Guten Tag.55--Pumpkin Bed

Hey, finished this yesterday. Hahah. What other things can you think of doing with old, moldy pumpkins?
Make a list, then share that list with your family. You can make a day out of it.

Alright, I gotta fly. Catch ya later.

-ryand.hoffman

Guten Tag.54--Halloween Stuff

Hallo everyone. It's Halloween tomorrow. So I did this illustration/animation in the spirit of Halloween. My inspiration was a friend telling me about 3-D pumpkin carvings, so after much scholarly research on such academically respected websites such as Google and Wikipedia (there exists a Predator pumpkin, and it is cool), I thought the best idea for Lex to carve would be something insanely detailed, such as the Coliseum. So yeah.

Oh yeah, here's this week's comic. Halloween costumes. And a little social commentary for good measure.



Alright. Take it easy.

-ryan[drew]hoffman

Guten Tag.53--Brotherfight pt.2, Ring of Death, and Apples.

More comics today. My Xbox 360 did indeed die recently, and for some reason I thought of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. That's okay if you haven't seen the movie. I liked about 66% of it, but did not care for the psychedelic drug trip-like flying sequence towards the end that goes on for TWENTY MINUTES. The last scene of the movie was awesome, though. But yeah, YouTube the HAL-9000 scene if you want. I did.

Anyways, I just realized that there are eight more weeks until I give Guten Tag a break for the new year. Once I finish #100, I'm planning on putting a book together with all 100 strips, as well as earlier stuff I did before it was printed in Wayne State's newspaper. Maybe some pages from my sketchbook and production photos? I think it would be a cool little book. Also, I'm thinking I'll have more time next semester to work on strips, so I was thinking about trying a longer and larger format for Guten Tag. I've got other ideas and projects brewing--some with my brother, others with my good friend Sean, so I want to give Guten Tag some room as I explore those possibilities.

Alright, well, I've got some stuff to do. Have a great week.

-ryan

Guten Tag.53--Man vs. Wild and Indoor Voice

Hey everybody. School is busy. These are the most recent comics that I have drawn. I hope you like them.
Alright, I must do more homework. Take care.

-from rayn hfofamn

Tuten Gag.52--Michigan State Trooper and Metalsmithing Class

Took a little time off between updates, but things have been busier around here. My brother, sister-in-law, and niece flew in from California the 26th of August, so we've been spending time with them as well as family on my mom and dad's side. On top of that, school has started back up, further increasing the busy-ness. But I'm enjoying it. My little niece is awesome!

I'm getting closer and closer to my goal with Guten Tag. I want to get over 100 strips by the end of this school year and collect them into a book that I hope to sell. I'll likely have more than 100, plus extra stuff that I want to put in there like scans from my sketchbook where I work out ideas for my strips, and other stuff. I'll probably start doing actual work on that during Christmas break.

Well, have a great Labor Day.

-ryan

Guten Tag.51--Headed Down South to the Land of the Pines

Hey everyone, just got back Wednesday night from a week in Cleveland, Tennessee. I stayed at my friends' house before they went back to school at Lee University. It's been a while since I've been down there, so I enjoyed it. Met a lot of their friends from Lee and went to some cool places down there. Drove through Chilhowee Mountain, swam in the Ocoee River, and of course, ate at Chick-fil-A, Zaxby's, and Krystal's. And yes, there was discussion among those of us from the North and those down there from the South concerning the correct term for 'soft drink' (prompting this week's strip). Fun times. 

I might be going back in a couple months with my family since my oldest brother and his family unit will be in Michigan in less than a week! We used to go down to Knoxville every other year when we were younger, so I'm excited. 

Other than that, school is starting in a couple of weeks. Bring it on. I have a couple books due at school.

I think America may be slightly better if we all ate a little more chicken.

later.

-ryan

Guten Tag.50--Special Milestone Post!

There's really nothing special about this post. I just wanted it to be. See, 50 is half of a hundred, which is a significant number in terms of milestones and in general. Because it's easy to add 100s to each other, since it's practically 1 with two 0's. And it's almost as easy to add 50s to each other, since they're half of 100. I think this is why we place more importance on "50th anniversary", or "250 years of service!" or "100 ways to do 'x'" (although, 101 of anything trumps 100, because it's one more. sometimes you will see this in book titles. e.g. "101 dalmations", or "101 ways to help birds". but by this logic, we should also see titles with the numbers 102, 103, 104, etc. because all those numbers are bigger than the others).

But could you imagine the chaos if we switched from counting 50s and 100s to 47s and 94s? People would either have to use math or their cell phones (because they have calculators in them). Pandemonium. 

Alright. Chew on that for a minute.

Take care.

-ryan

Guten Tag.49--Moths

Hey everyone. Not much going on lately. I think that's the first time I did that extreme of an angle in a Guten Tag strip in the panel with the moths. I want to mix things up every now and then without going too far from the look I've stuck with for Guten Tag. I think it fits. That's actually what my porch light looks light.

In related project news, Sean Phelan and I recently finished the final (fingers crossed) page layout thumbnails for the first issue of Mega West. Today I got all my bristol board together and cut it to size, and now I just need to start drawing. I have another blog for that project, so if you want further news, I'll be updating it soon. But feel free to go there anyway: MEGA WEST

Awesome, I'm pumped.

Alright, that's it for now.

Take..luck.

-ryan

Guten Tag.48--Thrice the Guteness.

Oh hey. I suppose it's been a while since I updated. A fair amount of stuff has been going on in the past few weeks. Most importantly, I recently got back from visiting my brother and sister-in-law in California, and I finally got to meet my niece! Madelyn is amazing and such a joy to be around. 

Brandon and Joanna, (my brother and sister-in-law) were in China for the past 4 years, and had Madelyn five months before they left to come back to the states, so it's crazy to think that my little niece has already been in China (dur), as well as Vietnam, Hawaii, and some other asian countries (I think), before she was even six months old.

I can't wait until September when they come and stay with us for a while.

GUTEN TAG! I made some:

On an unrelated note, I recently bought the game Psychonauts off of Xbox 360. I remember playing the demo a few years ago, and liking it. But after someone from the boltcity.com message boards pointed out that Scott Campbell art directed it, I had to check it out. (Scott Campbell, by the way, draws some cool stuff. He's also involved with the Brutal Legend game that's coming out.)

So I just finished the game last night. I tried to get every item and level in the game, but I'm a level short of 100. 

Overall, the story was very unique and solid. The dialogue was excellent and very funny at times, and I thought the character development was given great attention. 

The game is for the most part a platformer, but goes out of its way to bring different challenges to a traditional platforming experience. Not a lot of puzzle solving, except for in the way your different abilities are used. 

The thing I really liked about it was how the overall concept of a 'Psychonaut' played out in different levels. You interact with certain characters throughout the game, and transport into their minds in order to solve what's wrong with them in the game. These are essentially the 'levels', and each is unique in its look and feel as well as its gameplay. For example, one guy you meet is like a conspiracy theorist gone mad, so his mind is a 60s era suburb with all the streets at odd angles and curving above your head. Another level takes place on a Settlers of Catan/Risk type gameboard where you can switch between controlling pieces on the board from afar, as well as shrinking down to the board level to complete objectives. 

Finally, the aesthetics of the game are great. Great environments, great art, great soundtrack, etc. Really cool game worth buying.

Well, that's it until next time. Still working on MegaWest with my friend Sean. We've almost got the page/panel layout of issue 1 completed. We already did, but it felt like the pages were too crowded with panels, so it needed to be reworked. Can't wait to finally start pencilling and then inking. 

Scrabble.

-ryan

Guten Tag.47--A Double Dose of Wasting Your Time

Hoo boy. Busy week coming up. My cousin in the Air Force will be home tomorrow and is getting married this Saturday. I'm standing in the wedding, so all the usual wedding stuff is going on this week, plus it's the last full week of my illustration class. My last project is to design a barf bag. Not a whole lot of ideas yet, except for this sketch:

For those unaware, a rainbow colored yawn (or rainbow yawn, for short) is one of many euphemisms for barf. I thought that it would make sense that a cloud would vomit a rainbow, given the context of this bag possibly being in an airplane. It would be colored of course. So yeah, this illustration class is great.

Too bad about the Wings. 

This is not a sports blog, and I am nowhere near qualified to discuss sports, so I won't.

However, the Red Wings are an amazing team, and I think one of the best faces of Detroit that we can present to the country, so I'm bummed to see them lose the Cup.

But they will definitely be back next year. 

Alright, end of stuff unrelated to Guten Tag.

Drink milk.

-ryan