Month: August 2023

Phew, what a week; it’s almost over, but if anything I’ll probably be even busier for the next few…

The Home Alone saga is coming to an end; I’ll be happy to have my fiance home to help wrangle the cats and just be a general presence in the home again. Whatever benefits I might glean from being by myself are outweighed by the disadvantages; my existence is overall better for being around people, even if it’s just one person in particular and not too many others at once. This will mean I won’t be able to keep watching Young Justice as part of my morning routine, but I’ve only got like 10 episodes left, so if I binge a few more tonight, that won’t be an issue anyway.

As far as being productive goes, my strategy for doing batches of inking on my comic pages has not worked out the way I planned. I fully intended to ink three pages at a time and then colour them as needed, but as I finish inking a page, I immediately want to colour it. I’m still keeping ahead of schedule, but if I want to finish the current Showcase story before we go up for ComicCon Africa, I should probably strive to be even more efficient. I am really enjoying the work so far; I’ve missed writing/drawing Kinetica, and I’m taking advantage of her powerset and inner monologue to experiment with more ambitious visuals and situations, at least compared to what I’ve done before. At the same time, I don’t want to overdo anything and end up burning out before I get the story done; it’s a balancing act for how far I want to push the visuals, while also keeping them simple enough to get everything done. It’s all a matter of how much time I can spare to devote to the pages, and the day job still gets in the way of that.

That being said, there is something I have been able to fill time with, when I cannot work on comic pages. With the month rolling over tomorrow, it comes with the #Swordtember art challenge; 30 days, 30 prompts, all relating to bladed weaponry throughout the month of September. I attempted the challenge last year, but only got about halfway through before abandoning it. This year, the prompts are more character based, very much in my wheelhouse, and I have my larger graphics tablet to work with compared to last year; a recipe for productivity, methinks. I’ve already been getting a headstart on some of the prompts in order to have a buffer to upload during the week I’ll be away at ComicCon, and I’ve been using a lot of free photo references from the fine couple that run The Pose Archives on Twitter and Instagram. Suffice to say, I’m having a lot of fun with the challenge, and even if I still don’t finish the whole prompt list like last year, I’m proud of the stuff I’ve done so far. Doing the challenge is also a great way to have stuff to post on social media every day for a month, which I need to get into the habit of doing anyway.

So, long story short, I’m keeping busy, and as long as I’m busy with stuff that I consider engaging, it keeps me happy too. Though it’s punctuated by stressful projects at the day job, chasing down stubborn cats at sunset, and financial woes (which will hopefully be resolved at ComicCon; how many times can I mention ComicCon in one blog post?), it’s been a decent week. My “sketch, don’t snack” strategy has been very effective in keeping me focused on artwork, and my superhero cartoon binges have kept me in the mindset of the kind of stories I want to tell; a winning combo, I’d say.

Let’s hope I can keep it going, and maintain this productivity for as long as possible.

Ciao for now.

I’m feeling productive today; the day job hasn’t managed to quash that yet, but the day is only half done at the time of this posting…

I can attribute my good mood to the fact that I’ve finally gotten the latest Fifth Ace Showcase story done; the last page of Martial’s first solo tale will be uploaded tomorrow, but I got it done last night. I also have all the pages for the next story, the one that should have been August’s but is now September’s, all thumbnailed out and a basic script complete. I intend to start uploading that story next week, no break; I already took a break halfway through this past one, so I need to make up for lost time. Plus if I manage to keep to the proper schedule, I should have the whole story uploaded by the time ComicCon Africa starts; I’ll have to get some pages done well in advance, but I think I can manage. I’m dangerously close to having a buffer ready; though I will say this next story has some much more ambitious artwork plotted out than some of my previous ones. I’m going to be playing with perspective shots, crowds, backgrounds… It’s going to be quite the challenge.

I won’t say being home alone has improved my productivity; if anything, it’s just a different set of distractions when it comes to work. It hasn’t been easy on the cats; Silver doesn’t mind being inside so much, but she gets super irritated by Sparrow, who doesn’t handle the lack of space so well. Their time outside is very limited, and sometimes they don’t get it at all if it’s raining, and an under-stimulated ginger kitten can be extremely distracting when one is trying to get stuff done. I think he’s slowly adapting to the routine, but we’ll all be glad when Sparrow is able to spend the day out and about again; if it was summer, he wouldn’t have to come inside so early either.

Productivity aside, I don’t know how much of a break there will be between this next story and the start of Fifth Ace Showcase #5; I still need to pick out which stories I’ll be doing for that one, and there’s a lot of behind the scenes stuff that I want to get done too. I still want to do character profiles for my current cast, as well as the many other characters that will be turning up in future stories; my intent is to have a short time-lapse video of each character’s profile picture uploaded alongside the finished artwork, something I can have on video sites like TikTok and YouTube Shorts for better cross promotion. Unfortunately, this is something I can only do with Clip Studio Paint, which is exclusive to my laptop, which I cannot risk using at the day job without being disciplined; it’s Photoshop doodling or nothing during my spare moments. As such, the character profiles are something I can only do after hours, and that time is taken up by the comic work; I had intended to do all these profiles during my break earlier this year, but life got in the way, so maybe that’ll be my project for the rest of this year after ComicCon? We’ll see; I have literally one hundred (100) character profiles I want to draw; that would be my biggest ongoing art challenge ever.

All this is for the future; right now, I have the next story to finish up, and I am really excited to see if I can pull off everything I want to include. You’ll get to see if I manage next week.

Ciao for now.

Well, this has been quite the week; you can tell because I completely forgot to upload this last night.

First and foremost: Dragonfire was a huge success! We literally did twice as well as we did last year, and ComicCon Africa is a go! We’re going to have a lot to do in the month between now and then; there’s flights to book, a car to hire, stock to order, kitties to set up in care, the list goes on. It’ll be worth it, though; we’ve always done well at ComicCon, so this year should be no different, especially because we have a lot of stuff on hand that we’d already sold out of before the show opened last time.

On the other hand, the first of three weeks at home alone have been a mixed bag. I’m not feeling as lonely as I thought I would, mostly because I’ve been too busy to focus on being alone for a change. Most of this boils down to wrangling Sparrow; having to be locked up for most of the day makes him super hyper in the evenings, and he only gets about an hour and half of outside time between me getting home and the sun going down. It’s not an ideal situation for him, but we can’t trust him not to wreck the rest of the flat if we let him out of the bathroom, so it’s the lesser of two evils. He at least has plenty of food, all of his toys and a warm bed in there; he just really appreciates being able to roam when I get home to let him out. Silver is no issue at all; she’ll sleep all day without complaint, though she’ll be straight out the door the moment I open up in the afternoon. At least with the weekend coming up, they’ll both get plenty of time outside; fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain.

In terms of productivity, I was hoping to do more while I had the house to myself, though it’s not like I magically have more free time or energy; I had planned on doing daily uploads for the Fifth Ace Showcase, but I think we’re just going to stick to the regular Mon-Wed-Fri updates until I get the rest of the current story done. The August/September story may be more sporadic; I’m still trying to work out what I want from the script, to reach a predetermined ending through various potential plots. Not being able to go beyond thumbnails while being at the day job does mean the time I can devote to the comic during the week is limited, but that’s not anything new; it does suck when I have a burst of creativity while at my work desk and not being able to fully actualize it in the moment. Plus ComicCon coming up means I’ll likely have even less time to draw full pages.

That being said, I have been able to doodle a lot more to fill time however I can; I’ve been using it as a coping mechanism instead of eating at unnecessary moments during the day. By keeping myself distracted with sketching, I don’t feel the need to snack as much, which I’m prone to do quite a bit when I’m lost in my thoughts, and that can happen a lot when I’m home alone and/or stressed out. So my new eating routine is to have an extra large breakfast, with a reduced size lunch; I get a boost of energy in the morning, and then maintain the rest of my day with minimal snacking, while being much more artistically productive, with the occasional swig of coffee to keep my eyes open until I get home for supper. So far so good.

Oh, and one more side effect of being home alone is not having to be quiet in the mornings or keeping the lights off for fear of waking up my fiance; I can put on some music or videos, and not rely on my phone’s light to get to the kitchen without stepping on anything. I’ve been taking the opportunity to rewatch Young Justice, probably the best animated adaptation of the DC Comics universe since Justice League Unlimited ended. I only ever saw the first two seasons, which was the extent of the show when it was first cancelled, but there have been two more seasons since then, and I need to refresh myself on everything before diving into all the stuff I’ve missed. I can get through three episodes every morning before work, so I should be caught up to where I left off before these three weeks are out.

So that’s where I’m at for this week; keep an eye on all the socials for updates, and I’ll let you know if everything is still standing by next time.

Ciao for now.

It’s still Thursday somewhere in the world, right?

Yesterday was a great day of historical remembrance in my country: National Women’s Day, in recognition of the 1956 march of 20 000 women, taking a stand against the passing of a segregationist law. The issues that such a march brings to light continue to be relevant, and the occasion is recognised with a public holiday to this day. For me, such a day falling on a Wednesday is ideal; I’ve always maintained that a midweek break is better than a three-day weekend, and if only the four-day workweek was a thing, more people would know this.

Yesterday in particular was highly productive for me, yet another significant indication that I am totally not lazy no really I’m just clearly neurodivergent because when I’m doing something I enjoy then I can churn out massive quantities of work you don’t even know – whoa, that sentence got away from me. But seriously, I was able to pencil five comic pages yesterday, and add all the dialogue captions to them, plus a sixth page; the remainder of the current Fifth Ace Showcase story is well on its way to being ready. Now all that remains is ink and colour, which may only happen next week on a day-by-day basis; no other public holidays in the pipeline that I can use for such things, and the weekend is going to be busy too, though the next few weeks may leave some room for it…

As I mentioned last time, this weekend is Dragonfire, a small convention for a university roleplaying society that otherwise welcomes all comers for some games and game accessories. My fiance’s business, The Dragon Wagon, will be there to sell all kinds of TTRPG dice and various other things, and if we make enough cash, we can even make it to ComicCon Africa this year, so it’s a big deal. But after the weekend, my fiance will be away for three weeks while she does practical training for her teaching degree. I may still get to see her on the weekends, but I’m going to be by myself for the majority of the time, with only the cats for company.

I won’t lie, it’s not going to be easy; I never do well when I don’t have her to come home to. My sleep schedule gets completely thrown out of whack, I tend to stress-snack relentlessly, and I just feel lonely in general. It will be the first time that I’ll be juggling two cats on my own for an extended period, so maybe three won’t be a crowd; I know Sparrow is going to be a handful after being locked up all day while I’m at work, so that’ll be interesting.

However, given how much comic work I have to catch up on, I might be able to distract myself by powering through some of it. Not only do I have to finish July’s Showcase story, there’s still August’s story (which might as well be called September’s story at this rate), as well as the backup story I’ve been working on for Issue #1’s downloadable release later in the year. I clearly have no shortage of artwork to distract myself with, so I may as well use that time constructively; I’ve shown that I can pump out large volumes of stuff when I have the free time, so time to put my money (what money?) where my mouth is.

Anywho, hold thumbs and cross fingers for our success at Dragonfire, and if all goes well, the Fifth Ace Showcase will return next week.

Ciao for now.

The art is still slow, but I can confirm it hasn’t stopped completely…

Yes, the lack of uploads this past week has been noticeable, I’m sure; I may still be booting up in recovery mode, as it were. We’ve gotten through the big project at the day job, now it’s just a matter of getting back into the swing of things for comic work again. It can be difficult to build momentum after coming to such an abrupt stop, but hopefully the Showcase updates will return next week, if all goes well.

I have been doing some other stuff behind the scenes in the meantime, though. Even if I haven’t had time/energy to knuckle down on comic pages, I’ve been fiddling with the long-overdue cover for Fifth Ace Showcase #1, and I think I’ve finally reached a point where I’m happy with it. When I eventually get to releasing it as a downloadable pdf (and maybe even a print run?), with the exclusive backup story included, this is what you’re going to be looking at:

Obviously, there will also be titles included and the watermark will be removed, but this is all you’re getting for now; there were at least five different iterations of this cover, I felt the need to show off something at least. Of course, if you’ve been following me on social media, you may have already seen this; I’ve been spending a lot more time on Mastodon.art lately, and so far it’s been far more engaging than TwitterX. I can probably put a lot of it down to the relatively new scene, with a lot of people looking to build their follower base and thereby interacting with as many people as possible, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s certainly more engagement than I usually get, and with fewer people currently on my timeline, I’ve been able to curate my experience a lot better. I haven’t uploaded a lot on there yet, but I’m probably going to make it my primary social spot for the foreseeable future; it’s familiar enough to use easily, without a lot of the baggage that the dead bird is currently carrying. Still waiting on that BlueSky code…

Neck update: my time with the brace did not yield any significant results, positive or negative; it seems these finger tinglies are just something I’m going to have to live with for now. I’ll be going back in for more X-rays in about six months; things are still a mess in there, but for now I’m functional and not in any pain. I still have the brace, so if ever I feel any major discomfort, I can still slap it on, and I’ll let the professionals know if I feel that something should be done sooner.

The countdown to ComicCon Africa continues to tick down; with Dragonfire happening next weekend, we’re down to the wire to see if we’ll have enough money to make it. Won’t lie, it’s very stressful; there’s a lot of strings that need pulling to make sure it all works out, but the potential end result would be worth it. We did very well last year, and we have a lot more to offer this year, so we really really want to go. It all boils down to my hard-working fiancé; she’s put so much effort into building her business and is so determined to make the ComicCon table happen. I love her very much and am incredibly proud of all she’s accomplished; if the only thing I can do is be supportive and be a shoulder for her to lean on, then I’ll be doing that for as long as she needs me to, and beyond.

On that note, I should probably return to shaking off my funk and get my own stuff done; further bulletins as events warrant.

Ciao for now.