January

Out of all the ideas proposed, these were the 4 that popped out the most for the month of January.

Which one do you prefer? 
Leave 1 for Gemma, 2 for the Balthasars, 3 for the Twains and 4 for Kane and Wes.

4th anniversary - the stuff I haven't shown you

Hi guys,

The fourth anniversary is approaching - January 19th is around the corner - and I know you guys are busy but here are a set of activities I had in mind to have fun together with the minimum effort.

1) Create a Character: The Gem of the Mediterranean Sea will have some new characters - mostly people living in Circe's palace: create a character -drawn or in written form - and we'll put the most voted ones into the story. (just so you know this is how Nicoli was born too - in fact Long Overdue is part of the Project Balthasar)

2) The best Fan Fiction: over the year we've received and read many sweet stories related to the pirate balthasar: vote for the best one and I will turn it into a comic. (btw you are still on time to enter a brand new idea into this competition)

3) The stuff I haven't shown you: there were moments in the story whereby instead of showing you everything I jumped somewhere else (Kes and Wes' wedding was one of them). Do you want to know what Kane told Castalia at the end of chapter 8 when the boys were spying on them? Do you want to know how the doctor found Priscilla? Did you ever wonder what happened the night Rose wandered off and found Jack? You name it! this is a "I always wanted to know what happened... then!" - basically a pirate Balthasar uncut :D

4) The funky request: this will begin on January first and will be part of my "1doodleaday" exercise... so you have to put up your request in fast. 

I am still working on some of the stuff from the to do list:  steampunk (rock-o-co Lio),  character as badass pirates (emoking) were completed and am slowly writing in the rest in the comic. So think Doodle and you can go really really specific and very crazy with your request.

alright,

so what do you say?

Are you game?

Deda

Special Pages First Entry

Here is our first entry to the Special Pages game.
It's by Alessia Vivenzio who has a Facebook page as well as a Deviant art account.

This is quite the start, isn't it?

If any of you is a member of Drunk Duck you can submit this form for the Drunk Duck award.

You can nominate your favorite comic (I already submitted the Pirate Balthasar in the For your Consideration section).

But you can go specific and/or choose other comic too. It seems like they need a lot of help.

We have a name!

Congrats Marigold you found a name!

Thank you all for participating in our last little game for this comic.

(I kinda liked Hazel because it reminded me of the Witch from those very old Duffy Duck cartoons hahahaha)

Anyways, we will be seeing a bit more of Marigold in The Pirate's Wife!

Name Rose's Baby - Finals

I picked all the names that received more than 10 votes (from 11 up).


It's time to vote for the very best.

Rose's baby!

Thank you all for your submission.
This would be final call for entries.

I received a lot of names with nice explanations, let's make a list like Santa (if I forgot somebody remind me so I can update the post).


List of Names: 

Kanta
Trishna
Drea
Amira
Ilaria
Alura
Edelina
(explanations here)

Dahlia
Lily
Daisy
Amaranth
Charlotte
Carmine
Flora

Loraine
Clara
Lilac
Orchid
Mary
Fara


Raini
Asiva
Lily
Terra
Jinx
Amy
Bane
Robin
Wilson
Jin
Cornelia
Patsy
Tobi
Bret
Boomer
Moo
Chiri
Chuck Norris
Nemo
Nashi
Len
George
Bean
Rexy
Eva
Aden
Fiala ( Vioelt flower)
Tama (means jewel)
Llima (flower)
Clea (famous flower)
Iolanda (famous pirate girl name)

Violetta
Lillà
Bluebell
Blossom
Angelica
Marigold (Goldie)
Hortense
Iris

Fabia Wichita (or just Fabia)

Peaches
Violet
Heather
Bluebell
Holly
Daffodil
Honey
Petunia
Buttercup
Hazel
Periwinkle
Marigold
Dumpling

Did I forget anybody?

Springtime for Balthasar

First of all Lio and Foxy as Robin Hood and Lady Marian won the Springlove contest in the Moment of Beauty Group.

I think participation was pretty low though (which is unusual for such a great group) U_U.
But we get a free drawing in return so all is well that ends well! :D

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But let's get down to our own little games.

 This time with we're proposing two kinds of activities.

 1) A naming contest 

Rose is having a baby. Baby needs a name. A female one.
Unleash your imagination and help us pick a cool name for her! We'll make a poll for all the proposed names and it'll be decided by popular vote. Pirates vote to decide such things ;D .

2) A Pirate Balthasar Firefox browser skin contest

 Firefox, in case you're not familiar with it, is a free browser software, and one of the most popular and used browsers worlwide.

Firefox works both in Windows, MAC and Linux OS, it's highly customizable and an all-around cool tool to have. A lot of plugins and custom options for Firefox are made by the users themselves and put up on the Mozilla mother site for other Firefox users to dl and cutomize their browser with.

It's a good way to both hone your skills, get recognized and make other people happy XD.

 To make a skin (aka 'Persona') for Firefox you only need a standard graphics program to work on images, like Photoshop, GimP, Paint tool SAI or whatever software you have available, and use a picture... in our case it could be either an official Pirate Balthasar illustration from the comic, or a fanart.

In case you didn't make the fanart, just ask the author permission to use the pic ;D.

In any case, credit the author. It's both netiquette and what professionals do. All you need to know on Firefox skins (from step by step tutorials to examples and catalogue of finished skins) is here :[link]
 and here: [link] 

There's not really a deadline planned for this skin contest... also because after the main TPB story is over there will be the sequels and spinoffs, hence your picks of source images and inspiration for browser skin are endless XD.

 Just go wild and submit and /or link your Firefox 'Persona' to us, somehow, when you are done! :D

Reward an Original Drawing.

The Story Olympics: our pirate balthasar

Alright guys, I kept you waiting because I needed to refine the details for our new game.

This one... you are going to love it. I call it : the deadliest competition of all times! 


That's because you are going to do a story pitch.


As you may know, The Pirate Balthasar will end in a few months.
I have a lot of ideas for the next stories, specials and... as some of you may recall... I will have several spin offs.
Then one of you sent me a story and at the core of it there was a very interesting idea. It tickled my imagination like crazy!

Then I thought: why not play a game as well?

I know a lot of you like to write stories and are interested in writing so... let's write a story together.


Usually when people write stories together they do it in different ways: I start, you end... or... we vote the most liked ideas... and they forget about the structure and/or they go on with wishful thinking or have collateral damages due to the fact that they are unfamiliar with the topic.

Well, with The Pirate Balthasar all this stuff is done for you as yours truly will be acting as an editor, researcher and script doctor. We are staying within The Pirate Balthasar's world so we can't go wrong: the characters are established, the setting is too.

All you have to picth are "what ifs?" "Little did he knows" and Story ideas.

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HOW TO ENTER THE GAME:


1) You can submit a what if: what if, The pirate Balthasar meets the friggin' Pope?
2) You can submit a log line: this is the story of how Castalia finds the recipe for the best cake in the World but does not know how to cook it.
3) Write a short synopsis: it would be a paragraph with your idea.
4) Ask a question: can we see Finland?


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As usual you can email it to me at dedadaniels(at)yahoo.com or post it here or on Facebook, or anywhere you like. Your choice.

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As I said I will act as an editor, I don't know if you ever had the chance to do so but, basically, it's very challenging and difficult, you need to keep an open mind on possible changes and have the guts to take criticism. There won't be any negative feedback and none of the comment will be "personal" nor unproductive. No idea will be completely discarded but editing might be required.

Having an editor helps the continuity of the story.

I will be the first one to skim your stories, saying if they are feasible and proposing challenges to improve them.

Once you submit your story we'll start the Olympic Games.
In short it will be up to the people to vote which idea should go forward and which one needs more work... by public demand.

The most voted will win the first round, the other ones would need to be retouched and improved probably, but can be resubmitted as many times as the author likes.

The winner will see the story actually drawn to become a chapter of a Project called: Our Pirate Balthasar. And the content of the story will determine which spin off should join.


The votes will determine which one will go first.

This is the rough idea, this game is ongoing!
There will constantly be polls.

And we'll have a chapter written by me and one written by US together released alternatively after the regular series ends.

This is because I have plenty of stories I want to tell, but to be honest I also want to tell you the stories you want to hear - given the chance - I was never lucky enough to be able to ask any of my favorite writers to tell me this or that story about this or that character (because they are dead, sigh).

I knew that story was in them but maybe they never felt the need to answer certain questions because nobody asked them.

I know this thing might not sound very clear right now, so ask away and I'll try my best to clarify everything.

And the winner is:

For best illustration/fan art:
Martin by elianthos with a total of 182 votes!

For best graphic:
I'm a doctor by o0oVixeno0o with a totla of 29 votes!

The World belongs to blond meeeeen! Muahr ahr ahr.

Congratulations! Message me or email me to provide me with your address, I will ship your award a.s.a.p.

Thank you all very much for participating in the second year anniversary contest. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If the winners would like to say a few words, message me.

 (If the winner does not show up to collect her reward I'll give it to the second place):P

Final entry

And this is the final entry for this contest by Gargantuan-Media (who is also admins of one of the biggest groups about Indie Graphic Novels on Deviant Art).

Check out his page and his group, totally worth it!

Thank you all very much for joining this fun competition! Give me a couple of days to collect all your artwork and organize the polls! :D

Happy Valentine's Day.

more more!

So  Korihime is on a roll! She has prepared another wallpaper, this time dedicated to Lio and Foxy. (she has more in store too).

We are still not done for today, as we also have a cross over illustration and a valentine card coming up next.

Castalia by tiffc

As I said, in my previous post,  there are a few more entries to show today! I bet last weekend you guys were on fire.
This is Castalia by tiffc (click on her name to visit her deviant art account).

Stay tuned for more! The celebration continues...

Final entries

So elianthos has decided this to be the final picture to submit as an entry for the contest and, at the same time, she wishes everybody a Happy Valentine's Day.

She has uploaded several version of the Martin picture on facebook but it's not up on deviant art yet so we keep the one I already post before. But you can click on her nick, at the beginning of this post, to go and post a nice comment on her deviant art account.

Another double submission.

Wow, I'm so glad to see you guys really  go for it!

So  Korihime has submitted another wallpaper, this time she has three different version of the same wallpaper!
She mentioned she might try to do one more! :D Isn't that cool?

new entries to the contest

Here is a sneak peak at elianthos' entries for the contest. She is having problems with her scanner/camera, so the glitter is not showing. Top picture is Martin while the bottom one is Wes&Kes with the donuts of love! hahahaha.

The moment she uploads them on deviant art I shall know the official submission is in and we will be able to go and leave comments under her drawings.

Double entry

Alright guys, IslandWriter has decided to go for a second entry and here it is. The quintuplets in all their splendor.

Again click on the name at the beginning of the post to go and leave a message on deviant art for this wonderful piece!

Wallpaper entry for the contest

Korihime has submitted two different version of the same wallpaper for the second year anniversary contest: one with text and the other one without.
These are so nice too! Aaaah!

By clicking on her name at the beginning of the post you can follow her to her blog and leave her a nice comment.
Thank you, Korihime.

More entries to the game

 We have two more entries today, one with "angels" and one with "vampires".

For those of you who are on facebook you might have seen the vampire one already.

This first Cupid drawing is by elianthos she claims it to be a work in progress and also states she has two more drawings on her way.

Please visit her on deviant art to leave her a message.

And this fantastic graphic piece  is by our friend Briana who posted it on facebook just yesterday.

The ideal Halloween twist!


I have also received a composition by one who may very well be our youngest reader: Valerio, who is only 12.

He wrote this beautiful essay on why he likes the Pirate Balthasar so much, it's in Italian though but I thought it was fantastic! He gets my personal two thumbs up and I am going to send him an original page from the comic.

Time is running out, guys, I hope you are working fast on your pieces. I know I am on mine... so much to do so very little time to do it! (and today is laundry day too hahahaha)

Another entry to the contest

Only a few days left for the second anniversary contest (I am also rushing to finish the reward).... and Kaguria Kitsune has prepared a second entry for this game.

Survival of the fittest, who shall win this game?