I started off with some general ideas. Bravery, defiance … all wrapped up in a little baby chick. I toyed with the idea of using the egg or egg shells as armor of some sort (including a fleeting “Bobba Fett” look).

I discarded that idea pretty quickly. I opted more for a wooden sword, maybe a cloak or cape. Toys a child would use in adventure. I gave the baby chick a defiant stance: sword raised, chest out. I utilized a streamlined look for the chicks body that I really liked and that gave me a strong line of action.

I eventually decided that I would replace the armor and weapons for things more in line with a food services mascot. Keeping the active and defiant poses, I swapped in chefs hats, spoons and assorted chef accouterments. I also worked on the face, testing minimalist, cartoony and animated styles. I preferred the small eyes over large “cutesy” eyes as I felt the big cutesy eyes are just overdone in company logos and mascots where babies and tiny animals are used.

I nailed down a few more poses and tightened up the sketches. I settled on two poses: an action filled “charge” and a defiant/proud stance. I enhanced the youth of the little chicken by setting the eyes farther apart and giving him a large, rounded head. I also finally settled on a spatula as the weapon of choice.

I did final inks and them scanned them in at 300 DPI in pure black and white. I took the scanned in line art into Illustrator to convert it to vector art and make adjustments like smoothing out some line work and repositioning some of the anchors.

The final step was to add color. I “punched out” all the white space which left me with just the black line art. I chose very simple colors that would work with a three color print process (black, yellow and orange) with an option of four color on a non-white background. This should help keep printing costs down. After that it was just a matter of sending the file off to the customer.

So if you are ever in Mexico and come across “El Pollito Valiente” and drop by for a bit to eat, tell ‘em the “artista de pollito” says “hola”.

Star Trek Online (STO) is an online MMO game centered on the Star Trek universe and set years after the events in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis. At this point the Klingons are once again our enemies, applications to Starfleet have been opened to “annex” races (races not fully fledged members of the United Federation of Planets, but who are within the UFP’s sphere of influence) and the spaceways are once again rife with raiders, political powder kegs and danger.

STO launched as a standard monthly subscription MMO in February of 2010. Almost two years later, to the day, STO has gone “free to play”. This means that many old timers will be returning to Starbase as well as many first time players, curious to see what all the fuss is about. I was in the STO beta and played quite a lot for the first few months. However, I generally only keep one MMO subscription up at a time and World of Warcraft is my default. I loved the gameplay, the universe and especially my bridge crew who I hand-picked and personalized. There were a few things that didn’t quite work for me and the game had an overall feeling that it wasn’t quite as polished as it could have been. But the fun factor was there and many subscribers have been adventuring across the universe for two years now. Seeing as how “free” fits into my monthly MMO budget, it was time to revisit the game, get my starship out of spacedock and get my crew back into action.

The first thing I noticed was that my skill points had been reset. That and there were a few new items in the UI as well as new missions suggested pertaining to PVP and PVE scenarios that counted as tutorials. What was new compared to when I played last? Well I can now leave the bridge of my ship and wander around inside! Yep, I can go to engineering, sickbay, my own personal quarters, etc. It’s a nice change of pace from when your entire shipboard experience was confined to the bridge. You can also visit Starfleet Academy on Earth as you orbit Earth’s spacedock. There are a few things that have been rearranged in spacedock and one I particularly liked was going up to the ship requisition office and seeing a Galaxy class cruiser just outside the window as I looked into the interior of spacedock. Very cool.

My other favorite new feature is the duty officer system. This allows you to crew up your ship with more than just your core bridge crew. You can have astrometrics experts, bartenders, security personnel, medical staff, counselors, etc. Up to 100 (more if you buy more slots with Cryptic points) and you can assign these crew members to do various tasks while you are away from your computer. Tasks can take anywhere from 20 hours to 30 minutes and can cover running level 5 weapon diagnostics, entertaining visiting diplomats, reinforcing troops on a remote outpost or even just sending some crew to Risa for some R&R. You can injure or even loose crew on more dangerous missions that fail or even get rare and valuable items for missions that succeed in a big way. I really enjoy hopping on every now and then to assigning my crew duties and to reap the rewards of successfully completed missions. And since experience and skill points are regular rewards, I am able to level up my character at a good pace just from keeping my crew busy.

Since the game is now free to play, Cryptic is banking on microtransactions to covers the costs of the game and they have quite a few insidious little ways to get the equivalent of your monthly subscription … and then some. You can buy extra duty officer slots as well as more bridge crew. Obviously bigger and better ships are a big draw but the real hook to me seems to be duty officer packs. These are packs of seven duty officers that work very much like trading card game packs. In a pack you are guaranteed five common officers and two uncommon or better officers. That being said, you can successfully level up to the maximum level in the game without paying one red cent and without really being at a distinct disadvantage. I feel Cryptic has found a good balance between buyable “nice to haves” and “need to haves” with much of the buyable content not being something that is super-duper, game killer content. Extra officers, ships with slightly better stats, costume options, etc. all make for a more enhanced gaming experience but doesn’t tip the scales in favor of those with deep pockets.

Space and ground combat missions (long regarded as rather static and repetitive) seem to have gotten an overhaul as well. Of the few missions I’ve run since taking the captain’s seat again I’ve enjoyed combat MUCH more with my tactical escort (think ranged DPS) as opposed to my cruiser (tank). I’ve even had a mission that was more detective work than a run and gun. A welcome change. There are even customer created missions available (which I have not tried yet) which seem to alleviate the cookie cutter nature of game created missions and allows you to pick and choose. Courtroom drama, full bore assault, traitor in your midst, contact and escort a defector are just a sample of the user generated missions that await you.

With the addition of more areas to explore (Starfleet Academy, your own ship, etc.), reasonably priced and fun buyable extras, more enemies, duty officer system, better missions and overall more polished gameplay STO is a game well worth a second (or even first) look for the Star Trek or MMO fan.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Being a lifelong Captain America fan, this movie had a lot of expectations to live up to, and it did it in spades. I have spent a goodly portion of my adolescent life in heated “Cap vs. Batman” debates with my beset friend, Spencer (obviously, Cap would win … hands down). I have always gravitated towards heroes who, for all intents and purposes, are ordinary people who stand toe to toe with monsters, gods, mystical beings and mechanical juggernauts. I have always enjoyed the likes of Captain America, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, Punisher, Batman, Green Arrow, etc. Those individuals who have honed their bodies and minds, who have developed extraordinary skills and can stand at the vanguard of heroic endeavors.

Captain America in particular strikes a chord with me as a character who is a man who wants to do good in the world. A man who is as strong of heart as he is frail of body. I think that I saw a lot of myself in Cap, from the frail body (I was a skinny bugger) to the patriotism (I consider earning my Eagle Scout badge a defining moment in my life). That being said, in the original comic book, Cap’s back-story is relegated to a mere handful of panels. Only later was his back-story expounded upon and did he tell of his life growing up in Brooklyn. I felt Chris Evans did a great job of bringing Steve Rogers to life, even with my misgivings about his casting since he also appears as the Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies. But he really brought heart and vulnerability to the character that offsets the near indestructibility of the future super soldier. I enjoyed how they incorporated the traditional Captain America uniform (red pirate boots anyone?) into the frustrating sideshow aspect of his career. With this solid foundation I felt the movie did exceptionally well was build up the story of Steve Rogers the man with an extensive back-story before he became a Nazi punching (and shooting) machine.

Now, shooting Nazis brings up another aspect of the Captain America movie that the filmmakers handled deftly. We are given a movie that seamlessly blends together Captain Americas from different eras, writers, universes and even other movie franchises. The origin story and overall plot of the movie is from the original run of comics from the 1941 to 1953. Cap’s more utilitarian WW2 uniform is straight out of the Ultimates universe. Speaking of which, who is the updated combat suits designer? Why Ironman’s dad himself, Howard Stark. For those Cap fans who have followed Ed Brubaker’s amazing run as writer on the series, we are treated to a glimpse of the Winter Soldier to be in the character of Bucky. And while we also get the Howling Commandos from the 616 (original universe), we get the Ultimates universe Nick Fury.

Now, just the appearance of the Howling Commandos in a few production stills released months before the movie sent my heart soaring. My love of Nick Fury as a character began long before he was the Earth’s number one super spy and S.H.I.E.L.D. director. Nick Fury and His Howling Commandos were some of the very first comic books I read and collected. I remember pedaling my bike four miles to “the Paperback Trader” to buy 25 cent back issues. Sure, there were other war books like Sgt. Rock, The Haunted Tank and the suspiciously similar sounding Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders (another favorite of mine), but Nick and his gang always held the top spot in my weekly haul. I understand with the inclusion of the Ultimates universe Nick Fury (who was always Samuel L. Jackson, even in the books) it would take some extensive revisionist history to have a man of color leading a combat unit in WW2. Regardless, we have a great Nick Fury for the movies AND I got to watch Dum Dum, Gabe, Izzy and the gang in the flesh, kicking Nazi ass and taking names. Wahooo!

It has always been my opinion that a good guy can only be as good as the bad guy is bad, and the Red Skull is one of the baddest of them all. Nazi? Check. Mad Scientist? Check. Genocidal maniac? Check. Face that looks like Steve Buscemi turned inside out? Check. Cosmic Cube, the ever powerful deus ex machina that stands at the linchpin of so many of the Cap vs. Skull battles? Check. Hugo Weaving is a stand out Red Skull, but in this movie the handling of the Cosmic Cube  is where my only misgivings with the movie lie. It is powerful. Weapons powered by it can vaporise a soldier … but that else can it do? At the end of the movie the Red Skull has set his sights on dropping Cube powered bombs on the U.S. But what will that do? Destroy a building, a few blocks, the entire city? Earlier in the film, when the Red Skull orders the destruction of a town to really cement what a sociopath the man really is, perhaps that act would have been a better time to show the viewer the destructive capability of the cube. Either raw Cube power during that scene or held for a later scene with the dropping of a test bomb. As it stands, we have the final battle taking place between the hero and villain with the real threat of failure being a vague notion at best. Cap and Skull battle it out, but to what end? To save a building, a few blocks, an entire city?

Ultimately though the plot stays true to Caps later “origin” story in which he is re-introduced to comic book audiences in 1964 with the “frozen in ice and thawed out later” story. Cap is destined to be a man out of time, but the movie makers have imbued the character with such heart and a sense of honor and duty that future movies should be interesting to watch as this man of duty and honor finds himself in a modern world sorely lacking in those attributes. Captain America: The Last Avenger is one of my favorite movies and I look forward to seeing Cap in action along side the Avengers as well as in his own franchise.

4.5/5 Stars

1. Play with the kids in the snow
2. Buy a Jeep
3. Publish a book
4. Participate in NaNoWiMo
5. Go backpacking
6. Launch new site
7. Host a pannel at a con
8. Take up archery
9. Learn an instrument
10. Make InkTank Studios profitable

As of this writing I have at least done one thing on my list: launch a new site. 2011 was such a great year for me, both personally and professionally, but things just sort of fell into place for me. I stumbled though 2011 on blind luck and the year ended with me only really doing one thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time: participate in “Novembeard”. So, with 2012 upon us and with a solid foundation at home and at work, I think I will try to steer eforts towards accomplishing more things on my overall bucket list. Some are pretty far fetched, some are pretty straightforward and/or in the planning stage and at least one is done now.

So, after many false re-starts, spotty posting schedules, severe site hacking, etc. this new site will be my launchig pad for these things, as well as many other unwritten goals.

So tell me, what’s on your bucket list?

But, with a new year comes this new site which will be my central hub and focal point for all my creative endeavors. With a growing family and a pretty engrossing full time job, I just can’t commit to a scheduled output of creative efforts like I did as a young newlywed with a dead end job. A five year stint of daily cartoons, seven to five days a week, can really burn you out, especially if it’s not your full time job. But alas, that creative ember still burns deep in my soul. I find myself doodling, sketching, writing, coding and performing all manner of little creative outbursts here and there. So it is to that end that I have created this “hub” site to use as a creative outlet for drawings (cartoons and otherwise), talk about things I find interesting (read: geeky) and generally use as a standard personal blog. From this hub will branch other creative outlets that will fall under the InkTank Studios umbrella. From archiving (and printing?) my older comic strips to trying my hand at podcasting, producing and publishing.

What can you expect to see in the coming months, at unscheduled intervals? Well, I plan to post regular review of things I like, highlight the weird and wacky of the web, toss up works in progress at well as finished prices of art and generally just speak my mind in a way I can’t in a Facebook post or a hundred and forty characters.

So welcome aboard and enjoy your stay. We’ll be serving refreshments shortly.*

*not actual refreshments, more like “we’ll be serving more text shortly.”**

**and by “we’ll” I mean “I’ll”