Organising my 'Catch-All's

Over the years, I've kept these sort of 'catch-all' notebooks for collecting the ideas that appear in my head every now and then. Those ideas could be related to stories or projects that I've had in mind for ages, they could be for new stories, or they could be connected to nothing at all and just be something I'd like to keep for later. 

I don't know how often I go back to read those things I've written, especially after I've finished a notebook and moved on to the next one, and all that just leaves those ideas, even if written, alone to be forgotten about until somehow they're picked up again.

Just recently, I've found a solution to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

This might seem excessive or overwhelming

Since I have plenty of spare notebooks in my storage, I've decided to put them to use here (especially the ones that are less practical to bring everywhere I go). What I do with them is this: I dedicate one of them to a specific category that I tend to write about.

Afterwards, with my old catch-alls, I read through them thoroughly and then if I find anything I like or find that seems relevant to something I'm writing (or could potentially write), I copy that idea down into the notebook dedicated to the category that ita fits in.

So far, I have five books.

#1 is for my first major universe/group of stories: my sci-fis set in the planets revolving around Star Piaros (and beyond).

#2 is for my second major universe, where one of my other main projects is set. This is where the characters from Gone Unsupervised! and Agonie Island's other inhabitants live.

#3 is for my other stories that are not set in any of those two major universes of mine. Those stories could be one-off narratives or be set in a universe with multiple narratives, which isn't as 'huge' or as ambitious as my main two.

#4 is for any of my ideas for stories that I'm in the middle of writing that I'm not sure about keeping or leaving out. There are some ideas that I like, but I'm not exactly sure how -- or if -- I should weave them into the story that I planned them to be part of. Sometimes, I rewrite information and come up with new ideas, and I don't know what to do with the old ones that I still believe have potential.

Finally, #5 is for anything that isn't tied to any story that I'm working on, or anything huge set and/or set in stone. This book contains loose ideas, prompts, and just anything that I've written that could potentially inspire something in the future.

Now, because I've organised the things I've written in my old catch-all notebooks by copying sets of writing into their respective notebooks, this makes looking back at my old ideas much easier. This way, I can assume that nothing I've thought about and written down gets buried under assorted compilations of text, never to be read again. And also, this puts many of my spare notebooks to good use.

Starting Again

It was my birthday earlier this week (on the 10th of December) and one of the gifts I received was a sketchbook. With that sketchbook, I've decided to use it for thumbnailing my comic pages. I thought it would be nice to have a focused place to have all my thumbnail drawings, and I guess it'd be cool to flip through all the work once I've got a decent amount of pages filled.

This was from one of my aunts on my dad's side

I'm starting with my 'Gone Unsupervised!' project, of course. I'll show the thumbnails I've done for one short here. It won't be a huge spoil since this one is a remake of an already existing short, so enjoy!

Although, I do feel like that before I actually get started on drawing the actual comic itself, I should set up the character reference sheets and make some concept art for the house that the characters live in, too. 

I should've drawn up everyone's shoes in the lineup, but whatever...

Maybe I should do concept art as I go, as in: before anything new shows up, I'll do the concepts for them, rather than doing everything all at once. It might make the pace of creating this project much faster, but I don't know how well this might work in the long-run. Maybe because this is a more slice-of-life project, it won't be too harmful.

In the meantime, for 'Project: Mydan', I'm just working on its story and characters, still.

Those are what I have planned to do for now.

Process of drawing 12F.Ave's lineup

As pasted from my logs on my art Tumblr.

Day 1

Here we have sketches of the first four. (I actually changed French’s pose a little since I took the pic). Maybe I should make everyone’s posture as straight as possible so their heights are more accurate…

Day 2

Sketches of the second four are now here!

Fixed up some of the first four’s poses to have them be standing more straight so their heights are more accurate, too. Also wow, I did not know how actually tall some of these guys were. (The final four of the house actually contain the most middle-heightened people in this group, haha)

Day 3

The sketches of the final four are complete! (Thinking about giving 2.0 & Barley some more height, tho. I dunno, yet)

Here’s how the whole lineup’s looking so far…

Also, here’s some context for the heights (that blue rectangle is a 30cm ruler, btw)

Subtle changing

When a character, place, or thing first appears outside of doodles and concept art, and into the canonical world that they're part in, it makes almost everything about them pretty much official. Even in my scenario, where I'm someone who's just making a casual webcomic project, I still feel that kind of pressure that everything seems all set in stone once something shows up in canon. 

However, as I'm making my comic, I notice that there are things that could have been done differently when I look back at the previous pages. There are things that I believe that I could have done better, so I try to change them

I can forgive myself because I'm working on my first webcomic project, but I have actually made some subtle changes to some certain elements. If you read Chapter 1, you may notice these if you pay attention. 

Take my my character Shashi, for example. He is Kamilla's cousin's son (AKA her second-nephew), who was introduced very early in the chapter. 

Here is what he looked like in his debut:

See all those stripes on his clothes...

And here is what he ended up looking like a few pages after:

Some of his outfit's colours changed for the sake of balance, too

Notice how I've removed some details on his clothers because I thought they were just too much of a hassle to draw.

Next, let's look at the colours of Kamilla's day outfit. Here is her first appearance wearing it:

A few pages later, you'll see how there have been some slight shifts in brightness, hue, etc.

Here is a comparison so you can see...

I just wasn't exactly as to how overly bright it was before, and wanted to create a better balance in her colour palette. 

You'll notice that this doesn't just applies to characters, but the background, too. You'll see how, with the art style, I'm still trying to figure out what direction that I want to go. I want to be able to make the process quick, but also appear well with the subjects.

And just recently, the colours of the speech bubbles and thought clouds have changed from white to a light yellow-brown colour just in case I would need the colour white to appear brighter if the future ever calls for it. Also, some lettering has been written by hand to create a stronger effect, if needed. 

Maybe this is a regular thing only for now. And maybe this will start to lessen once I become better and more decisive when it comes to making designs for my comics. It doesn't bother me at the moment, but I hope this will come to an end eventually.

Kamilla vs the Petal-Rat!

Here is the first major action scene since the chapter began: Kamilla vs the crater Rat. This is the process of its creation. 

The set-up for the traditional art part of things

Before anything, I want to say that the critter that Kamilla encounters in this scene is not exactly a "rat", or at least the kind that is known as one of Earth's most iconic pests. It's just a common pest on Imest, a city petal-rat, known by most as a "rat" because of its many similarities with its Earthean counterpart. 

Trying to design the "city petal-rat"

Now with the Earth-rat-Imest-rat out of the way, I can finally move on to the real process!

At first, I thought I was already prepared to start drawing the thumbnails for the chase scene. I had its description all written out in the script, which meant I already had a good sense of direction, right? Turns out, that was wrong. I was actually struggling to figure out how I wanted the way the pages to look, even though I was only working on the thumbnails. 

The scipt for the chase. Read if you like!

So, what I did was try to draw up a storyboard showing how the scene would go without having to worry about page composition. My mind is mostly pretty simple and in this kind of situation, my preference is to work on one thing at a time.

Storyboarded

This way, I would be able to get a visual script of what would be happening in the chase scene. My intention for this scene was for it to be both short and (hopefully even) mildly entertaining for the first piece of action in Chapter 1. 

I actually only relied on what I could remember from the written script for the storyboard. Really, my only use for the text version of the scene was to get a basic structure for storytelling so that I could feel a sense of direction. I even had to cut off parts of what was originally planned because it was going on for longer than what I had intended when I rewrote it with thumbnails.

And, although the scene was scripted, I didn't include any specific details on what was going on during the action. As seen in the thumbnails/storyboard, there are small moments where there would be some kind of activity such as Kamilla and the rat jumping on these sorts of platforms, Kamilla falling face-flat onto the ground, the rat jumping onto Kamilla's face, etc. Those things, I didn't write in the script. Instead, these ideas came from two pages in my sketchbook full of small moments I would like to see in the scene.

An idea I had that took inspiration from this

Finally, with having finished a storyboard that I was pretty proud of, I moved on to working on the page thumbnails themselves. Although this required me to pretty much draw each moment again, I was able to easily figure out the composition of the comic pages. 

Turned to thumbnails

As I'm writing this entry, I haven't yet made it to the next step, which is drawing up the pages themselves. But it's really simple - the same way I've done the rest of all the other pages. All I have left to do next are as follows: sketch, line, colour, and publish. Until the next scene requiring some kind of coordination, the process begins again!

Doodling without sketching

Recently, I've discovered a skill that I want to put in a lot of my time and dedication into. And that skill is being able to draw my characters without there needing to draw a detailed sketch underneath. 

In other words, I want something like a "dumbed down" version of my art style so that I can quickly make little comic strips and shorts. This would especially be useful for if the comic is just a small scenario, usually for some quick laughs or for just to tell a moment.

Here are some of my attempts:

A dynamic pose

I may include "noodle arms" on occasion

This skill of drawing with minimal sketching should also be able to help me in creating strong character design, too. If I have too much detail in a character, I would either forget to include them or I would struggle to add them without having to erase what goes underneath it. This is especially useful because in comics, I would have to keep drawing the same characters over and over. 

It was actually only not too long ago when I realised I could apply drawing without sketching to my art. At the time of writing this post, my current media of interest is the TV series, We Bare Bears. This series was my main motivation to practice the skill.

We Bare Bears by Daniel Chong

I was looking at the art style used to draw the bears themselves and I noticed how simplistic yet strong and memorable they were. Eventually, I doodled them on paper and I loved how easy it was. 

I eventually found the webcomic that inspired We Bare Bears: "The Three Bare Bears" and this was the hammer to the nail. I want to make dumb little comics, but I don't want to have to put as much time and effort into them as my more ambitious projects. This was the inspiration of the motivation.

The Three Bare Bears webcomic by Daniel Chong

I'll wish myself luck!

A realisation

Lately, I just hadn't been feeling the best I coul've been. Lately I've been feeling kind of down. Everything just felt slower and sometimes I was even finding it difficult to look forward to the day. This has been affecting many important aspects of my life, including working on my comics. 

When it came to working on my Mydan project, the uploads had been extended to being a page per week, which is, considering my process for drawing up each page, not enough. After each upload, I tell myself I can do better and I try to find motivation. But even so, I never improve.

Becase of this, I had been trying to find what I have been missing. What sort of things motivate me to do more? What can I do to make each day count? It took me forever, but now, it's finally hit me. What I found was lacking was that I wasn't really putting as much visual direction into my pages as much as I used to. 

I forgot about the fact that almost every panel (or "shot") shoud have its own character. And because I forgot about that, when I would draw, there would bee a sort of "stale" feeling. It felt like a chore to get to the next pages. I forgot about the media that I drew inspiration from and I forgot how to bring my heart and soul into my project.

Now that I've learned that, I feel like I've cleared an obstacle out of the way. All that's left is to find the motivation to take action...

Progress!

The prologue of Mydan is nearly coming to an end, which can only mean the (hopefully) soon arrival of the comic's first chapter. Although it hasn't been too long since I started (since about May 2022), I'm glad that I was able to make it this far. That's because it seems that almost every time I make an attempt to start a comic series (heck, even a comic short) I always end up losing motivation and putting it off for who knows how long. Guess you could say Mydan could be the one that stays for long. Honestly, who knows? But nonetheless, I'm pretty confident in this series :P

Also, it was in the past week/fortnight that I've had a couple of big motivation-boosts! First, on the 3rd of August, a close friend of mine shared my project sites to their class at university as an example for whatever it was their course was focusing on, and I couldn't be more thankful. And if THAT wasn't enough, I only learned just yesterday that Mydan was featured on the homepage of The Duck, a webcomics hosting site that I post on. Words cannot describe how happy I was at that. I've never felt so aknowledged before, and there's the bonus points that I don't really promote my stuff much. Here's the link to the feature: https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/09/featured-comic-mydan-post-beginnings/

YEAH BABY, there's my lil boy!!!

Website updates!

The old Steel House site (link currently unavailable)

So a while back, I've built a website that was dedicated to my Steel House project. But for a while I was thinking, if there are more stories I've got in mind that are set in the same universe, shouldn't I just make a site dedicated to that one universe and make sub-sites dedicated to each story? In other words, I'm planning on having one main site for the universe that my Steel House project is in and each title underneath that universe will have its own site. I've already gotten started on its design!

A preview of the new main site layout which isn't ready for publishing yet!

So far, I've got the webpage for my Mydan project active. It's still a work in progress since I still need images for the site in general, as well as the dividers and whatnot. I'm hoping to get it done shortly after my homework grind is over (yes, uni is back at me again).

It's active and you can view it here: https://starpiaros.neocities.org/mydan/page.html

Not totally polished, but getting there!

Actually starting now

A lot has happened since my last entry on here. First off, I've just finished the first scene of my Mydan project which has been available to read for some time. I'll be continuing to be making updates as much as I can and, as you would expect, I'm really excited to see how this comic plays out.

Here are the places it's available to read, by the way:

• Actual web comic hosting sites (& similar)
  - Main comics site
  - ComicFury
  - The Duck

• Social media:
  - Instagram
  - DeviantArt
  - Tumblr (I'll create an index page for this series, but it's just the page for Scene 1) 

Right now, I'm starting off this comic a little more laid-back. I just want to know what it feels like to finally get something started and worry about all the more extra things that I'll end up worrying about later (like schedules and making things seem more "professional" and whatnot). 

I know it doesn't sound like the best of decisions, but hear me out: I don't want to just sit around making sure everything is perfect before take-off. I would much rather look back at my comics in months time and see how completely mediocre my works are compared to the stuff I'll produce in the future, over worrying about making it like an actual published comic book. So looking at it that way, it's probably a nicer idea.

As I've mentioned before, I'm in university and it's making things a bit harder than it should. ...I also heard at one point that it's recommended that I probably shouldn't be working on a major personal project, as well as smaller projects at the same time, while studying because it'll end up being a lot to juggle. But I don't really mind. 

Adding on to the pressure

Not too long ago, I made the decision to get started on drawing up the thumbnails for the prologue for my Mydan project. If me in the past found out I was doing this, I would be worried that I'd be going on a head a bit too early in the project. But now, I've chosen to go head-first into the waters. I want to channel my thoughts into a mindset close to the one I had in my first attempt at making a webcomic: going straight into production after a good-enough script to base everything. 

First, I wanted to get rid of that sense of perfectionism that has been stopping me from moving along in the past couple of years. When working on my SteelHouse project, my plan was to be around 5+ chapters ahead and make sure *everything* was in line and confirmed. But throughout the months, I kept making little tweaks and edits, always treating things like they were never ready. Because of that, I haven't even started making the right concept art.

I also thought that by doing this, I would be able to take my projects a crap-ton more seriously. I'd be setting myself time limits, due dates, and be not-so laid back when it comes to this stuff. There are many stories that I want to get out there, some in comic form, and knowing how long it takes to actually get a narrative out there, my lifespan won't be able to fit in everything in time, which is a pretty tough truth to face.

Anyways, here's the notebook I'm doing my thumbnails on. Here are the ones for only the prologue for my Mydan project, so I'm okay with showing you what I've got:

Organising the process

Lately, I've been thinking of ways to speed up the process of my much larger, more ambitious comic projects. Now, here's the thing: since they're so long, it would be quite intimidating to work on them one at a time. It's a huge commitment and I'm kind of fickle, so I'd be afraid of losing interest, especially since they're projects that I'm really passionate about. Since I don't want to have to go through all that, I've spent a long time trying to come up with a plan to manage my projects and my time working on them.

Here's the plan: I'm going to divide those big projects into acts. Which I have done long already, since that's part of the storywriting process, but now I'm chosing to implement that aspect to use in my time-management.

It'll work something a bit like this...

First, the conditions:

• I have 2 big projects: Project A and Project B
• A has 3 Acts and B has 5 acts
• A is Set years Before the events of B and their Stories Aren't Overlapped

And here's the pattern I plan on undertaking:

1. Project A, Act 1
2. Project B, Act 1
3. Project A, Act 2
4. Project B, Act 2
5. Project A, Act 3
6. Project B, Act 3
7. Etc.

And if any new major projects pop up, I'll figure stuff out from there.

Rebranding! (Sort Of)

I'm going to make this the main place for where I write any major updates for my projects. Which I know it seems like this is what the blog is for already, but here's something behind the scenes: I'm actually writing the blog posts for my major projects in their own platforms and then pasting them onto this one, which can get a little time-consuming and, I'll admit, tedious. I've been suspecting that that's the reason I've been a bit demotivated to write these logs in the past months, and been coming and going with these logs in the past, I suppose, year.

I'm still trying to figure out my little game plan, but I guess I'll just improvise and see what works. That's all I want to say, really.

-Chocco

Gone Unsupervised! - Log #010

I’M BACK.

Happy to say that I’ve gotten back to this project again! And y’know why? I’ve finally come up with a new title for this series. I’m changing it from “No Adult Supervision” to “Gone Unsupervised”. Still keeps the same sorta feel, it’s just as straight to the point as its predecessor, and feels less overwhelming to say, at least from my opinion. However, I did have to sacrifice my play on the “No Junk Mail” sign… Big shame.

Aside from that, I've also decided to create a website for this project. Honestly, it's about time, too. I'm doing it on Neocities, and it's looking pretty good so far. See it here, if you want!

Also happy to say that I’ve also come up with some new script ideas, which is good! Once I’ve written a couple of them down, and figured out the order of some of the scripts, I should be good to start drawing the comic up again. Very excited. Hope I don’t let myself down, this time!

Project: April and friends - Log #029

I’ll make this a weekly thing again, starting NOW

So once again, I haven’t written on this blog in two moths or maybe more… But, just because I haven’t been keeping up with logs n’ stuff, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been really doing anything. I’m happy to say that since my last update, I’ve made some good progress on the project!

Firstly, I’ve set up a Blogspot blog for where my comics will be and I’ve decided to put my official comic scripts on there. I’ve done some final edits on them while adding them onto there, too. During all that editing, I also should mention that I’ve changed it up a little to read a bit more like a screenplay and a novel at the same time, if that makes sense. When I say “novel” I mean that I’ve tried to give the action parts a bit more “character” and tone and stuff. The screenplay aspect’s more on the whole “INT/EXT. LOCATION - TIME” thing. A link to the page has been added to the script archive.

I’ve also decided it was about time I started working on some actual concept art for the project, starting with character turnarounds of the main and secondary characters. I’ve done 5 out of 9 so far! You can view them on my projects Twitter.

I noticed I’ve been more active in adding actual scenes onto the storyline, too. I’ve got them all up on a Google document and it’s 8 pages long so far, and it goes all the way from where I’m up to to anywhere near the end! I’m pretty glad that now’s probably the time I’m actually taking the project somewhere.

Also, I’m deciding that the title isn’t going to be “Project: Proclo” anymore. I’m still putting the whole title stuff on hold. I’m keeping it as “Project: April and friends” for now, which will NOT make the final cut. Yeah, this bit’s probably the hardest aspect of it all…

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m hoping to get another update down next week and make this a weekly thing. I better not forget!

-Chocco

Project: Proclo - Log #028

Database update

The database finally has links to all of the main 9 characters! 

You can see them, >>here<<

The majority, if not all, of them are still works in progress, but they’re filled enough to be released publicly. Excited to add more to the database!

-Chocco

Project: Proclo - #027

 Got another person familiar with my stuff!

Recently talked to an old classmate who was interested in my advice when it came to writing and stuff. I also got given some recommendations in exchange, too!

Since that talk, I’ve finally thought it’s about time I got myself into some of the sci-fi cult classics, especially since I’ve been meaning to get into some of them in the past few years. Weird that I never really got round to getting into them, especially since, imagining from a stranger’s perspective, I’d picture myself to be into a bunch of sci-fi cult classics. 

I’ve also launched a couple places relating to this project…

First off’s a just-in-case sort of thing. I’ve made a Blogspot which’ll be the main place I’ll upload more polished comics of the characters featured in the project. Doesn’t matter how big or small, it’s just gotta be polished. You can see it >>Here<<.

The next thing I launched is a blog on newTumbl. I realised I never had a place where I could just talk about the more useless things relating to any of my projects, similarly to the way I do it on Twitter. Except this time, those notes won’t get buried under unrelated things. You can see it >>here<<.

That’s all I’ve got for now!

-Chocco