The Annyseed Work Journal.

Sept/2010: Very slow times for myself and Annyseed readers, due to the move. Tash and I spent from the 20th August to the 23rd Sep, packing, cleaning, moving, ringing, meeting, paying, unpacking and organising everything. There wasn't a free moment to fit in a single pannel. Moving is both exciting and exhausting.- Also frustrating when you have to stop a story that's going to take you three years to tell as it is. I apologise, again, for what I am determined to make the last ever pause on Annyseed, and am happy to report that the Crystal Fish Comic Studio is up and running. And as promised, I have the new page up and ready to read. Have fun folks. Here's a place where creativity can get some peace... Hopefully.

Aug/2010: Late August came the decision for my wife and I to move flat. Our current one at the time was pretty shabby to say the least and we had only been putting up with it to save money during the economy crisis. We found a perfect new flat, which had exactly what I was looking for. - A converted attic space for a Comic Studio. Oh yeah, and a Steam Punk toilet.

July/2010: July was quite a hectic month, but not so much for Annyseed production. First of all, I decided to stop publishing the comic on Deviant Art, my reasons, well I put it perfectly in a letter to one of my readers -

"Well, it was a number of reasons. I sort of feel that DA is for art seekers and creators, and a web comic sort of asks for some commitment from it's audience, so it felt wrong that I was shoving the whole thing on here (there). Anyone new to it would probably feel alienated with 50 + pages to commit to. I'm still going to post panels that I'm proud of in here, then they can be enjoyed as single pieces, but also add intrigue for anyone who is interested in taking some time out to read the story. Inviting readers to the website is sort of like inviting them to the comic's natural habitat, so that they can check it out in their own time, when they feel in the mood."

To help readers keep up to date with the story I also added an RSS feed to the website.

But then, once I was all set for a new beginning with Annyseed, my computer went to sleep and refused to wake up. Through weeks of testing and trial I finally came to the conclusion that I needed a new motherboard. So by the end of July with a new motherboard in place, I was once again set to continue...

May/2010: I recently set up a twitter pager for Annyseed, which should be a good way to keep up to date with the new pages. Click Here to see!

Oct/2009: As I'm happy with the new black and white style and it has proved more popular among Annyseeds readers, I will be going back to do pages 4 to 10 in the same style. More detail in the background more simple tones on the characters.

July/2009: I've always wanted Annyseed to be a weekly thing, and tried my best to bring a fresh page out every seven days, but by the time I got to the 10th page of Annyseed I started to feel the strains of trying to do that along side a full time job. I was using up about 90% of my free time to produce the pages and they still weren't coming out weekly. So, I asked my original readers on DeviantArt which they would prefer:- 1: Every fortnight, colour or 2: Weekly, black and white. I was surprised to find the votes quite close but colour came out on top. But then I had to ask my wife and myself which would be best. We both thought black and white, which covered 50% of the overall vote. So as of July and onwards Annyseed has become a weekly black & white (& red,) webcomic.

June/2009: I decided that it was time I looked further than DeviantArt to look for an audience, so I listed Annyseed on two of the most renowned webcomic listing sites I could find, http://www.thewebcomiclist.com & http://topwebcomics.com. I was overjoyed that Anny shot into the top 100 of both sites. I can only hope it stays there. :S

March/2009: Up went the Annyseed You Tube Channel, http://www.youtube.com/TheAnnyseedChannel. I also spent this month refining the script and eventually released the first page of the main story, "the Blood of Another."

February/2009: My hard drive died, but was wiped clean and reborn, (no work lost.) The old DA Annyseed prologue was completed and we took a holiday in my hometown.

January/2009: It's the first of January, as I write this entry. Today, I've launched the Annyseed section on this website. Despite doing a series of paintings this month to bulk up my portfolio, I shall be working vigorously on Annyseed. That's if my rumbling, old hard drive holds out. Happy New year!

December/2008: On 23rd of December I posted the first page of the old Annyseed prologue on the website DeviantArt http://crystalfishltd.deviantart.com/

November/2008: I painted, I drew, and finalised the script for the DA prologue.

October/2008: This month started in the worst way, my wife, Tasha, suffered from spontaneous pneumothorax (a collapsed lung), which kept her in hospital for three weeks. It's hard to work when the person you love is away in hospital. Unfortunately, getting the first page done for Halloween was not possible, but I set a new goal for Christmas.

September/2008: Finally, all the commissions were done, and I could get back to work on Annyseed. I pressed on with some black and white paintings of some of the main locations in the story. (These paintings are to become features in the map section of the Annyseed Website.) I began to write a first draft of the script, usually using train journeys to and from my day job to think scenes through and jot them down.

May/2008: Little did I know that a number of things were about to happen that would hold the Annyseed project back for a few months. A stack of commissions came in, 23 pieces of artwork to be exact. At the same time, we moved house, and Tasha was made redundant, leading me to get a full time job. There wasn't a free moment to even relax over summer, let alone continue working on Annyseed.

April/2008: By April, I was doing character concept art. I had decided on a style that I wanted to refine for the finished artwork and was putting it to practice, as I came up with the characters. I wanted the Annyseed world to be real, something a reader could jump in and walk around. So I decided to make 3D models of the locations in the story for personal reference. That way, the Annyseed universe would have a tangeble quality, like the "Simpsons" as appose to say "Ren and Stimpy," which has a more surreal, constantly changing environment.

March/2008: To come up with the initial treatment, I analized storytelling concepts from some of my favourite films, novels, ect. Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" and "Fraggle Rock," Jeff Smith's "Bone," Tim Burton's "Beetle Juice," J.K Rowling's "Harry Potter," and Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" to name a few of the more prominent ones. I sat on the sofa and told my wife, Tasha, everything I liked about them and how I could use similar storytelling methods and concepts to tell Annyseed's story. I think it took about half an hour to come up with the story's main backbone. But it's been open all year to change, whenever other ideas come into my head.

Febuary/2008: Finally, through my least favorite month of the year, I decided to start working on the new comic book. I went back to an old concept I had, about a vampire girl who thinks drinking blood is gross, and thought I would attach the concept of Rock'n'Roll to her. I needed a look that was as cute as a Care Bear, but with the attitude of Sonic the Hedgehog. She needed to be simple, complex and iconic, so I looked to the biggest cartoon icon in history and based her features and colours on Mickey Mouse.

January/2008: I can't exactly recall when, but early on this year an old lady came into the shop where I worked. She showed me a birthday card she was giving to her granddaughter, and she told me a poem that she had wrote which she intended to put with it. I told her it reminded me of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky." To my surprise she began reciting it. I thought about how my generation relates so much to Alice in Wonderland, and despite the book being over 100 years old, it really shocked me to hear the almost psychedelic, surreal poem coming from her lips. I imagined her as a little girl, some 80 years ago and I realized that the poem was just as fresh today as it had been back then. Around the same time this happened I was thinking about Rock music, and although I know that it has changed back and forward over the years, I came to the conclusion that in the end it all meant the same thing. A rock song from 1955 had the same spirit and energy as a rock song from 2008. Rock’n’roll, no matter where, when or how, is about youth and energy, and that spirit can be with you no matter how old you are. Anyseed was designed to represent youth and Rock'n'Roll.