State of Affairs

Welcome to 2014 all! I know I posted earlier this week about postponing the comic release, and well...here's why.

Between Thursday of last week and Monday of this week, both of my computers decided to break. The desktop was salvageable (PSU fried), while the laptop...was not. The piece was integrated with another part of the computer that was too costly to repair and would most assuredly break again. I had to replace it with a new laptop, thanks to the generous support of my boyfriend, I now have two computers functioning.

Sadly, most of my work that I had gotten finished is still on the old laptop. It will take some time to get the files off, and, at the same time, more time to get them completed and the site in order. I feel terrible about this, but if I'm taking the time to try to get things in order, I want to make it right. I promised a 2014 release, and I'm going to stick to it. It's just not going to be in January, sadly enough. If you want a direct notification as to when the comic launches, you can always sign up for the newsletter on the site, or follow tumblr if that's more your thing.

Again, thank you all for your patience.

2014 Update.

Greetings, everyone! Sorry for the lack of updates for the last month - health has not been the best for the month of December. I wanted to let everyone know where everything stands.

Shiny. 

Stacked Hand, the graphic novel project I've been working on since June, will officially start on Janurary 25th. I'm working on some last-minute stuff as well as the cover for the first chapter right now. If you follow the link to the main site, there's a signup link for notifications sent straight to your email. Or, if you're a tumblrin' sort of person, you can follow the comic's blog here.

Most of my attention's turned towards that at the moment, but outside of the realm of art I will be working on a few new tea blends/tea labels soon - as well as a Peoria area announcement soon!

Post Turkey Day, Home Stretch!

Hello all! It's been another small writing hiatus. Mostly because of this guy.

Lil poop monster. 

It's also been due to health reasons. Woo, health.

I am honestly surprised (but mostly pleased) that slowly, locally at least, word has been getting around about the comic. I got a DM from an old professor of mine (probably one of the reasons I still thought doing a comic was viable even though I seemed to pass the phase that a lot of folks got into it at.) He asked me what the message in my twitter "about me" meant.

To be fair, it used to say "Webcomic: Jan 2014." Hard to believe I'm the byproduct of two English teachers.

I shot a little bit back and forth with him where he offered his help with building my site. While I do have a site up, I honestly am not one to say no to help. I've wanted to talk to him about it for the longest time, but somewhere between my anxiety, worried about bothering him because it's been a few years, and everything else under the sun, I wanted to wait until he mentioned it to me.

Sound logic, I know. (If you're reading this, oh man, I'm sorry. ((It'd also be awesome to just hang and chatup webcomic stuff if you're ever in the mood for it.)))

Despite everything, I have been working on the comic still - trying a full all-out with inking and sketching up pages while I'm getting used to a dog in the house. I also have a late WIP that I've been testing my blending skills on because I got hit with a little nostalgia. Though...I suppose it's not quite nostalgia if I've never watched him before.

Paul McGaan, Night of the Doctor

There's no other way to say it: Guh.

So hey! Last weekend's misadventures included a trip to help out a group of people I consider my adoptive family. I have many a tale I could spin about the SCA but suffice it to say, check out the society's main website to see what it's all about. Then check out one of these GoPro helmet cam vids because the fact that this thing occurs on a yearly basis is mind blowing. As much as I love the armored combat, I am more of an archer mostly because I got to a point where I was utterly terrified of getting my hands beat in. I made some friends that weekend and, despite an injury from an accident back in April, I had a fairly good time.

I did manage to make some headway on pages despite having to spend part of the week in repose. I'll be releasing some of the unused panels from the recent edits I had to do with importing the pages into Manga Studio EX 4. I'm hoping I can keep up with the schedule I set for myself between the physical therapy and the puppy coming home next weekend, I believe I'll have my hands full.

Part of the reason I keep up with weekly updates and this weird style of writing is that when I'm going over the days, things will come to me. Between seeing Thor 2 this weekend with my folks (which I admit I enjoyed even with a great deal of the movie being The Loki Show. Even if Loki's my favorite, sush.) and the tornado that unfortunately wrecked a great deal of local area, I missed the second annual ComfyCon.

ComfyCon was made as an idea between Danielle Corsetto of GirlsWithSlingshots and Randy Millholland of Something*Positive, it's a weekend of panels and livestreams based entirely around webcomics: from getting into the "business" of webcomics to attempting to manage your first anthology. I only managed to hit the opening ceremony on Friday night, but (almost) all of the streams should be online as recordings so I plan on taking some time in the next week or so to look through a few of the panels. If I had been on top of things I would've suggested it earlier but y'know how things get.

That's really all for now. Tune in next week if I haven't drowned from puppy bliss.

Mischief: First Impressions, Creative Process, And Gods, I've Taken a Load of Cute Animal Pictures Lately.

I've been telling the story recently of how my site's URL came to pass. In my supposed infinite wisdom upon looking towards college I decided to take all of my gen. ed studies in my first few years of school to get them out of the way at a Junior College. And because of that infinite wisdom my senior ass got stuck with two big-project courses in the same semester as a sound design and statistics course. Translation: on average, I had three hours of sleep at most each night. And when at least two of these days have me doing twelve hours of projects and courses (and attending course lectures) I spent the mornings shuffling into class with a red bull in one hand, Starbucks in the other. By all rights, I probably should've hard a heart attack of some kind by this point. I have curbed my intake since then. I also probably sleep twice as much.

The second reason I feel like the zombie part of my moniker is relevant is it seems that when the seasons change, I turn into a shuffling mass of illness. I had planned on fully plugging through the software I mentioned last time, Mischief, but only managed to get into roughly two days worth of working on different projects in the software itself. I will say that based on my short time in the product I'll probably try to purchase it in the future.

The first picture I tried to work with in it was just a simple sketch and linework study. While it's definitely a great tool there are some things to get used to. Lassoing and resizing parts of the picture is not impossible, just not as intuitive. And I would like a hexidecimal input for colors just because it's how I've learned to keep track of my own colors when I'm working. But I realize I'm not everyone.

I will warn you though - the lineart in this picture was done with their 6.5 brush. All of the lines. It really makes a difference on brush width when you're zooming into what you're working on. 

The second day I worked for a while doing gesture sketches in the software. While I really wish I would've been able to do a full piece (color, et all, blending too) I believe I'd love this software as a sketching tool then importing it into other software as a flat image. Because of the infinite canvas capabilities alone (not to mention the brushes) I would love this software as a way to sketch out future pages and thumbnail projects.

This is the year of changing software - I made the decision to work in the Manga Studio program for the graphic novel I'm working on, and it's made a difference in my layout and drawing style. I started picking up Frenden's signature brush packs for both Photoshop and the MS software - brushes that mimic traditional pen nibs and the like.

Yes, when I can't think of anything, and my brain is still loopy from sickness, I apparently draw my mascot self. One of these days I'll figure out a version of them I'll stick with. 

 I'll be posting some of the panels I had to cut out of the graphic novel when it gets closer to launch.

My personal FB has turned into an explosion of Puppy Pictures. We finally got to hold our Puppy last weekend, and he is incredibly adorable. Between that and the bf's mom's new puppy, I've suddenly made minor popularity as a cute animal photog. Almost reminds me of the ducklings caught in the sewer drain that happened this summer.  I may get the DSLR back out when we get Puck home with us for good and take a few photos of the rascal. Hopefully my eye for composition has gotten better and the pictures will turn out halfway decent.

I mean, this still isn't too bad and all as far as photos go but it is a cell phone picture. (boo. hiss.) 

That's enough out of me for tonight. I've got to sleep still.

Mailing Lists, updates, or Why I Haven't Posted In Almost A Month.

Alright, lesson learned. I've started marking days to update the blog in my google calendar. I love the ability to schedule things and have my phone shriek at me.

So, what I've been up to lately: so, right after the (re)launch of my personal portfolio site, I got sick for a few weeks. That meant that instead of working on the comic pages, I was regulated back to working on scripts for future chapters. I'm up to chapter three at this point, probably about halfway through. Writing has a way of biting my expectations in the ass, though, so we'll see where that goes. After I got healthier the bf's birthday rolled around, so I felt the need to quickly put together a picture for him based on the game that both of us have been playing to death lately.

Yep, that one.

We've also had some wonderful news: in late November, the BF and I will be experiencing a whole new adventure in our relationship: I'm talking of course about having a pet together. We finally found a breeder (admittedly very late in the year) and have a wonderful, fuzzy baby corgi puppy coming to live with us. We decided to name him Puck, and we get to see him in two weeks.

I don't know who's been making more high-pitched noises, myself, or my bf.

What's down the road? More comic pages, and a review of a new program that I recently discovered thanks to the internet. It's called Mischief, and it's a vector-based program that supposedly will save your art at any size. I'll be writing something on it by the end of the week, just downloaded the trial today. 

One more thing before I go: I recently put together an advertisement for a friend's online magazine called Beautiful Monstrosity. It's for the comic's site, and the subscription/mailing list is wide open now that I fixed it (durrhurr me.) If you're interested at all in being told when the site itself is completely live, skip on over here and fill it out. Leave a post on my FB page if something's messed up.

That's all I got time for. Til next time~

Diving into things headfirst.

I am this close to putting reminders into my phone about regular post updates. (You can't see my fingers, but they're a few inches apart. Okay, well, about a foot apart. I'm still kind of lazy.) While I can just as easily throw a bunch of art tutorials and whatnot on my setting on tumblr, it takes more time and dedication to put together coherent writing on this blog. And I'm not entirely 100% sure on that coherent part.

Anyway. hn. Unless you've been blatantly ignoring my posts for the last couple of months I'm working on launching my own webcomic. You never realize how much plotting, planning and prep goes into the general amount of work to get one of these things off the ground. And, unlike "normal" comics (by "normal" I mean what most people think of when they hear the word comic: Marvel, DC, Image) doing it as a solo project can be daunting. You're doing the writing, the thumbnail sketches, the pencils the lettering, and the coloring. Not to mention setting up the website itself. I've got a personal goal of completing a certain amount of pages before the site launches, with a deadline of December 31rst. If I get ahead of myself, I'll launch sooner. You'll be first to know!

Speaking of launching, I'm incredibly close to launching my personal site fully, Caffeinated-Zombie.com. I know I've mentioned before that I'm working on the site, but earlier this week I managed to wrap everything up. The only thing I'm missing at this point is a photo for my about page and I'll be launching the site itself tomorrow. There might be some slight updates to the layout/color scheme of the blog to match, but it won't be too much of a deal. 

That's about all I've been up to this week. Hope to see you around.