Comments For Page 323

Sorry, I'm really late getting this page up. I really should have had it up earlier but I've been really tied lately and it's been hard to concentrate. I kind of skimped on the details here and there, especially in the middle panel with the running Pigvoxs.

I'm going out Thursday night, so there is a good chance Friday's page may be late as well. I have a meeting Friday morning, so the page will likely not appear until late afternoon. I'll try my best to get it up sooner, but considering how late this page is going up, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I'll see you Friday.

Comments For Page 322

Well, it's been over a week but I've finally put up a new page for my comic. Sorry for the delay but I had a lot of work to do and I just couldn't focus on the comic at the time. Hopefully this won't happen again but until I can make my comic profitable, I'm going to have to keep accepting freelance jobs to keep food on the table.

As I've said before, I'm going to have to push myself to add new content to my website so that I can convince you to support me both through giving me money and by pushing my comic up the two lists I'm on so that new people will visit my page.

I've heard several people have gained popularity by saying something controversial (like Sony sucks and Nintendo Wii is the greatest system ever) but I'm not the kind of person to stoop to such tactics. I'd rather offer incentives that people would be willing to pay for like a five update week for every 100 dollars donated or a free high quality wallpaper for every vote. I'm not sure people understand the vote process, so I might need to explain that as well so people don't feel intimidated. I need your support to keep this comic going or there will be many more delays like last week.

I'll post again Monday. See you then.

Graduation

Sorry, no comic or filler today. I really wanted to get something done, but the project I was working on (see below) really burnt me out. I was up late last night putting on the finishing touches of the last painting and there was no time to do anything else.

Yes, I know I said I needed to have it done Wednesday, but the client wasn't in a big hurry to get the images so I had an extra day to get them done. If I had more energy I could have gotten them done on time but it was really draining to paint so many pictures in so short a time.

I'm leaving for my graduation banquet in Truro soon, so I don't have time to do anything now. I won't be back until Saturday night, so my next update won't be until late Sunday or early Monday. I'm still actively seeking work, but I don't have any major projects on the go right now, so the next few comics will be on time.

Sorry for all the delays in updating. I'll try to schedule my time better in the future.

Comments For Filler 06-13-2007

This is getting pathetic. I was planing to have all these paintings done by today and instead I still have two more to do. It's been really hard to stay focused and get these done. I'm going to be burned out by the time I get the last two finished, but I will get a comic page up on Friday before noon, no matter what it takes.

These are images for a picture book about a minibus taking a tour of Hong Kong. Do a web search of Hong Kong and you should be able to find most of these locations.

My graduation is this Saturday, so I'll soon officially be a Digital Animator. I seem to be doing more drawing and painting then animating, but I hope that will change soon.

Well, I better get back to work. These paintings are not going to finish themselves. I'll see you Friday.

Comments For Filler 06-11-2007

Sorry for giving you another filler. I'm very busy trying to finish up this work project. It's good to have work, but deadlines kind of suck. This is my first official freelance job and I want to get a good recommendation so that I can get more work. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to schedule my time better so that I can work on the comic and any side work I have to do at the same time.

The four drawings are some of the last drawings I did in life drawing class of our model, Janet. She was a great model and I enjoyed working with her. It's hard to believe that I've been drawing her (along with several other models) for two years and I'll probably never see her again.

My drawings have vastly improved over the last two years (as anyone reading my archive can plainly see). These drawings were all done in about five minutes each (the top left one was closer to ten). When I first started life drawing, I'd be lucky to have a drawing that looked human in that amount of time.

Everyone in an art field (be it illustration, painting, classical animation, or 3D computer models) should take life drawing classes. If you can't afford them or there aren't any in your area, then set up your own sessions. You don't need a nude model (though the fewer clothes the better) or even a human model (animals and still life drawings are also options), but the important this is to draw from real life. Too many people draw off of other's pictures or from photographs. While there is nothing wrong with doing that in general, you can pick up a lot of bad habits if that's the only drawing you do. You need to learn how real things are put together before you attempt to develop a style. Draw every day, even if it's just a quick sketch of a pencil. The more you draw, the better you'll get. Then you can start experimenting with styles.

I've got to go back to work. My project is due Wednesday, so I should have an actual comic page up then, although it will likely be up late. See you Wednesday.

Comments For Filler 06-08-2007

This comic is from a weird dream I had. It's not something I could work into a regular comic page so I put it in as a filler.

I still very busy with my freelance job so I wanted to do something quick. It still took me over two hours to do. Darn my need to clean up my art.

I really should get back to work. At the rate I'm going, Monday might be a filler as well. At the very least, it will likely be up late, so don't bother looking for it until Monday night.

Comments For Page 321

Looks like the group has a long climb ahead.

Sorry for the photograph of the mountains and clouds. I wanted the mountain to look right even if the colors are a little off. Manga Studio has a wide collection of backgrounds to use in cases like this, so I should start using them.

I have some freelance work to do, so I can't spend a lot of time working on the comic right now. I'm trying to make some money here and there so I won't have to take a real job and have to stop my comic altogether like so many other comic artists. I hope you'll forgive me if the next few pages are done quickly so I can get back to work.

I'll see you Friday.

Comments For Page 320

My brother left early and I had time to finish the page. I tried to keep things simple, but the first panel still took a while to do.

You'll notice I'm still playing with the look of the characters. The characters have thin waists and broad chests now. Switching to jeans kind of help give the characters the new look. I tried to keep Racheal's facial features the same this time as well.

I like the mirror, although I wonder if the reflection should be more brown then blue? A brown reflexion would kind of get lost in the wall. Maybe we can pretend there is a window opposite the mirror and it's reflecting the sky outside.

Nothing new to report. I'm just plugging along, trying to learn as much as I can about art and animation. I'd learn better by doing then reading, but I still can't get my act together. Oh well, I still have two weeks until graduation. After that, I'll have no choice but to find a way to make some money. A wonder if I can my sell art online? I've got to do something.

Comments For Page 319

Because this is the last time we'll see Angel, Bunny, Ann, Terra and Obitckert for a while, I decided to do up a nice picture of them in panel one. I forgot to draw Balap (the elf boy). He should be standing in the space between Obitckert and the satchel.

I started drawing construction lines again in order to try to get the posing right. I wanted to line up all the characters in panel one so they could all be seen. I needed to know there Toi's arms were in panel 3 and Racheal's legs in panel 5.

Racheal's face changes in panel 2 and 5. You'd think after drawing her hundreds of times, I could keep her face consistent.

If you're wondering why Racheal doesn't want to wear pants, take a look at page 316 again. Notice something sticking out? Racheal has always been embarrassed about having a tail and a long skirt or dress is a great way to hide it. Racheal did were shorts for a short time on page 284, but she was trying to make a point at the time. She likely had her tail between her legs which would be pretty uncomfortable.

My brother is coming to visit this weekend, so Monday's page may be a little late. It's a new month and I still don't have any incentives done. If I don't soon get myself in gear, I'm going to find myself living in the streets and this comic will just disappear. Please don't let that happen.

Comments For Page 318

From this point on the party will be split up. Most of the characters are leaving with Horese and Obickert; while, Racheal, Slara and Toi will be heading to the mountains. The mountain adventure should only take a few weeks and then Racheal's group will try try to reunite with the rest of the gang.

Where is Horese taking the other group members and what will happen there? You'll have to wait a few weeks and see what happens.

Sorry for the lateness of this post. I've been distracted lately. Losing the weekend didn't help, but I should have been able to get this page done earlier and with better backgrounds. I guess the important thing is to move the story along. I'll try to do better on Friday. See you then.

Comments For Page 317 + Animediafest

What could Toi want that embarrasses Slara so? You won't get to know that until Toi actually earns her reward. Some observant people might realize what sort of person Toi is and guess what it is she wants, but I'll leave that to your imaginations for now.

Feel free to e-mail me at dungeonwarden(at)msn.com (replace (at) with @) if you want to know if your guess is correct or if there is anything else you want to talk to me privately about.

I had an interesting weekend. Friday was better then Saturday, since many people left early and some events had to be canceled. The Festival wasn't as big this year due to funding cuts and other organizational problems but Friday's events made it worth going.

The day started with a panel discussion about the current animation industry. Like many other art forms (music and movies in particular), the animation industry is run by people who don't know anything about the industry. The people with money fund the latest thing without regard for why it's popular in the first place. Many producers think the only people who watch cartoons are young children and adults with the minds of children. It is really hard to put any intellectual content in animated shows and the few good shows that do get put on air don't last long because there aren't funny enough. It's hard to get that mix of smart humor that plays to adults and children, and it doesn't help that most writers know nothing about the animation field. The most successful ones are comedians since they can at least tell a joke even though they don't seem to understand the animation is a visual medium. Many writers write things that are very hard to animate without any though to how to portray it visually. Some things are not explained in visual terms at all, leaving animators scratching their hears and wondering what the writer was thinking.

The animation industry is now in a boom period which is great if you're new to the industry. Money comes and goes quickly so you need to make money while you can. You never know when the bottom will fall out again.

In the afternoon session, three industry heads (two from Collideascope and one from Fat Kat) showed us some tricks of the trade. This included how to do good puppet style animation, how to do classical animation with Flash 8 (or as I like to call it Flassical), and how to properly design sets and props for your animation. I like the idea of really thinking about what you're drawing. Don't just draw a tree. Think about that the tree looks like, how the bark feels, how the branches grow and twist, how the leaves form clusters and shapes. A good artist can draw a tree with a few quick shapes that looks better then what a bad artist can draw after hours of careful reproduction. It's not about making the tree look real, it's about making the tree feel real. I was very impressed by the skill of the Collideascope artist. His quick examples were very well designed. He has a very good eye for detail, although he admitted he is too detail orientated. The head animators are allowed to remove 10% of the detail from any of his designs without needing any permission.

In the evening, we had a stop-motion expert show us some of his techniques. He even had a few puppets on display we could play with. It was very interesting to see the history of the industry and some of the shows he had personally worked on. Some of the tricks to make objects seem to float in the air was well worth the presentation on it's own.

On Saturday we looked at the Unreal engine for computer gaming and talked a little about the game industry. Animation is a big part of gaming and is also a bigger industry that TV or Movie animation. There is money to be made for those willing to look for it.

We had a pizza lunch and watched some student animation. You can see some of the animation at the Applied Arts Student demo showcase. There is some well made and funny animation here. Also check out Knights Out, the animated short that I helped create along with several of my class mates.

Comments For Page 316

I finished up the picture in school because I didn't get it done before hand as I planned. I had to use Photoshop and so the picture is a little rough. I'll try to fix it later. It doesn't look to bad as long as you don't look closely at the details.

I have about 15 minutes until the first workshop starts here at Animediafest. I wasn't sure I'd get this done in time but it looks like I'll actually have a few extra minutes.

I might post later today or tomorrow to let you know how things are going. Otherwise I'll summarize the event on Monday. See you then.

Comments For Page 315

Looks like Toi is the only one without an excuse to leave. Will she go anyway or will she stick around with Racheal and Slara? You can find out Friday when I put up the cover page for the next chapter.

The next chapter will be dealing with Racheal and Slara's trip into the mountains to find the rare herb needed to cure Slara's Father. What trials and disasters await those who dare climb Mount Vormump? Keep reading and find out.

Sorry I went back to my old style. I got Super Paper Mario and it's eating up a lot of my time. That game can be so challenging and fun at the same time. I've already got five of the eight hearts and I only got the game Saturday.

My next post will be from Animediafest, assuming I can log onto a computer. I'm hoping my account is still active. Technically I'm not done school until June 15, even though there are no more classes. I'm sure someone will let me use their account. If not, there is always the library CAP (Computer Access Program) site.

Comments For Page 314

So what do you think of the new style change? I think the third panel with the flower looks the best since there isn't such a flat background. I guess this style needs a lot of highlights and shadows to really work. It's interesting how black outlines can really frame an image. I'll play with this style a little more and see if I can't remove the flatness. I do like the way it looks otherwise.

Slara is referring to Racheal in the last panel in case you're wondering. Looks like Slara and Racheal will be going mountain climbing in the near future.

On Wednesday, it will be decided who will go to save Gene and who will go with Slara and Racheal. On Friday (or possibly Thursday) I'll do a cover page for the new story line. I'm going away this weekend to an animation festival, so I'll have to do the Friday page early and a cover page is the best way to do that.

Comments For Page 313

What has Racheal gotten herself into now? It looks like the group will have to split up for a while. Slara will be staying in town with her father while Horese, Terra and Ann go to fine Gena. Toi, Bunny, and Angel will have to decide where they want to go. Balap will go where ever Bunny does and Obitckerk will probably transport people to Gena's location.

I'm going to try a different art style on Monday and see if it makes my comic look better. It will be a bit more work (which I don't really want to do), but it will hopefully improve the quality of my art. I wish people would let me know what they think but I know no one will. Why am I even doing this?

Keep watching this blog for updates. I need to really get the word out if I have any hope of surviving this industry.

Comments For Page 312

Ah, so Toi has fine mess armor. Strong enough to stop a blade from cutting her, and light weight too. Too bad Horese stopped the fight, it was just getting started.

I wonder what news Horese has brought back with her? Something that will send the girls on another wild adventure, I'm sure. It's time to shake the story up again. Who knows what weirdness will happen next.

I haven't gotten any response to my last post. Does this mean you're all fine with the comic the way it is or that you don't really care one way or the other. After getting one strong reaction to my comic, I would think I would get some reaction from the rest of my readers.

Hello, is there anyone out there?

Comments For Page 311

Toi finally reveals what's under her dress. Quite the skimpy outfit, I'd say. I wonder how she can avoid injury while wearing so little? Does she have a force field like racheal had or something even weirder. Find out on Wednesday.

I find it easier to draw these simple poses then trying to draw characters interacting with one another. I guess everyone has trouble with fight scenes, but I need to push myself to get better.

If I though I could actually make money doing this, I would spend more time perfecting my drawings. I feel like I'm spending a lot of time on this comic and not getting anything else done. It's kind of a catch 22, in that I need to do more work to get people's attention so that the comic will be a success but I don't want to waste my time if no one is interested.

Which brings me to this series of posts. I assume these were all written by the same person, even though the "name" is different in the first post. Notice that they were all posted at the same time.

Yes, I am over 35, although I don't know what that has to do with my weirdness. I was actually thinking that my comic wasn't weird enough, but a strong reaction like this suggests that people (well, at least one person) find it very weird. That's good. I was going for a very weird story design and it's nice to see at least one person understands that.

It's nice to get some comments from some one, even if they are extreme like this one. It lets me know that my comic is having some effect on people. The reason I allow anonymous comments is because I want people to be free to criticize me without fear of reprisal. I also wanted to make this post to let people know that I don't mind negative criticism. Please let me know what you don't like or what's not working for you. Do you think the comic is too weird or not weird enough? Should I add some muscular men to counter-balance the beautiful women? What are your feelings about where the story is going. Please let me know what you think. I only ask that you explain what you have a problem with and why. The above poster says I'm weird but doesn't say what they found weird. Page 309 (which would have been on the main page when this post was made) just shows Toi and Terra arguing. Is there anything weird about that? I didn't think so when I created it.

Please post your comments in this post or in the shout box at the bottom of the main page. I'd like to know what people think.

Comments For Page 310

The battle between Slara and Racheal is finally over and Slare won, with a little motivation from her mother. I think Slara was really hoping to drag the fight out but the message from her father forced her to speed things up. Racheal doesn't really have much combat experience, so the fight was really in Slara's control all along.

Monday will start the fight between Terra and Toi, and we'll finally get to see Toi in full battle garb including whip in hand. These two are both experienced warriors and neither of them has any reason to hold back, so expect to see an all-out brutal battle starting next week.

Nothing to report. I'm still not getting much work done outside the regular pages. Please show some support so I can get motivated to do something special for you.

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Meta: It's Time To Support The Archive

I've been going to the ASIFA website for over a year now and continue to go there every day. Why? Because it's one of the best places to see art work and animation that hasn't been seen in decades. There is some great stuff here that you can't get anywhere else. By that I don't mean it's difficult to find anywhere else, I mean a lot of this stuff comes from private collections, so unless you know the collectors personally, you are not going to see many of the images or animations anywhere else.

Some of the best stuff requires you to actually go to Hollywood and visit the Archive in person, but several times a week you can find a post with some real gems in it.

Just recently the Archive posted several episodes from an early Hanna Barbara cartoon called "Ruff and Reddy." The catch was that you needed to visit the Blog every day to see each episode. You can still see the post, but the links to the videos are gone. I'm not sure time limited content is necessarily a good think, but it certainly encourages you to check the site every day in case a new gem makes a time limited appearance on the site.

I encourage everyone to check this blog out. You won't be disappointed. Note that the link above leads to a post that explains more about what the archive has to offer.

Comments For Page 309

Looks like Toi and Terra are at it again. I suppose Toi is still upset that she's only about half her size after Terra "fixed" her.

Did you know Toi has a whip? I've been meaning to reveal this fact for a while now, but the story just got ahead of me and the opportunity just never came up. It's hidden under her dress along with her new battle outfit. Both will be revealed soon.

Still haven't put up a counter. No one has given me any money anyway. Of course, I haven't given anyone a reason to. I really must do something about that soon.

Comments for Page 308

Oh that Rachael. Bringing a force field to a sword fight. Of course, she looks a lot sexier in the glowing armor then in the samurai armor but she needs to fight fair.

I got the glow effect by layering several colors at different transparencies. First a solid color (Rachael's skin color), then a blurred color (light yellow) and finally a gradient from yellow to clear to give the glow. You can always add more layers of different sizes and transparencies to really bring out the glow.

Sorry, I didn't get much accomplished again this weekend. I'm really going to have to crack the whip if I want to survive. At least I got this page up early, so I have some time to work on things today. I'll let you know how that goes on Wednesday.

Comments For Page 307

Rachael's looking sexier all the time, but can she really fight in that outfit? Find out next time as the battle continues.

I got the page done by lunch time, so I'll be able to work on some of the projects I need to get done. First up is a Donation Meter and some incentives. You may notice I added some Google ads to the site to try to make some money as well.

I'll let you know Monday how things are going. Hopefully, there will actual be some incentives up and people will actually donate a few dollars. I can only hope.

Comments For Page 306

Oh, that Racheal. More worried about her coat then her life. As anyone following the story so far should realize, it's not that easy to kill a Token girl. In fact, they get stronger the more they get hurt. Slara better be careful since she doesn't have the same invulnerability. Then again, Slara has been fighting along side Angel for a long time and may know a thing or two about her weaknesses.

Of course, the two girls aren't actually trying to kill each other. Slara's just letting off a little steam and Racheal is just playing along until she can figure out that's going on. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

A friend of mine has been moving this past week and I've been helping. I really should be trying to get some work done. I'm falling way behind what I wanted to have accomplished by the first of May. Sorry if anyone has been expecting those big announcements I planned. Hopefully, I can get some work done in the next few days and have an announcement by Monday. Sorry I haven't gotten anything done sooner but it's been one distraction after another around here and I really need to get my priorities straight if I want to survive in this business.

Comments For Page 305

Sorry for the delay. I did get the page drawn on time, but I slept in (first time I've done that in a long time) and had to go out for lunch.

Looks like Racheal lost her ring. What will she do with her weapon now? I guess she's have to lug it around like she used to.

Slara's armor is based on actual Samurai armor worn by female warriors during the Kamakura period. You can see the image I used below. The Naginata (a long pole with a sword blade on the end) is the weapon of choice for women. They usually carry a wakisahi (short sword) as a backup weapon.

This image also shows the woman carrying a bunch of bamboo javelins or arrows on her back.

3D Racheal

Here is another random post. yeah for time to actually explore the internet. Photobucket.com (where I store my Avatar and other random pictures) has combined with Meez.com and offered me the chance to check it out. Using what options they had (there are quite a few), I made as close an image of Racheal as I could. The only weapon was a sword, but it looks good on her. You can't change the hair color, so I went with a style that was close. There were no cat ear accessories, which was dissapointing. If there were any they probably wouldn't have looked right anyway. Racheal's ears are special.

Someday soon, I'll have to install 3D studio Max (I won the program in a 3D animation skills compatition) and build my own 3D model of Racheal. Until then, enjoy this image.

Titian style "oil" painting

Shepherd and Maiden

I don't normally post on the weekend, but I put this painting up on DeviantART and I thought you might like to see it. As usual, click on the image to see the full size version.

This painting was done in the style of Titian, a sixteenth centure Italian painter. I used several backgrounds from his paintings and added the girl and boy, who are wearing clothing from Titian's paintings as well.

The painting was done using ArtRage2, an art program that mimics really painting. There are no fills or gradents used. Just brushes and a paint scraper to mix the colors. The ability to zoom in as far as you want really helped in getting all the details right.

Comments For Page 304

Look at the panel in the bottom left corner. It's been a while since I drew Racheal in her full armor. She got rid of the armor because it was heavy and out of place in the arena where everyone else was wearing beach wear.

When I went over the old images of Racheal, I noticed that her ears were a lot smaller in the beginning. I think she is becoming more cat like as time progresses. Of course, when she learns to transform she'll be much more cat like, but that won't be for a while yet.

Not much to report here. All is quiet as I head into the weekend. You'll get to see Slara in full armor on Monday, and I hope to have some other changes in place as well. Stay tooned.

Comments For Page 302 and 303

Sorry for not posting. As usual, coming home has messed up my schedule and it's taking me a while to get organized again. Hopefully, I'll be back on track from now on.

Page 302 has Slara confronting Racheal about her fight with Slara's brother. At the end it seems that Slara is going to fight Racheal herself.



Page 303 shows that not only is Slara going to fight Racheal, she is going to do it in full armor.

Racheal isn't too concerned since she has her own weapon. Long time readers will recognice the battle axe she carries although it hasn't yet been explained where she got that ring. That will finially be reveiled in Friday's page, as the judge is going to want to know that as well.

As I said, I'm home now. I'll be looking for ways to support myself in the coming months, so I plan to spend the weekend overhalling the site and putting in an animated counter to keep track of any money that comes my way. I'll be putting incentives in place to encourage support and I'll be posting on other websites in order to gain support. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I really want to make a go of this.

Sorry for the delay

Hello everyone, sorry for not posting the last few days. Things have been crazy with getting all my work done and doing our make-up presentation at the last minute; then packing and the long trip home. I'm going to spend the weekend recovering and start fresh Monday. Wheither Monday's page is delayed or not will depend on how much I've recovered by Sunday evening. There will definately be a new page by the end of the day Monday, as I will be working full time on the webpage from now on. I'm doing some freelance work to help make ends meet, but I shouldn't have any more problems posting the page regularly. That is, assuming I don't have any more account problems or computer failures like I've had in the past.

Just so it's not a complete loss, here is the final animation project me and six other students worked on. I still laugh at it and I must have watched it at least a hundred times. You're luckly you get to watch the finished version with fresh eyes. I envy you.

Comments For Page 300 and Page 301

I must be tired. I completely forgot to put page 300 up on the blog. I had the page on my website early, but had so much work to do, I forgot all about puting it on the blog as well. Hopefully most people check the main website (Dungeonwarden.com) over this one. This site is more stable, so if my main site comes down, here's where you can come to find out why.

I made a nice big image for page 300, but no more content. When I have more time (hopefully starting next week), I'll put more effort into making each page look good and have lots of content. I need to practice drawing lots of different things.

Page 301 comtinues the story a bit more. Looks like Slara isn't too happy about the fight. It is an official battle, so there's not much she can do about it, or is there? Come back Friday and see what Slara does next.

Comments For Page 299

A little late, but still got it done on time. I like the colors on that painting in panel 1, it really lightens up the room. The sunlight through the window is a nice touch as well.

Monday is the big number 300. Expect an extra large picture like page 200 was. I have a lot of work to do before the end of term, but I hope to be able to get it much of it done this weekend. Knowing me, I supect that won't happen. Page 300 might be late if that's the case, but it will be up on Monday sometime.

Comments For April 11, 2007

Here is a nice picture I did in Life Drawing class to use as a filler since I'm way to busy getting projects done to even think of working on my web comic. The rider is a model wearing home-made armor (it is made with iron chainmail and inpact plastic plates). The horse is my own design. The model was actually sitting on wooden boxes.

The good news is that starting next week, I should be working on my comic full time. That means better art work and more of it. I may even start animating some of my stories. I also plan to redo the begining of the story and print it so you can buy a hard-copy version with a new full-color glossy cover. I have other plans in the work as well, so stay tooned.

Of course, working on the comic full-time means I need to find a way to make money. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. I've be checking other web comics to see how they make money and I will likely use some of their ideas here as well. Starting May first, I'll show a monthly total of how much money I've made along with an animation of one or more of the characters.

Comments For Page 298

Racheal's impusiveness has gotten her in trouble again. She really should have waited to see how everyone else responded before accepting a challenge like that. Oh well, maybe she'll know better next time - but don't bet on it.

I wanted to get a lot of work done this weekend, but I didn't get much done at all. Hopefully, I'll do better tomorrow. It doesn't look good for getting a new page up Wednesday, so expect a filler. I should have a new page on Friday, though it might be late.

One more stressful week and then I can take a break. Soon I'll have to make some money if I want to survive. You'll help me out right?

Comments For Page 297

Today's page has a touch of traditional Japanese garb mixed into the fantasy elements. I'm actually guite amazed that it actually works. I hope you like the style.

The Fox girl (Kitsune) referee looks pretty good considering I only spend an hour or so working the image. I some times am amazed at my own art work. Of course, there are things I don't like, but I really can't spend a lot of time worrying about small details. The overall look is nice and that's all that matters.

Expect a little craziness for a while has Racheal gets mixed up with a culture she doesn't understand. It will all lead up to the spectactual 300th page, which I'll do after the school term ends.

Keep on reading.

Bardsworth's fan art

Here is the fan art I did for the Bardsworth web comic. The characters are (from left to right): Keira, Mike, Fawn, and Francis.

In case it's not clear, Keira was about to give Mike one of her famous iron-grip hugs when Francis came in with a plate of cookies. Mike (who was siting on his knees) leap forward to get the cookies and thus avoided the hug. Fawn, who is the jealous type, is both happy Keira missed and amused at Mike's obvious cookie obsession. Francis is just happy to be of service and doesn't really understand what's going on (or at least doesn't act like he does).

I planned to do a filler today and next Wednesday in order to make more time for school work. However, this picture took as long to create as a normal page of my comic does, so I didn't really save much time at all. Depending on what's going on next Wednesday, I might do a quick (non-color) filler or just do a regular page.

In the future (after I graduate), I want to do some more fan art for the many (check the links) web comics I read regularly.

Comments For Page 296

Here is a nice pastoral scene with the ARW woman. Too bad those hippomen had to come and spoil it.

Find out what happens Friday (hopefully I'll be able to post Friday even though it's a holiday). On Wednesday, I'll have a filler of Bardsworth (see last post). This will be full-color fan art so I think you'll enjoy it.

If anyone has any suggestions for other fillers I can do, let me know. I want to do another filler for next Wednesday as well.

I didn't get much done this weekend beyond this page so I'm going to have to work hard this week to keep up. Expect to see some good stuff soon.

Comments For Page 295

Sorry to be posting late again. Things just aren't going as planned. There isn't enough time in the day to get everything done and somethings got to give. Unfortunately that means I need to post poorer quality pages or put in a few fillers so I have more time for my school work. The term will be over in three weeks - not much time to do everything I need to get done.

In order to make the fillers meaningful, I'm thinking of doing a page of other people's characters and sending it to them. With luck they'll put the picture up on their site and people will come check me out. I really need to get more traffic on my site and this is one way that might work. At least it will give me practice drawing other people's characters, which is a great way to develop your own style.

If I don't do fillers, Page 300 will hit right when many of my projects are due. By doing a few fillers, I can push the page into the next week where I'll have more time to do a good job on it. It's a win-win for me that way. If anyone has a character they want me to draw, then I can give a few of my loyal readers a gift as well. Everyone wins!

The way it looks now, Monday will be a regular page. Wednesday will be a filler (It owe Bardsworth a picture for taking his mini-posting window idea and putting it on my own site). Friday is a holiday (Good Friday) So we'll see what happens there. Easter Monday should be a regular page. The following Wednesday will be a filler and that Friday will probably be a filler as well. After that, I should be able to post regularly again.

Comments For Page 294

Yeah, another late entry. Wednesdays are just not good days to get anything done. I really should have started this sooner, but well, I do have school work that needs to get done as too.

How do you like the girl on girl action in the second panel? Okay, so maybe it's not really that erotic, it's still kind of neat to draw.

Note that Racheal's not in the pile because she knows better then to stand under the portal. Ann has wings. So that only leaves Toi. Were is Toi? You don't suppose she's under Bunny, do you? Find out on Friday.

I got my rough 3D animation done, so now I just need to put in a few walk cycles and some lip sync and it will be good to go. Well, there are some other movements that need to be smoothed out and the lighting fixed and, well you can mess with the animation for hours if you wanted to. There is only a few weeks left of classes so I really need to get moving on the project.

See you on Friday.

Comments For Page 293

I got both the new page and a new card up today. I'm doing pretty good so far. We'll see what happens Wednesday. I hope to keep ahead of my work so I can get stuff done, but who knows what will happen.

I seem to spend a lot of time drawing these nice looking static pictures. I really should spend more time animating. Being a good artist is a good thing, but animating drawings is a whole new ball game.

Give me a vote this week and get a nice Obitckert picture and some stats about him. Next week I'll do the elf. Lots of new information about him to find out.

Comments For Page 292

Here's page 292 - soon to be 291 since technically this page should come before the last one. I'll wait until I post on Monday to switch the pages so that everyone will get a change to view the current page before I switch them around.

Anyone following the story will recognise the scenes shown in panels 2 and three. I'd link to the pages, but I don't know if it's worth sending people to the old pages. If you're really interested, it happens pretty early in the archives, so take a look.

Aaaaaaaaagh! I hate my server

Recently my web server put in a new computer to take care of the heavy traffic load, which in itself is great. The problem is that the new computer locks out any ISP address the it doesn't like - and it only takes one little mistake for it to hate you. When I went home I couldn't get on the site at all because the computer hates my home address due due to the many problems trying to log in. Now I just messed up my school account and I can't post from school either. This is so frustrating. Who ever heard of a system totally locking out an entire ISP account because on ONE error. Three errors maybe, but one? I mean if it just closed you out for an hour or even a day, okay. But locking you out forever because of one little mistake? That's just insane.

I can contact them and get it fixed, but for some reason I can never log in from home now. The only reason I could post at all is that I can get in the back door by logging into the control panel. However, at school the control panel has always been locked out by the schools computers. I'm sure it's some firewall issue, since I can't use control panels from any other server either (I edit a site for someone else as well).

* update*

I got an email this afternoon stating that they have changed the FTP site it make it easier to log on, so hopefully this problem will not occur again. If it does, they say they will replace the firewall with one that is a little less temperamental. I can upload to my site now, so that problem was taken care of at least. I hope this won't occur again, but we'll see....

Comments for Page 290

Sorry for the delay putting this page up here. It's been on my main site since Sunday night but I forgot to post it here because of all the work I need to do to make up for the lack of production over the break.

I tried messing around with the design of the wall to make it stand out more without distracting from the main images. Slara looks ready for action in the last panel. That took a bit of work to do.

I'm not sure how long Slara's dress is supposed to be. It looks above the knee in panel 4, but below the knee in panel 5. I'll split the difference and make it knee length in the future. That's the problem with drawing without a reference, things can change sizes and lengths on you if you're not careful.



Comments For Page 291

I know I said that 292 would be the next cover page - and it would be if I followed the story, but I'm just so busy right now, I figured it would make more sense to do the cover now and post a full page in Friday when I'd have more time to work on it.

I'm working on a Renaissance-like painting for life drawing class and used some of the elements from the design work here. This picture actually didn't take that long to put together despite the detail. I like the way the shadows turned out.

Comments For Page 289

Now why is Slara so uptight, I wonder. Find out on Monday when it's finally revealed why the group is in such a hurry to get to Slara's home.

Like the subway train in panel one? See I can do nice backgrounds if I put my mind to it. I suppose I could have reused the train in the other panels instead of leaving them blank, but most of the panels are pretty full as it is and I think it would have been distracting.

Since I'm headed back to school Monday, I'm going to have to find a way to speed up the process of making each page which means I won't be doing too many more backgrounds for a while. Either that, or the whole page will be a background with a few characters and nothing else (similar to what I did on Page 278 - Mega Mall (this is basically the cover for the chapter about the mall, which is just finishing up). Page 292 on Friday will likely be a full page cover showing Slara's homeworld. I need to plan for page 300 to be something special as well. Maybe I'll do a double-page spread like page 200. It will likely depend on how busy I am at the time.

I'll be done school at the end of next month, so if I don't have a job by then you can expect to see a lot more effort put into these pages. Keep reading and I'll keep posting.

Comments For Page 288

Here is the newest page. Racheal is one sly woman, or maybe she's just a little crazy. Either way she had Suzy confused long enough for Ann to come to the rescue.

These high quality comic pages are really taking a lot of my valuable time. Once I get the new outfits drawn a few times, I should be faster at this, but it's really taking a long time to get the look just right. I suppose that's why a lot of artists never change they characters look. Although, I heard that the real reason is that most artists only have one male face and one female face, so the only way to tell characters apart is with their clothes and hair styles.

I suppose it's true that I don't have a set face for each girl, but they are so different in other ways, you can still tell then apart. Ann's one eye is bigger then anyone else's as well, so she'd look different even without the horns. Horese, Bunny, Toi, and Racheal all have noses that reflex what animal they are. The only two that look similar are Angel and Terra, since they both have human features. Terra does look younger then Angel, so I try to keep that in mind when drawing the two of them. Terra is however much older then Angel (older then all the characters except Horese) and has some control of her appearance as well.

I'm really going to try to get some voting incentives done up this week, so I can start putting them up next week. This is your last chance to get the current incentive, though I'm sure anyone who cares has it already. Keep those votes coming.

Comments For Page 287

Look! A new bigger thumbnail image. Now you can see more detail without having to open the web page with the full size image on it.

I was really late putting the page up today. I could blame my service provider for putting new security on their servers so that I need to register any ISP's I use. Since I'm home for March Break, I need to set up my home computer. When I get a job and move somewhere else, I'll have to register that ISP as well. It is a bit annoying.

However, the truth is I was taking it easy this weekend and didn't even look at my webcomic until Sunday night. It took most of the evening just to set Manga Studio up in the new format, so I really didn't start drawing the comic until today. It was just my luck that it would take most of the day to draw and color everything while making adjustments as I went, so it was after supper before the page was finished.

Wednesday's page will be on time, since I'm going to start it early tomorrow. Hopefully, I've gotten most of the bugs out and I won't have any problems getting the page done. I have other work that I need to do and I can't spend all day working on my web comic.

Comments For Page 286

Sorry for the delay. Hopefully it will be the last one for a while. I'm off on March Break now, so hopefully I can get my act together and do some of the things I promised. You'll know by Monday one way of the other.

Not much else to say, except to remind you that Monday will see the girls in their final outfits (Actually I may save some for Wednesday since the page will be pretty crowded with everyone on it. I'll see what happens when the time comes, but expect some final outfits to appear on Monday.

Comments For Page 285

Sorry I'm late posting again. With everything going on, it's hard for me to find the time to get my comic done.

I hope you like the fur coat. I'm not really getting politically correct or anything. It's just the idea of someone who is all ready half animal wearing another animal's skin is a little weird to think about. She does look cute in that coat, though.

Friday is the last day for outfit changes. On Monday, I'll have Manga Studio back into operation which will lead to a new look for the page and a new story for the gang. You'll also see their final outfits as they will be forced to make a decision pretty quickly (Find out why on Monday).

I also plan to start putting some new voting incentives up on TWC and Buzz Comics. There is only a little over a month until School ends for me and I'm going to need to either get a job or start finding ways to entice my readers to support me. That means offering my services as an artist and animator to whomever needs them. I have a new idea for a company to make money on the side, which I'll talk more about as I finalize it and I hope to start offering animated shorts of my web comic to people willing to pay extra for them. I have lots of ideas, I just need to focus my time on getting them done. Voting incentives will be first. After that we'll see what happens.

Comments For Page 284

Sorry for the poor text and other changes to the page. I know I promised some changes, but this isn't what I meant. The problem is that my portable hard drive - the one I keep all my ARW stuff on - crashed and I lost everything I've done in the last three months. That's not too much of a problem since the more important stuff is already up on the website. The real problem is that my copy of Manga Studio was on that hard Drive as well along with all my format settings.

I suppose it won't be too hard to redo all the changes I've done to the settings. I was planing on making a few more anyway. The problem is that my backup copy is at home - 150 miles from here. Fortunately March break is next weekend, which means I can get my backups and have time to work on the formating as well. The problem is what to do until then.

Well as you can see, I decided to keep making my comic without Manga Studio and am using Photoshop instead. Now I'm sure a lot of you use Photoshop and it is great for altering excisting images, but I'm not used to how it works. I spent much of the weekend figuring out how to get the look I wanted and you can see the result isn't pretty. I'll try to do better for Wednesday.

My hard drive was a least kind enough to crash on Friday so that I had time to work on an alternative. Otherwise, you would be looking at a filler comic now of me ranting about my broken hard drive. Did I mention my broken hard drive? my hard drive? hard drive? hard drive? (check out "Stuck in the Drive Through" by Wierd Al if you don't get the reference).

Comments For Page 283

I've really got to start work on these pages earier. I've got a lot of school work to do. Business plans to write, 3D models to build, paintings to design, and web comics to redesign.

That's right, I plan to re-design the webcomic page. I've been meaning to do this for a while, and I want to get it done now before everything gets too crazy. I've been playing around with what the program can do and there are several features that I really should use. If all goes well, there should be a new look to the page come Monday.

Bunny seems to have the right idea about what people should wear on a long hike, but really, would you want the girls wearing flanel shirts and jeans? Well, would you? Because you do get to vote on what the final designs look like. Expect more designs next week and the final designs the week after. Once the designs are done, the girls can begin their greatest adventure so far - the hunt for the twelve! Don't miss it.