First off, Tim Buckley rocks!
Other than that bombshell, just a couple quick things, since the comic won't be up till late this coming week.
That extra little thing is in, so the shirts will be shipping on Monday. Both shirts are selling better than I'd anticipated. I'm probably going to start running out of sizes next week. I'm checking with my shirt guy to have a second batch done (this time with mediums), but we won't have those till after the holidays for sure. If you're planning to get a shirt I really recommend doing it sooner rather than later, I'm down to one in a couple sizes.
We just discovered we had a lot more of the old heartbolt shirts left over from two years ago. I'd frankly pretty much forgotten about these since I was never really happy with them, but they resurfaced when we took over our own distribution again. We'll probably be making these available at a severely discounted price, just to move them out.
More next week...
This shirts are in, and I'll have pictures up soon.
There is a little something extra I'm hoping to be able to send out with the pre-orders, but it's running later than I had expected. Actually, the shirts just got here earlier than I expected :P
If anyone does NOT want me to wait till next week for this item before shipping out their shirts please let me know and I'll pop it in the mail immediately. I understand the holiday season is upon us, and some of you may be planning to ship these somewhere else after you get them.
In other news, I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning working on something very cool. Had the first season of Alias playing in the background, which I've just borrowed from Lance and Danika. Interesting show, though not the masterpiece Lost is. I'll have pics of last nights project up soon as well...
So I was going to wait and do this for strip 100, coming up right around the first of the year, but after the last week or so I've changed my plans.
As of the next strip, I will be dropping color from this comic.
I know I'm gonna get a ton of angry and dissapointed mail over this, and nothing I say here will change that. But this is something I have to do for myself. Over the last few strips since I got my Cintiq I've been adding more detail and size to the strips. Unfortunately the color hasn't followed suit.
It breaks down like this...
First I lay out the image, finding the general placement and pacing of the strip. This part is sometimes difficult, but it's still fun.
Second, I pencil the image, defining the shape and most of the detail of the image. This part is the most fun and most rewarding step. A lot of times I wish I could leave it penciled to save the slightly abstract look that medium has.
Third, I ink the image, adding in most of the small details and textures that really make the image interesting to me. As much as I usually love pencils, I generally have to admit I'm even happier once it's inked.
Fourth, I shade the image, giving it depth and finishing up the softer textures. When done right, this brings the foreground into focus and gives a better contrast than just my inks.
Fifth, I drop the flat colors into the image, adding little to no new detail and giving myself nine kinds of frustration in the realm of bad color choices.
I add a bit of highlights after that, but they barely matter. At that point I'm sick of the image. Why? Because my coloring technique adds nothing new to the image. It's boring and frustrating to do. And simply put, I'm not that good at it.
I know a lot of people who say my colors are the best thing about the strip. And that makes me want to put holes in things. What they see as coloring is shading, which I'm happy with. But to do the actual color properly I need to find new methods. I need to work on learning proper techniques so that the look of the color improves along with the linework.
While the strip switches to shaded linework I'll not be completely idle, colorwise. I'm going to be working on various projects which "will" be in color. These are things I'm going to take my time with and do properly. Hopefully I'l learn what I need to learn. We'll see.
I apologize in advance to anyone who really hates this news. I can tell you it won't be permanent, but I can't say how temporary.
We're just going to have to see.
Alright, here it is, and good riddence to it.
I'll explain later.
The second prototype for the plush pandas arrived this morning.
I'm debating whether or not to show these yet. Frankly, it's not there yet. It's not far, but it has some rather serious issues that still need addressing.
I'm actually going to be sewing together a copy of the latest one, modified in what ways must be, and sending it back for replication into a third and hopefully final prototype.
And I will have this strip done tomorrow, come hell or high water.
Shading is done, color is progressing.
I'm not going to put up any previews of the color, since it's a real mess right now. With luck this should all be done tomorrow sometime. I hope so anyway, I need to start the next one :P
Inks are finished.
It's taking a while to produce, but I'm really happy with the level of detail in this one.
Shirts are up for preorder in the store. The Deathtoast one is up now, and the "Every Skyline Needs a Giant Robot" ones should be up shortly. These are VERY small print runs, so if you want one before Christmas I'd recommend ordering it right away.
I'll be working on the shading and color today, and with a little luck it'll be finished by Monday.
Just so you know, as far as the comic schedule goes, this was Strip 96. Strip 100 will go up right after Christmas, and strip 101 is gonna be a New Years thingy. If you do the math, that's me missing one more week between now and then. I apologize in advance, but I do have something special planned.
Spent a bit of time over the past few days working on shirts, to make sure they'll be here before chirstmas. We'll have a preorder page up soon for both the "Every Skyline Needs a Giant Robot" and "Deathtoast" shirts.
I have the next couple days off, so I should be able to finish the Inking tomorrow and start the color on friday.
Sorry for the slow comic progress, but at least I'm really happy with the results :)
Rather than give you nothing week after week while I finish up this latest comic, I'm going to show you the progress each day as it gets done. As you can see, it's a bit more detailed than some of my previous stuff, but then the last few strips have all been leaning that direction. I'm trying to push myself artisticly, as I really feel that for a while there I was really just settling into a style best suited for easy repetition.
Easy repetition is death to me. I have to draw new things, and I have to draw them in new ways, otherwise it gets stale and I get bored. I could never do a comic like PvP, since as a general rule it's artisticly void. Not always, but some 95% of those strips, and many other newspaper style strips, are for all intents and purposes tracing. The writing is often good, something I've never felt I had any real ability in. But the linework and layout is static, dead. Sure, they spice it up once in a while, and Kurtz in particular has shown many times he is capable of real layout and innovation. But in order to deliver a daily schedule they often sacrifice the visuals.
I could never do a daily strip. Things have to cook with me for far too long, and when I do have an idea I'm happy with I tend to find myself with not enough time to produce it properly. There are people who can, and do it well. Bunny is my current favorite in this regard, next to the eternal list topper Achewood, which exposes the repetition crutch for what it CAN be. A tool to allow things like putting up what would suffice for a weeks worth of strips anywhere else, each and every day for a week. And still finding new layouts and ways to pace it.
Did I mention it's funny E-V-E-R-Y time? (note: full consumption of achewood archives may be neccesary for complete enjoyment and comprehension of product)
Damn, I could talk about Achewood all day. I love that strip.
What was I saying? Ah well, I gotta get to work. More progress tomorrow, and things...
