What software do you use to make your movies?

Adobe Flash.

Where do you get your inspiration?

From everything around me. Memories, music, nightmares, things I thought someone said but actually misheard, shapes in the clouds, interesting patterns in half-mixed cake ingredients. There's no one source for creativity. So, if you're hoping to find a magical font of inspiration, all I can say is look around you. It's everywhere!

I have an idea for a cartoon. You could do one about...

No, I couldn't. If you have a story idea, I wholly encourage you to do something with it! Invent your own characters and make your idea come to life. Don't give it away to someone else! I just can't take anyone else's idea, no matter how great it might be. It wouldn't be mine, you see, and that's important. (But thank you for the suggestions, of course!)

Where do you get the music you use in your movies?

Sometimes friends write it for me. I've occasionally found songs in the public domain. Sometimes I purchase a license for royalty-free music, and there are a variety of places to order such tracks. I will not use anything without permission. Unfortunately, this also means you usually can't look up the tracks on iTunes and order them for yourself.

When is your book coming out?

I don't have a definite date on that yet ("that" being what is tentatively titled The Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow), but possibly some time in late 2011 or early 2012.

What's the book about?

It's about a terrible evil that takes up residence in the woods of a small, forgotten town already cursed by dark forces and locked in perpetual autumn. People have vanished! Ghosts shriek desperate warnings! And there are signs of worse to come. It's up to three strange girls and one rather awkward boy to save this town, even though they have been cruelly outcast by it.

There will be more details as the book comes closer to print, but it'll be written and illustrated by myself and edited by Erin Clarke of Knopf. Well, actually, it's already written. I just need to revise and illustrate it at this point.

Will you make a music video for my band?

How much are you willing to pay? ;-) And, well, no. Probably not. It's not that your band isn't great. It's just that animation is an arduous process for me, and I don't know how I'd manage to find the time!

Can my band make music for one of your videos?

I'm extremely selective when it comes to the music that I use, so unless I've posted a call for music submissions, I've probably already got something in mind. Also, I'd feel bad about asking for a lot of changes, and you know I would ask.

I'd like to offer my talents as a voice actor.

Thank you! ...but, just as with music, unless I've made a specific call for voice actors, I'm not really looking for anybody as I already have a list of go-to people. It wouldn't be an easy job, anyway. I'm a mean director. I made Tim Jones cry when he was working on The Little Girl. Um... don't tell him I said that. It's, uh, very upsetting for him. Yes.

How did you come up with the idea for Skary?

The Childrin were mostly inspired by the antics of actual children. I worked with preschoolers a long time ago. Loved it. But I found that kids really do say the darnedest things. The darnedest, creepiest, most disturbing things. And they have no idea how strange the things they're saying are! Yet they say it all with such sweet, cherubic smiles. Parents don't usually allow their little ones to play with sharp objects. You think that's for the kids' protection? THINK AGAIN.

Who does your web design?

I do!

Can I send you my resume?

Er... okay, but it won't do you much good. I'm a one-woman operation.

Will you answer some questions for my school project?

I usually do, but it can take me a while to get to all my email. So, please don't ask if you've got a close deadline, and I recommend having a backup plan!

Have you thought about collaborating with Tim Burton?

Sure. But has he thought about collaborating with me? I don't know! Let me call him up and ask. Hold on. Got another call. Oh, drat, it's Scorsese again. I gotta take this.

Those are all the FAQs I can think up at the moment! As always, if you have other questions, use the form and ask away.

Speaking of other projects, did you see? Well, did you? There's a new Downloads page! At the moment, it simply has a few Twitter backgrounds for your use, but there will be more downloads in the near future. As far as those Twitter backgrounds go, I've included the most requested characters for now. Are there any others you'd like to see?

In other news, the first place winner of Casilda's Hat Contest has received her hat. And look! She's taken pictures!

I think it works for her, don't you? Rena is also a model for House of Pomegranates, which I encourage everyone to check out.

In case you thought I'd forgotten, I'm still working on an animated short, and as soon as I can figure out how, there will be close captioning of some sort on the YouTube videos for the hard of hearing. I'm also putting that collage together. I've received a lot of wonderful photos, but I can definitely use more. Have you seen anything that reminded you of Skary? Send photos! There's no deadline, and the collage will be updated as long as I continue to receive pictures.

Okay, all right and what-have-you. That's the news. How about a few emails, eh?

My webcomic is usually just posted onto my deviant art account, but only about 8 people read it. I know it's pretty good, and i was wondering if you had any suggestions on how to get more people to see it. Should i submit it into a collaborate website for comics, or should I keep it on my deviant art and hope more people see it? Do i have any other options? -ML

Your best option is to just keep creating. You can put your existing artwork absolutely everywhere, but if you aren't producing quality and regular work, the audience you have will never expand. You want your existing 8 people to tell their friends about it, who will tell their friends and so on. You're also going to need patience. You won't have a huge following overnight! I'm still working on growing my own audience, if that tells you anything. Even if you do create something that puts you on the map, so-to-speak, it will be a flash in the pan if you don't keep at it. Now, all that aside, it really helps to take advantage of the tools that are at your fingertips. Use Twitter, Facebook, your blog, everything. And keep it all current. If you're truly dedicated to your webcomic, I also recommend having your own site for it. If that site is a dedicated blog, that's fine. Just give it a home that's uniquely yours. You can still post your content on other places like DA, but you want your style to stick out in everyone's minds. Another tip - if you see an artist you like who also needs a little promotional help, tell your friends about him/her. Aside from the good karma, they just might return the favor. :)

I'm a huge fan of your sixcasts, do you have any new plans or ideas for crookedsixpence.com? :) - SL

I miss doing the Sixcasts! Some day, if I ever have time again, I will return to those, and I'll find a use for Crooked Sixpence again. For the time being, however, all of that has to sit on the back burner.

I'm a big fan of yours and I just wanted to ask you a question about your art style. Where do you get your inspiration? Because I've always admired your unique style, even being a little jealous cause I have such a hard time finding my own.  Maybe, if its not too much trouble, but you do have any tips about style? I thank you one hundred times over. -M

You've probably heard this a lot, but that doesn't make it any less true - just draw a lot. The more you draw, the more your own style will come out on its own. I didn't sit down and decide, "Hey! This is how I'm going to draw!" Some of it was a happy accident. Look at a lot of art, too. Don't do it with the intention of copying someone else's style, of course. Just introduce yourself to as much creativity as possible and study all the details. Don't limit yourself to styles you already know you like, either. By the way, have you ever noticed how delightfully creepy medieval artwork is? The proportions are all wonky, that's why. But it's GREAT. And Edward Hopper. That guy made light and shadows an art form of themselves. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't inspired by certain artists (Alphonse Mucha, Harry Clarke, Edward Gorey, etc), but there's so much more to it than having some favorites.

This one isn't a question, but I had to share it because it made me laugh. Driver's ed handbooks! Ah, memories:

I was bored at midnight (dangerous prospect) and realized I hadn't checked your site in a while (having been a bit frightened into the fact that you had disappeared and become one of those boring adults who works 8-5 then watches the news then goes to sleep) so I checked it and mulled away a good hour sifting through everything NEWslashIMPROVED. I like it a lot! *high five* Very professional, very awesome, very Skary. (Ugh. Unintentional rhyming.)

Also, it made me nostalgically pull out my old Drivers' Ed book because, well, I had newly found your work (and was therefore obsessed with it, as is my way of doing things) at the same time I took Drivers' Ed, and therefore... there are scribbled quotes (primarily repeated word-for-word renditions of "Never Woke Up," my favorite piece of yours), frightening sketches, and a multitude of other Skary doodles.

I really hope to sell that book to:

a) a friend who will get a laugh out of it and (strangely) still want to be my friend

b) a stranger who will either be scarred for life or become a great fan of yours (which with I would take my chances)

Have a chipper day! I can't wait to see more from you in the future and I will use one of my 11:11 wishes to wish that you get on the big screen one day (though with major influences in the film so it's not a yucky sell-out because GOD KNOWS we need more of those in the world... *grumbles*)

:)

-VE

VE, I promise not to sell out too much. ;)

Oh, and look at this! Kim in OK has sent a photo of her Emmeline tattoo, which was done by Brooke Cooke in Conway, AR:

She plans to add the Neighbor Boy soon. I can't wait to see it!

At this rate, I wonder if I'll ever catch up on my inbox, but I suppose I have time to answer one question:

Hey! I love ur videos, yet the creepy part about them is the lingering question, What if that really did happen? Or already did? -C

If the little girl in "Stage Fright" really burnt down the theater with her mind, no one would believe it wasn't faulty wiring. But she'd suffer from guilt all her life just the same and grow up to become Firefighter of the Year thirteen years in a row, causing a jealous rivalry within her department. She'd eventually feel the pressure and quit, whereupon she'd write a book about her experiences that would be published as Science Fiction/Fantasy because who's going to believe a nationally recognized firefighter woman was once a pyrokinetic pre-k actress?

If Emmeline really had a Mister Creazil, and if together they really destroyed an entire town, we probably wouldn't know about it until a hobby photographer happened to pass through the area and found the remnants. He'd take lots of grainy black and white photos and start asking questions on UFO watcher forums, starting an international WHAT HAPPENED TO SKARYVILLE? movement. You'll know about it when your weirdo college roommate pastes a poster of the rusted water tower on the dorm wall and disappears on Friday nights to hold secret meetings with his local Skaryville Truth chapter.

If Genevieve had ever really ruled the world and been overthrown, you wouldn't have had any real toys when you were a child. They'd have been banned the world over for several years, and you'd have had to play with baking soda boxes and dolls made out of cheese rind. But you wouldn't know any better, so you'd think it was pretty great. Maybe you would've grown up to design a cheese-rind doll that was actually made of plastic and could be mass-produced! It'd have movable arms and legs and say baby things when tipped over. It would be an enormous sensation, actually, and you'd be called the Father or Mother of the Modern Toy. You'd die a very wealthy person indeed, decades or perhaps even centuries before some genius kid gets a crazy idea to build his or her own army with... I don't know. Something.

I don't suppose we'll ever know if Ida's story is true, but if the peculiar old woman sitting next to you on the bus one day leans over and says, "I think you'd better get off at the next stop, dearie," and begins to hum a familiar children's tune, you probably shouldn't question it.

As you know, I recently relaunched skary.net! There's new art on the way, a very short animation in the works, and I'm in the middle of a couple of writing projects as well. That doesn't mean I've neglected my inbox, of course. Without further delay, here are a few of the questions I've gotten over the past week:

I love love love your drawings and movies. The illustration titled "Midnight Snack" I adore. Nosferatu, am I right? - LF

You are correct! "Midnight Snack" is a parody of a famous scene from F.W. Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu, which I admit I don't watch very often because it gives me nightmares.

hey hey hey! its FAT ALBERT have u bought your candy for halloween i hope so cuz i'll be there to eat it all! - Fat Albert

All right. You do that. But I'd put on my running shoes if I were you.

I have all of these dreams that turn into cartoons than into great ideas...my question is how to get started into the way of creating movies as you? It has always been my dream to do so, I have the artistic talent but no idea how to start. -W

Well, I use Flash for animating my cartoons, and a lot of practice. There are so many people better at it than I, but they'd probably say the same thing: learn the software and practice your heart out. After that, post your creation everywhere and wait for feedback! Even negative feedback is immensely helpful. Your start might be a slow one, but don't lose heart! And good luck.

I have a quick question though, what happened to the movie 'Stage Fright' ? Where the girl flips out because everyone's staring at her (i'm sure you know that, being it's creator an all, lol) .. I can't seem to find it anywhere. -C

I sort of... well... took it down. It was my very first animation effort, and I've never been especially proud of it. But if you'd like to see it anyway, it's here.

i love your website, its really great. and im just thinking that if i could promote your web (i dont need to be pay) with some labels to put on my blog or anything i could do to promote yor web i really like to do it. - L

That's not a bad idea, L. I'm pleased as punch whenever anyone wants to promote my site, and you're all free to do so however you wish! But if you would like something more official, here are a few for you: