Ducks Not Included
It's a comic about a duck. Sometimes.
Ducks Not Included
It's a comic about a duck. Sometimes.
Long time, no see! I have been extremely busy with school, so the comic has been neglected. 🙁
I have had the “Do-Re-Mi” song from the Sound of Music stuck in my head for two days, except it’s the version from the album “Alvin and the Chipmunks Sing with Children.” Yeah…
This “Ducky” character has gone through several redesigns, originally drawn as a short little green and gray duck with giant white circles for eyes and a little purple witch hat for clothes. Ducky changed over time, at one point losing the green head in favor of an all-gray appearance, with the addition of mouse ears (that was DuckyMouse, the character who currently occupies my shoulder blade).
Eventually, the mouse ears were dropped, and the green head came back, but without the saucer eyes. Ducky’s eyes remained large and close together, but were no longer circular. The head color changed to a more greenish blue (dark teal?) and the head feathers were ruffled out to look more like a wild and shaggy “hairstyle.” Ducky was also given a white tummy, something the ducks over at Warner Bros. never had.
Over time, the colors have gradually changed, adding more blue to the head color and darkening the orange. Ducky’s body shape was changed to look less like the cartoon duck standard, instead becoming more round with a little belly. However, even after all of these changes, people continue to mistake Ducky for Plucky (the last case of mistaken identity was when an associate of my cried out “Ermahgerd! TINY TOONS!” after seeing one of my comics). So I figured it was time for another change, maybe something a little more drastic.
I am once again attempting to redesign Ducky, but this time I have to try to remove any remaining similarities without completely changing the look of the character. This means avoiding the Warner style while still trying to keep Ducky’s other features mostly intact. I tried to really strip down the character and go with a very basic design, but the character’s personality was completely lost. So I slowly started adding more detail, trying to pull from various styles (since my “personal style” is still very Warner-y) in order to give the character a more unique look.
This is the result of a few hours of doodling. It is by no means a final design, but I think I might be a little closer to helping Ducky shake Acme Acres once and for all.
And here is the latest one, possibly looking a little too Disney:
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Minecraft, it’s a PC game (also available on Xbox 360 and some mobile devices). To quote the game’s website:
Minecraft is a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out, make sure to build a shelter before that happens.
The Creeper is a hostile mob that will ambush players and explode, causing damage to the player and the surrounding blocks and mobs.
Creepers spawn in the overworld at night and in locations with a light level of 7 or less. They are especially dangerous as they are almost completely silent (except for footsteps and their hissing noises when ready to explode), and their explosion is devastating at short range.
The Creeper has gained considerable notoriety among Minecraft players for their infuriating habit of sneaking up on the player and killing/hurting them and/or damaging structures.
Official website: https://minecraft.net/
(The Xbox Adventure update comes out tomorrow! Yay!)
Yes, there are some people in America who are completely oblivious to the fact that there is a presidential election this year.
…
This was originally a storyboard created for my Language of Animation and Film class. I thought it made a mildly amusing comic as well, so here you go.
Bonus!
YouTube video of the original storyboard/animatic with sound. Mmmm… hairball…
Republishing the Orange Chicken comic in a different format. The original layout was too wide for this website (it was drawn before this site was created), so the image size had been reduced which made the text difficult to read. The single column vertical layout allows me to use the original panels without any size reduction, preserving the quality of the image. Hey, doesn’t that make this a digital restoration?
*ahem*
The Diamond Collection takes advantage of the newest breakthroughs in digital imaging technologies to present the most spectacular versions possible! Digitally restored beyond their original brilliance, presented in spectacular Blu-ray high definition picture!
From the original post:
This was the original “pilot” comic I drew way back in 2005 when I had full intentions of continuing to draw and publish comic strips centered around these characters (most of whom are based on people & situations from my day-to-day life).
When this comic was drawn, the title for the series went through three different iterations before I finally decided on “Ducks Not Included.” The earlier titles were “West Tukwila Falls” and “Wily Tangled Facade” (both were excuses to use the acronym “WTF”), as well as “OMGBBQ!”
…The More You Know™
What’s this? Another one already?
This one was actually based on a conversation that took place through work email several years ago (before social networking sites came along). Poor Sheldon is representing yet another random derp.
The full comic strip “Check One,” which may or may not be inspired by actual events.
Note that this is the first comic strip I’ve actually followed through on and completed (multiple panels and in full color) since 2005. Yay!
My emotional response after reading CNN’s article on how Michael Bay plans to change the Ninja Turtle origin story to make them aliens rather than mutant turtles.
Yesterday my puppy decided that the pen for my tablet looked like a better chew stick than the 20-billion others he had lying around. I tried sketching this with what remained of the pen, but as you can see, the pen and tablet no longer have a loving relationship. Hopefully I’ll get a replacement soon.
Sorry for the lack of updates… my new tablet arrived quite some time ago… I just need to get back in the habit of drawing. Must rediscover creativity!
