yourself with at least one animals/creatures representing a part of your Psyche! Your Psyche-Entity can be in the form of a real OR made-up animal/creature, but cannot be another person or personified inanimate object . Then, write at least 3-5 sentences telling us about what part(s) of your Psyche the animal/creature represents. You must include yourself in the piece, but it does not need to be an accurate depiction

CATEGORY 2: Draw at least one of any of the characters from “Hot Mess” (Person or Animal)! This can be done in your own style or you can follow the comic’s style. (Judging for this category will be based mainly on Artistic craftsmanship.)

Judging for Each Category is as follows:

CATEGORY 1: Artistic Quality
In Category 1, entries will be judged based on the following for Artistic Quality:
- Use of Line and/or Color and/or Craftsmanship.
- Composition and Placement.
- Time and Effort based on Amount of Detail shown (OR) Cleanliness.

CATEGORY 1: Thought & Creativity
In the Artistic Creativity Category, entries will be judged based on the following:
- Meaningful and Relevant Character Design(s) without over-designing.
- Depth of Concepts and/or Ideas.
- Depth of Concepts and/or Ideas related to the “Hot Mess” web-comic.

CATEGORY 2: Artistic Quality
In Category 2, entries will be judged based on the following for Artistic Quality:
- Use of Line and/or Color and/or Craftsmanship.
- Composition and Placement.
- Time and Effort based on Amount of Detail shown (OR) Cleanliness (OR) Thought in Design.

GENERAL RULES:
1) Although mentioning the title “Hot Mess” in the artwork itself is not required, it is required in either the Deviation Title (OR) Artist Description for reference.
2) Entries may also be disqualified for the following: Vulgar or adult material, works suggesting any racial or sexual discrimination and works with clearly offensive intentions.
3) The following mediums will not be accepted: Photography, Paper-Craft, 3d Renders, Actors & Cosplay, Animation and Flash.

4) All Artwork must be 100% created by the Artist (Exception: collaborations). Any work suspected of plagiarism in any way will be automatically disqualified.

5) Only one (1) entry allowed in one (1) category per person. If in any case two submissions are received from the same person, the newest submission will be disqualified as a repeated entry; no exceptions. If a new or updated entry is uploaded over the first entry, the update will be ignored since entries will be saved externally from DA as they are first received. Therefore, make sure your entry is your final entry before you send it in!

ENTRY RULES:

1) Submit your entry to DeviantArt as you usually would.

2) In the description area, please include the following requirements:

All materials and/or programs used.
Mention/Write “Hot Mess” in the Deviation Title (OR) Artist Description for reference.
(CATEGORY1 ONLY) – In a short paragraph, describe to us what part(s) of your Psyche the animal/creature represents or how it relates to you.

3) Send me a note with the subject “Contest Entry”, and include a link to your entry. Make sure this link works. You will know if your entry has been accepted when I add it into my collection.

4) DEADLINE IS: APRIL 30, 2011 @ 10PM PST

PRIZE LIST

(*STAR MEANS : Prize will be unlocked once a certain number of entries are received! Once unlocked, the star will be removed.)

CATEGORY 1: Grand Prize
- 1 StupidFox Plush
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*
- $50 USDGift-Card/Cash Prize* (Redeemed Online)

CATEGORY 1: Artistic Quality> First Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*
- 1 Original, drawn card of a Hot Mess Animal of your choice or of StupidFox* (OR) StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*
- $20 USD Gift-Card/Cash Prize*(Redeemed Online)

CATEGORY 1: Artistic Quality >Second Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*
CATEGORY 1: Thought & Creativity > First Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*
- 1 Original, drawn card of a Hot Mess Animal of your choice or of StupidFox* (OR) StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*

CATEGORY 1: Thought & Creativity >Second Place

- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*

CATEGORY 2: Artistic Quality> First Place
- 1 StupidFox Plush
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 Hot Mess Preview Book*

CATEGORY 2: Artistic Quality >Second Place
- 1 Hot Mess Pin Pack
- 1 StupidFox 4-Pin Pack*

Read on for the FAQ!

A couple of the prizes:

└ Tags: art contest, diana falzone, Emily Chan, rules, stupidfox

9 Comments

Shhh… Anna’s Sleeping!

by Geoff on February 17, 2011 at 4:24 pm

Comic

Hi everyone – two announcements. First is that our amazing letterer Thomas Mauer and his wife welcomed their first child into the world. A big, gigantic congratulations to the new parents! So in honor of their new arrival, we’re giving him the day off – but new comics go up next week as scheduled!

Second, we’ll be adding new content to the blog throughout the weekend – new pug post, new blog post from Diana, all good stuff; so keep checking back!

└ Tags: anna, Emily Chan, stupidfox, weekend

27 Comments

Emily’s StupidFox plushies are on sale.

by Geoff on February 7, 2011 at 5:40 pm

Posted In: Blog

Hi everyone, just wanted to give you the heads up that Hot Mess artist Emily Chan has StupidFox plushies – and they’re on sale!

StudidFox is an immensely popular webseries, created, written & drawn by Emily. You can catch up with it on her Deviant Art gallery, HERE.

Oh, also StupidFox has an enormous Facebook Fan following HERE! Enjoy!

└ Tags: Emily Chan, stupidfox

2 Comments

Hot Mess

Posts Tagged ‘stupidfox’

Hot Mess Episode 77 – Needless Excitement

Hot Mess Episode 71 – “Character Polish”

Hot Mess: Pinup #3 “IndyAnna Jones” by Robyn Seale

Funday Sunday on Hot Mess – Designing Anna (part 1)

StupidFox has his own Stupidsite

Hot Mess Art Contest 2011

Announcing the 2011 Hot Mess Art Contest!

Shhh… Anna’s Sleeping!

Emily’s StupidFox plushies are on sale.

We’re ranked on TheWebcomicList.com!

Vote for us on Top Web Comics!

Episode Guide