About this new format
Not only that, but it will be easier for me to manage them. All the backlinks and other stuff I was doing in the old way started to be a hassle. Some of the posts would have the same links in them, after all. So why not centralize?
You’ll notice that after this general beginning section, there is a table of contents. I thought it would be a nice addition to help you move where you wish to go without too much scrolling. Let’s hope it works properly! (I need to purge my plugin selection, it’s starting to take over my life.)
Before we get to the good stuff, I’d like to introduce you to the new way I am trying out. I figured that 3 separate posts, while seemingly fine in that they are about different things, were a little too much. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get my poison from one place, if I can. All this clicking makes me insane!
So, what’s been happening this month?
The beginning of the month was crazy, packed with work. I only got to the project around midway through, so that was a little bit of a bummer. And three days into it my husband comissioned me to continue the Rimworld Assets that I had begun making some months back.
That being said, I think I made some nice progress and learned a few good lessons! And now you can find all that out in the same post. Let’s see how this new plugin works, shall we?
Contents
WIP: DA!
DA! Got only 3 days of attention this month, which saddens me somewhat. I’ve been brewing it for way too long, be it due actually being swamped, or ‘cause I’ve been lazy. Why is it that I figure this thing out at the end of the year, every year?
With those three days, I did what I could, though. I added the SFX, and got the cover to a relatively nice spot – the main characters are drawn in, and I only need the background and colors.
You can forget about the back leaflet this month, holy cowlina, I say! I took too big of a bite… again.
What I Learned This Month
About SFX in comics
I found out that I was overthinking a lot of this process. Mostly, it’s ok if we just slap whatever we fancy (that could be related to the sound we are trying to make, like THUMP, for example) on the page. With whatever lettering we want.
There are some commonly used tropes though, like crackling and other harsh sounds being in sharper letters, and snakes hissing is depicted in a sort of flowing, wavy lettering. But then again, I’ve seen just the basics, thunk, slap, boing, you name it. Pretty much just the word for the thing (hop) can be used as an onomatopoeia. Try saying that five times fast… Any way, here’s an article on the matter I found while doing my research into the whole comic SFX topic. Don’t mind the chatGPT in the url, I found the article to be a nice introduction to the theory of it all. And then I forgot about it and went on my way, like one does.
Remaking the ‘Logo’
All good mangas/comics have a theme to them, and you can often see it straight from the Title. Naruto has the spiral of the Uzumaki clan behind the title without fail. Batman has well, the bat looming over the comic. Superman’s title is very 3D and often in red like his cape.
So, I remade mine. A few times. And I think I got to a nice balance of needing to slap the core rune of the comic in there, while keeping the Title readable. It was a nice exercise in logo making, and I got to try out some minimizing. I am trying to make my style a sort of minimal and clean cartoony type, after all.
The Rough
The rough is the draft with shapes and approximate proportions. It’s the time to find out your composition and such. And let me tell you, settling on a layout isn’t always easy. God knows how many times I was moving Aki and Emma around in the drafts, trying to find a proper way to model them. Thankfully, my reference studies paid off. Manga covers all have some unifying traits to them that we can learn from.
Firstly, the Hero is always the focal point of the cover. Be it in the centre or otherwise highlighted, your eyes should be drawn to him/her. The only exception I’ve seen was romance, as the lovers are usually equally depicted, and interacting with each other one way or another. Similarly, the lone Hero covers always have the character in a relevant, action-oriented pose
The second point is that the immediate side-characters are right behind the Hero. Usually they are looking out into the distance, or sort of saying their hello’s to the reader. Sometimes the Big Baddie looms over them all, or the rivals are set in some opposing constellation.
Other than that, the background is usually either a place relevant to the story (see Konoha Village for Naruto), or something that relays the mood and tone of the comic. I’ve seen shattering glass, digital box-like textures, and even magical storms. Whatever makes the potential reader get interested in that specific genre. Bright colors usually mean lighter reading, and dark is reserved for horror, etc.
Interlude and realizations
When I got the Rough done, I had some motivational fun and exported the first two pages of the comic into a PDF. Wow what a feeling it was to see it there, readable and in my hands! But. It came with another problem that I had ignored: Phones are a favourite for a lot of readers these days, me included. And a traditional comic will be hard/annoying to ‘flip through’ on that small screen.
And so, I was properly introduced to the idea of vertical scrolling and webtoons. Can you imagine, we can now just scroll down, never flipping or zooming, since the images are screen wide! Gosh, my age hit me there. I really thought a traditional format would be the way to go… And it will do, for the moment. I can always adapt the comic later, so look forward to that!
So, while I was having that small crisis of creation, I broke 100 hours worked on the project. 100! For 8 pages! Oof. But you wanna know a known secret about this project? Mhmm? Well, as you may know, this is my first ever attempt at something like a comic. So I had a ton to learn, from actually learning to draw, all the way to the whole layout of a comic page.
If you can believe, I had never in my life drawn a cat, or an elephant. And my edgy spiders of the past were always a flat side or front profile, and usually lacking legs. And they certainly were not doing anything more complicated than sitting there, quietly. Now, suddenly, I had to figure out how to make it prowl, jump, fly… All those legs!
From Sketching to Drawing
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. As I mentioned before, the main characters are already lined in. Funny thing, though. I was sketching them in, trying to get them just right, and my husband glanced at my screen. ‘That’s a drawing, not a sketch.’ Wait… you says what?
You see, I have this bad habit of scratching my way to perfection in the sketching phase. It was slowing me down significantly. And when my husband told me this, I looked at my ‘sketch’ and had to agree. Why on earth was I making so many details in it? Who cares if the sketch has its paws just right, that’s something I can easily fix in the line art. As my dearest also pointed out, I have unlimited eraser action on my side. It’s the digital era, for heaven’s sake.
The second I dropped that and just drew, things got so much faster and purposeful. So, friends, please don’t get stuck in the sketching phase, even when some Tubers say your sketches should be someone’s good art. Just like someone else’s sketches are full art pieces to you. I don’t know, I find this rhetoric rather bizarre, but then again, I’m a peasant in the midst of the elite.
Project Switch
At this point, my husband decided to start working on his mods again. And of course, he got into Rimworld once more. I also learned something about game assets, but more about that later.
(Ad incoming! Check out Psychic Bond Tweaks, the mod that allows you to be that badass one-man army, with a slew of Highmates to work as your batteries! Courtesy of the lovely Mr. V.)
So, of course, he then enlisted my help once more. And I managed to work on the assets for 8 days, touching up a ton of assets, and creating quite a few new ones. My total thus far is 26×3 assets (since each singular apparel item has south, north, and east views), aka 78 drawings. Phew!
If you want to practice your lines and minimalist design for the sake of game art and the foundations of drawing, do this. Just hours upon hours of simple lines, straight and curved, honing in the way I hold the pen and how to control the pressure. Of course, at somepoint, I began dreaming about the many ways other people had not bothered to make their outfits cohesive (I re-designed and drew most of the things due to this). What’s the rush, folks?
So, what’s next?
I have some assets still to draw before I can bring my attention back to DA!. Not too many, but enough for a few days of drawing. I don’t mind it, mind you, because like I said, this is amazing foundational practice.
That being said, here are the next 3 steps I plan to take in my WIP(s):
- Finish the Assets. My husband’s list currently as 11 items in it, but it is likely that they will get pruned. Either way, I aim to make all 11 if there are no further commissions, and then move on.
- Finish the Cover. Yes, I want to finish the cover for DA!. And I want to finish it before the year changes. Oof!
- Make the BackLeaflet. I leave this here with a clause, since I don’t know what will happen this month in regards to the amount of work and other interruptions.
PSST: Check out my X for current happenings and connect with me!
OP: SCaN
Due to the hectic month, I didn’t manage to progress SCaN at all. I did, however, learn some game making knowledge while making the Rimworld Assets.
Don’t trust all you hear!
I came across this art tutorial when I was looking for tips and tricks to use in Clip Studio Pain (CSP), which we got so I could try out this drawing thing with pro tools and more seriously. This particular tutorial said that it would be handy to use the transparency option of the BRUSH as an eraser. Which I did, for a while. Oops!
My husband nearly chewed me a new one when he found out. So please, people, especially those in the game development sphere, DO NOT DO THIS!
You see, the transparent BRUSH still leaves data on the canvas. Transparent red is still red, even if you can see it. And the techies go crazy when they see their programs pick up on the values, including the alpha. Their software is smart, after all. So when you have a red ghost pixel in your asset, it messes up the whole alignment. Suddenly, the visible center of the image is no longer the actual center. And so, you get some goofy nip-slips.
So, what now?
Well, SCaN still haunts me, pun intended. I keep drawing and honing in on the characters, I think I’m getting closer to a style I’d like it to be in. With the coming of the CSP, I’ve decided to lean more into that kind of art, instead of pixels. So the game will likely not be a pixel game, after all!
That doesn’t mean that I will be lazy with it. Or at least that I will try my best not to be. So back to the original plan it is: write out the main storyline. However long that will take, who knows. But hey, the faster I get DA! Out, the faster I can put all my focus on the game!
Summary
So, this December 2025 I plan to finish making the Rimworld Assets (maybe I’ll showcase them somewhere, we’ll see), and make the cover and back leaflet for DA!. With the extra time, I will keep thinking about the plot of SCaN, and do my best not to dive into a Bullet Heaven Game project instead (I’ve been playing Brotato to take the edge off the high intensity days, heh).
Other than that, I’m still wondering about the place where I will publish my comic. This mass censorship campaign is just ridiculous. And now the EU decides to launch an arrow to its own knee with this ChatControl nonsense. We’ll see how that affects the platforms, maybe it’ll end the stupidity – since there’s no kids via ID verification anyways, what would be the point to censor the content so excessively?
This month was hectic, and I worked my butt off to take advantage of the season. While that means that I got less time on my passion projects, I’m content. I’ve done much for our house, and for my husband. And in the end, that is what matters most.
The Phatman Holiday is coming as we say. Stay safe, and wear a reflective piece of plastic on you – it’s dark outside!
Sincerely,
Mrs V.