Attempts to update: Mon,Fri for RE, Sat for NG+, timezone GMT+10
Saturday 4 February
Aaand I actually managed an on-time New Game+ update! Wha-pow! Believe it or not, I actually went through like three draft layouts but the whole time I was completely failing on the pacing. Then I thought... hey wait I already did this part already, I should probably be a huge lazy butt and ride the wave of work what I already did. A GOOD IDEA.
So actually this is quite heavily cribbed from an old New Game comic, which uhhh well hey at least I apparently can draw more better than I could back then. I kinda regret that I didn't have any real shots of the whole room in the NG+ page though, but I already established the setting last page so that first panel in the original would have been a) redundant like that and b) a way of staging the cell that would cause background details to overtake the fact that a thing happened. SO. That thing I did. Yeah. And that just now turned out to be a lot of words probably people don't care about but hey I gotta pad the news post out somehow.
Soooo I'll be back on Monday with the first real page of the new Random Encounter volume, which I should probably get around to scanning and colour-correcting. Um. Hmm, I bet I don't actually have my scanner drivers installed at the moment, whoops. I should also do something about that. But hey, at least the page is drawn so there's a pretty good chance I'll have it posted on time! So until then, like, stay frosty or something.
Friday 3 February
Mwaha, it's easy to be on-time when I'm prepared and also it's something this easy, so here's today's Random Encounter update! Just the title page for the new volume today, I actually started this one a fair while ago while I was travelling, so I did it in markers since I wasn't carrying my computer with me at the time. Also, despite having started it ages ago I don't actually have too much of it done so far, so ummmm hopefully I don't fall behind on updates again, I'll do my best to keep it up. Well, at least I've got all the layouts done, so that won't be a hassle. It'll be a fairly short one, but I'm happy with how the story goes so YEAH WHAT.
So! This volume? Two guesses as to what it's about! Mmmmmaybe Jinx and some other fellow, hm? Though I can't guarantee that exact thing will happen in the volume. I can't remember, maybe I should check. I do recall my thought process for the title page design being something like "whaaaat I could find a completely relevant scene to draw orrrrr hey this is a good excuse to draw hugs time" and there you have it. The creative process.
Ohhh man I can't believe I forgot tomorrow's a New Game+ update day. I will do my best to work my arse off tomorrow and get it done on time! RARGH LET'S STOP SKIPPING THAT THING. At least it's no longer January. January is butts for drawing comics, that is a fact.
Tuesday 31 January
Woo! I made it! Here's today's Random Encounter comics, page one and page two! How did I manage that? Why, they're both the end-of-volume bonus comics of course bahahaha. So, lousy effort but it's all done! DONE DONE DONE!
Also I probably shouldn't have to remind you that Peony is a trickster-slash-huge liar.
But that's that! I'll be back on Friday with the title page for the next volume, huzzah! It will star somebody, so stay tuned P:
Monday January 30
Booya! Here's today's on-time Random Encounter update. Yeahhh so I was all like "I WILL GET COMIC DONE MUST FINISH VOLUME NO MATTER WHAT" and then I was actually extremely sick all of Sunday while struggling to get this done. Still feeling absolutely horrible, I dunno what it is but it's just constant stomach pain. YOU STOP THAT STOMACH I NEED TO GET TWO MORE PAGES DONE FOR TUESDAY SOMEHOW! THIS VOLUME WILL BE OVER FOREVER BEFORE FEBRUARY!
Probably I will get it done by skipping other things I need to get done and still being behind on stuffs. Bwah, I totally didn't even find time to draw comics for Tapewolf last week and I'm behind on other art I do for some other dudes too. Nothing major, but somehow I need to fit in time for that stuffs. Getting better right away would certainly help. And I may be off for a few days up in Sydney again this week, my cousin hasn't had her baby yet sooo yeah family stuffs. And maybe off to visit my grandparents again, they're stll not doing well. And still working on learning C# more proper for work and doing buttloads of programming during the day so busy busy busy!
Um, on the plus side, when I finally do get some spare time I can waste it happily finally taking photos of dolls so I can send off certain Shauni doll! COME ON SPARE TIME, COME AT ME I'M READY FOR YA.
Saturday January 28
Bam. Random Encounter update. Took a while, but this page was fun to draw for all the squirmy Taide. Obviously, drawing fun poses > drawing ordinary poses. And facial expressions, of course. I'm off to Sydney today, I may be some time :V
But seriously though the current plan is just to be gone Saturday, which may give me time Sunday to get a comic drawn, but it may not or alternately I may be stuck in Sydney for several days. I'm going to try to get three pages of Random Encounter done to totally finish off this bloody volume before February though! SOMEHOW! ARGH!
So... I'll try to post Monday, but if I don't, well you'll know where I am :V
Friday January 27
Gaaah. Nope, still behind getting comics done. Fair enough though, while Thursday was a public holiday, I spent the day visiting my grandmother in hospital... I'll try to get it done for Saturday, but my cousin's baby is due this weekend soooo I'll see what I'm doing this weekend :V
Frigggg. Looks like I'll most likely miss another New Game+ update this weekend, sorry... but gah! I am going to do my level best to somehow finish this freakin Random Encounter volume by the end of January! GO TEAM MERLIN
Monday January 23
Ooof, sorry for leaving you hanging all weekend, here's today's Random Encounter update! I'll try to keep up with updates this week, but actually... well, it's just been rough lately. I'm learning a new programming language at work, and it's not going as well as I'd like. Usually I draw comics to keep my stress down, but it's been such a pain lately so I've been sewing instead. Hopefully things will go more smoothly this week. Anyway, I've almost run out of things to sew! Things that did not help me updating: Dreamhost having major issues this weekend. Boy howdy lemme tell you how fun THAT was. Major issues being the hacking of the FTP password database because apparently my hosting company is genius enough to store passwords with synchronous hashes. Urrrgghhh.
Hmm, I think a major part of my lack of comic-drawing moxie is how long it takes to draw my own comics. I don't usually mind, but sometimes it just drags on and I can't bring myself to keep at it. And this particular volume's just been going on and on! Puts me off a bit, curse my short attention span. But that's all entirely my fault, haha. It seems this one won't be much longer though, and I've got the next few fairly well planned-out, mostly they are very short. Actually, I also really want to soon tackle the Saturn volume that I put up a poll for when I was taking votes on which volume would be #12, but that one's going to be long like this one (possibly not so long though :V aaaaa), so I need a break before that with some light volumes ya know.
Well, I've almost got all the Random Encounter volumes I want this year decided. I just need to find the time to sort out the ideas for various holiday volumes, mohoho! Of course April's coming up eventually, the artist I commissioned for last year's Halloween volume who flaked out promised a replacement by way of doing the art for that, but with how things went last time I'm not exactly holding out hope so I'll have to prepare some backup for that just in case. Then for this year's Halloween volume, for once I don't actually have any pre-prepared stories ready to go. Shauni's totally inspired me to do something about zombies, but apart from that and a few costume sketches I'm pretty much dry. I really need to find the time to think through that stuff. It would certainly help current comics too... working on future volumes is like "#1 way of motivating Merlin to get off her butt and draw current volumes"
Anyway... if I want to try to do any better programming this week, I guess I'd better get some sleep, so, see you Friday as I hopefully fail less at updating everything!
Friday January 20
OK so it's juuuust 8pm the night before update and I'm just now starting to sketch the comic. So um. It is forseeable that I will be late.
So to tide you over, I come bearing two gifts!
Here's definitely what would have happened at the end of the original New Game.
And here's a bunch of Random Encounter dolls that was certainly not influenced by anything in the chat box. Obviously Claw on the left needs some work. Shauni is heavily armed for some reason. Snatch's mane may not quite work in that medium. The bottom three are actually older ones from some years back, but I gave Taide a new outfit and I clearly need to sew Jinx's collar on properly. And good thing Loki's hat covers her eyes because one of them fell off like five years ago and replacement = effort. AND THERE YOU GO I'll get back to sketching and upload it when I'm done OKK
Monday January 16
You know how long it should take to get a new computer running? Less than 6 freakin' days, I tell you that. That's just ridonkulous. I'd go so far as to say it's bizonkers. Anyway! Things might be OK now, so since I missed last week's NG+ update, I'm doing one today. Here's today's New Game+ comic, and I'll hopefully get back on-track with a Random Encounter update come Friday.
What happened? Boy howdy let me tell you. My last laptop was getting very old and unreliable, so I figured I'd pick up a new one on the cheap since they're all pretty much on sale right now. EASY PEASY. Except I have a particular penchant for tiny laptops, and they all come with Windows 7 nowadays which most of them are not great at running, so you know, anything I buy (BECAUSE I'M CHEAP HEYOOO) I already have to waste time getting set up for Windows XP. Which isn't a problem on it's own. What is a problem is when the new laptop I buy has a hardware failure riiiight after I get everything set up. And then I restore it to Windows 7 to see if it's a driver issue and nuppppp gotta take it back to the store and exchange it and start all over again.
All without a car, since I don't own one right now and the store's only three bus trips from here soooo more like organising to mooch lifts from people. All in all, an exciting week. Too exciting, really. I rather hope the next many weeks are far less exciting, that would be acceptable.
Also ASUS are geniouses and have startlingly few XP drivers on their download page, mysteriously most of the 7 drivers they have are actually packaged with XP drivers that are not listed under the XP page so good work guys that was a pretty crafty trick!!1
OH RIGHT one last very important thing! Puyon is back working on her webcomic Price of Manipulation, a Disgaea fancomic that I'm hosting so y'all should feel free to check that out! It'll be updating every Friday.
Monday January 9
Ah! Another ever-so-slightly late update (only by an hour!), here's today's Random Encounter update! Just a few of those cells absorbed a heckuva lotta time, haha... A few things also lost some impact when I shrunk it down to posting size, but ummm I still like how the poses in the first panel came out, so that's OK. AND I'M SURE HE'LL BE FINE JUST FINE
Haha, I keep leaving this to the last minute and somehow being surprised when I'm stuck sitting up real late frantically getting things finished. I should probably do something about that! Well... maybe. Anyway! Other things I should do probably also involve getting into gear and finally writing out the layouts for the last few pages of this volume. I hope it's the last few pages of this volume... Blech! Much earlier I was complaining about my hate for drawing gaol cells, but freakin' crowds, man... Ah, what am I saying. I don't hate drawing crowds, actually they are quite fun! Just takes ages.
Now what else did I have to get done? Ah that's right. It's well past 1am by now, I need to get me some sleep! See you Friday!