Ch4 – Cover
Is it January 1st already?! Wow, time flies, but it’s good to be back! I had a nice time off, though I did feel bad for taking the hiatus. What did I do? I played a lot of Guild Wars 2. Then I had to re-break that addiction as I started back to work on the comic. Those who’ve known me for a while, know that I was a huge fan of Guild Wars 1. I could easily play 24 hours straight. Played it for years! But as I started to work on “Monster Soup,” I knew I had to give it up. Even if I play for an hour, that can quickly turn into 5 hours. Precious comic making time down the drain. So my hiatus allowed me to get GW2 out of my system, as well as spend time with my family visiting from out of state. Now I’m back to what makes me truly happy; my comic! And looking back, I doubt I’ll ever take another hiatus again. Updating my comic has become my new addiction.
Now for some comic news. My trusty, old Intuos2 has been replaced with a Bamboo Connect. It’s not the Cintiq I’ve been dreaming of, but it’s holding its own. Why wish for a Cintiq (or a tablet monitor in general)? I have bad carpal tunnel and I can only work on a page for twenty minutes before I’m forced to take a break. I also heard that working on a Cintiq/tablet monitor can help ease carpal tunnel symptoms as well as increase productivity. Heck, I’m always on the lookout to streamline my workflow. I have been looking at the Yiynova MSP19U as a cheaper route than a Cintiq 22HD, but I’m still not sure. I also have a new regular monitor; an HP 23″ ISP LED. Oh, wow! Talk about a big difference a better monitor makes. Looking back at the previous chapters, the colors look… blah. Not exactly how I intended them to look. So expect some small color(ing) changes in the future. (I try to preview the pages on various screens, including my smartphone.)
This chapter’s cover and upcoming pages were all created using SAI, Photoshop, (as usual) and my new Bamboo. Whenever Manga Studio 5 is released for digital download and purchase, I’m certain I’ll be making the switch. It will be nice to only need one program for my comic. I have messed with the demo version of Clip Studio Paint (Japanese version of MS5), and I love what I’ve seen. I can’t wait to start working with it. But I have to wait; perhaps mid to late January.
This chapter will be a long one. The previous chapters were actually two that I broke down into three. From here on out, my plan is to have the chapters set up like episodes, with each having a beginning, middle, and end. (Chapters 8 & 9 will be the exception.) As of now, this chapter will be around 60 pages. I’m also looking at ways to speed up my process. I would love to increase my updates to three times a week. There’s so much story I want to get to and more characters to introduce, and I feel impatient at times. Also, I want to apologize for the lack of a dropdown menu. I lost that feature when I switched from Comic Press to Comic Easel. And I still haven’t found a plugin that works the way I want it. Again, I apologize. I find myself missing this feature, as well, especially when I want to jump to a certain page without having to dig through the archive.
If you’ve made it this far in my rambling, you get one of Noni’s special cookies. They allow you to taste colors.
I hope you enjoy all the nakedness craziness this chapter has to offer!
(See the progression of the cover here, and the illustration without text here.)