April 10, 2006: ClayMix PodCast Updated

I updated the Podcast tonight. I would have had it up earlier, but it was giving me some funky errors when I was creating it. I think it was an image I was trying to add into it (these enhanced Podcasts are still kinda new/untested in general, you know?), so I opted just for the song titles...which is all that is really important to me, at least. Ha!- I'm sure you guys reading this and the comic are all smart enough to head on over to Amazon.com or the iTunes store if you get the urge to, like, buy something.
So everybody go download it! Remember, you don't need an iPod to listen to a Podcast!

April 5, 2006: I Got My Mojo Back!

If you hadn't noticed, paged 45 and part of page 46 look like crap, in my opinion. Thankfully, but the time I got to the end of page 46, today's page, I think you can tell I was feeling better. I don't like letting the quality of a page slip just because I can't get with it, you know? Anyhow, I guess all I'm really saying is that sorry for the lack of quality and the pretty cell shading, which I've gotten mostly really positive reaction to, will be back on Friday. Well, it should be back on Friday. That's the plan.

Anyhow, I'm kinda on the verge of rambling and since it's 3:30am here and I have to be up in 4 hours...uhm...I'm gonna go to bed now.

See you next week!

April 3, 2006: Page 45 Up Tonight

Just like the title says. Page 45 will be up tonight. Kinda running behind all weekend- Sorry!

March 27, 2006: The ClayMix Is Here & Vote at Buzz!

Some of you more eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that sometime last week I put up a link to one of the two new features I said I wanted to add to the site: the ClayMix . It's a weekly podcast I hope to be doing. No, don't worry- I won't be boring you with my opinions of politics or something (although I daresay that if I did, you'd be enthralled...enthralled!) No, it's a half hour music selection I'll be chosing every week. I initially wanted to make a weekly radio stream for people to listen to, but that wasn't working, either, so I opted for a podcast. It's an enhanced podcast, meaning that you can see images, click links and it gives you track titles which you can skip around to if you should chose. You'll need to be running iTunes 5 or later to hear it, though. As it stands, there are currently no other music applications that will play something like this. I suppose you could try it in Quick Time player, if you've got it.
Hell, just download iTunes. It's a helluva lot nicer than Winamp, I'll tell you that.
Of course, it's a podcast...so if you have an iPod you'll be able to listen to it on that, too.

Also, at the request of Manders on the forum, I put up a new vote picture. It's wallpaper.
...it looks oddly familiar if you've seen page 42 of Juan Jado (today's comic).
So go vote. I've got an uphill battle ahead of me if I want Clayton Heat to get noticed, again.

I don't think I'm forgetting to mention anything, so have a good week, everyone!

March 20, 2006: Design Update #2:
Much Better, Not Good Enough...

I updated the look of the site over the weekend. If you've been reading this comic for a while now, you've probably figured out that I have some weird penchant for blue by now. heh.
I really did want to get away from blue and try something different. But the white was just overwhelming. Anyway, I still like the navy blue color. The green stands out rather nicely against it, at least.
...hmm...maybe I should try a pine green instead? 'Eh, we'll see.
At any rate, the site updates are almost finished. I'm looking to implement two more features. One is almost ready to roll (just haveto work out the bugs) while the other feature I'm looking at I'm still scratching my head over how to do.

I'm trying to give Clayton ears. His lack of ears has been bugging me for a good, long while now. When i started drawing, I left the ears off because
A) The original clay models never had ears, and
B) Ears give me the damnedest trouble for some reason. Most people can't draw, like, hands or something.
Me? I can't draw ears. At least not on Clayton. But every other character has ears (well, the ones who's hair doesn't cover them), so it only makes sense for Clayton to have ears.
Also note the update to Clayton's look. Seriously, I don't know why I never thought to give him a hood and sweatshirt pocket before. It adds subtley to the Superhero look. Plus, it really only makes sense (in my mind) that Clayton at least KIND OF tries to cover his face when battling crime.
I also updated the circle on his chest, obviously...which probably means that I should also update the main logo to reflect that.

Ha!- and speaking of chests! Well, I hope no one minds the Bubbles cheesecake. She'll have clothes on soon enough.

Oh, by the way- the current scene today has NOTHING to do with the current story line. It's actually set up for the next story. No reason for mentioning that. Being a comic geek, however, I just have a fetish for continuity.

So that's all for today. Have a good week!

March 13, 2006: Clayton Heat: Rebirth.

Welcome (back) to Clayton Heat, boys and girls!
For a while there this comic was dead. The animated comic format was just to much work and not enough pay off. As a result, I grew tired of it quick and just couldn't bring myself to do it anymore. It's easy to just stop doing something you're basically only doing for yourself. The scarce updates basically killed any readers I might've had.

So after what must've been at least two months of doing nothing at all Clayton-related, I finally decided I would rather still be making these things rather than not. The only thing Clayton-related I DID do during that long...LONG break was think about it and dream up stories and scenarios. Somewhere along the line, I thought up a great new direction to take this thing, thanks to my fascination with conspiracies.
That, combined with Rao! from the forum's pointing out that I hadn't updated since, like, November, apparently created the perfect storm because all of a sudden I had an urge to make comics again.
That being said, I owe a great debt of thanks to Rao! and Manders from the forum. They stuck around when, really, they had no reason to whatsoever, and that's mighty cool in my book.

Of course, no one knows better than me that I had my share of starts and stops all throughout 2005. I intend to stick to it this time, but I know I've said that before and something always seems to stop me...usually that 'something' has been of my own doing. I suppose what I'm getting at here is that no one has any real reason to believe me that I'm going to stick to it this time. I've got some trust to gain back from others AND myself, I guess you could say.

Moving on, you might notice the new "design" of the site.
....Ehh....
I gotta admit, I'm not happy with it. I think the white is overwhelming everything else. I'm going to be working on it throughout the rest of March, at least. I know what I want it to look like, and this is relatively close at this point. One of the first changes I'm going to make is removing the links page and putting little buttons on the right side of the page somewhere. Either below the navigation buttons (which I also don't really like) or next to the navigation buttons.
Or maybe I'll put the navigation on the bottom...I dunno. I've gotta play with it. It's very much fluid right now.

Anyhow, for the time being I'm back! I've got the next several pages done already (mostly from chopping up what would've been Part 8), so I'll be updating for a little while for sure.

-samfish.