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. 

Starting the Mydan project stuff and more

Huh?! What's this?

Good news everyone! Despite uni kicking my ass again, as always, I've decided to go ahead and begin my Mydan project. In other words, this is it - I'm actually starting my first major comic project, which is pretty crazy to me. I'm really excited to get going with this one and I hope this one's a success. But first, I've got to get all my uni troubles out of the way and then I'll find a way to fit working on the project in my schedule. 

You can read it on ComicFury

Also, due to beating the game Earthbound some couple of months back, as well as reading the game's fan comic The Chosen Four, I've gathered some inspiration for my comic work. Sure, there are aspects that have inspired parts of my Mydan project, but mostly, I've found that my Steel House project has been the one where all this inspiration is going. It makes a lot more sense too, since the elements of Earthbound have more in common with April and her friends than Kamilla and Ruwei xD 

Here's a little screenshot redraw that I did with April and Farqua over the Ness and Titanic Ant.
(Source: pg 35 by Darrow)

I should also mention that, once again, I've been thinking about my Cosmic Loneliness project a little more again. And that's it. That's all I want to say for now.

Money ($$$) commissions?!

For months I've been thinking about opening up commissions where I get payed actual real money. I guess it's about time I started earning money since I've been officially an adult for a couple years now. At the moment, I'm unemployed, pretty much flat-our broke, so I've been doing a lot of job-hunting recently. But since that's going to take a while, I may as well earn some extra bucks on the side by starting to do some commissioned art.

Before I start though, I want to prepare myself a portfolio, just so I can let people know the kind of art that they're in for if they request something from me. Right now, I doubt I have much relevant art I could use for examples, so I'm creating some in my free time. But, I've been kind of slacking off in that aspect... On the bright side, my uni's mid-semester break's coming real soon so I could spare some time to work on that.

Here are some examples I'm planning on doing. I hope I'm not really overdoing myself, but since my art is more suited for comics & stuff, I've got the advantage of getting this done a lot faster than most. Anyways, here's the list:

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.

Hopefully posting again!

Log 2022-03-10

So, I guess I should start actually posting here, huh. I know it's been a long while since my last post, but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything in the past months. And I'm happy to say, I've made some nice progress (for my standard, at least).

Here's the current status for a bunch of  my major projects right now:

Gone Unsupervised!
Good news for this one: I'm actually drawing up the pages right now! This one's a long-term laid-back project so I'm hoping to keep up for as long as I can. The characters featured in this project have been with me since 2014 and they still have a very special place in my heart to this day, so I'm ffeeling pretty confident with that statement. I've got lots of ideas for this one, and since this is a comedic slice-of-life, I don't have to worry about too much of the story and worldbuilding as much as my other stuff.

Steel House in the Prairie
This one's on hold, currently: that's because there's a shorter story that I've got in mind that actually comes before SHP. Since this is a longer and more ambitious project, I feel like starting off with a story that's a bit less compared to SHP would do me a huuge favour in terms with the quality of it. Really excited to get back to this one, though.

Mydan: Post-Beginnings
Now, here's the story that comes before SHP, as well as the main major project I'm working on right now. Unfortunately, I'm still not past chapter 1 of the story, but I guess that's because I still want clarity on the basics of the story surrounding our narrative. I don't want exactly to "try too hard" with this story since this will be my first, but to keep it from being forgettable, I'll try gather some inspiration from the more simplistic stories of older video games.

The Side Effects of Outer Space Loneliness
This one is nothing more than a casual side-project. I plan for this to only be 24 parts long with a more simplistic art style. I'll just work on this whenever, but despite its lacking qualities, I still find myself enjoying working on this small project. Fun fact: I've had the concept of this strip series in mind since 2018!

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