Endless Sea status report

Pages plotted: ~35 Pages scripted: 20 Pages pencilled: 8 Pages inked: 2.5 Pages completed: 0 Pages to go: 80-100? Days to go: 307

Still need to ink the planks of the floor.

Two weeks since my last status report. I've inked a little more, some of it great, some of it not so great. Work is going to be eating my life for about 6 more weeks. I just want to reassure everyone that I haven't forgotten about the comic. I take my sketchbook to work every day and draw a face or two, or doodle Kaleja in different outfits, when I'm stuck waiting for something to build.

I'm also re-reading a lot of comics. I've recently re-examined Alan Moore's Promethea books 1-3, Watchmen, and V For Vendetta, studying mainly the writing/pacing/storytelling; the Byrne-Austin run of X-Men, looking at the artwork, especially the pencilling; the first few phone books of Cerebus, looking at the inking and lettering. This morning I picked up Finder again. I keep telling myself it's all for study, and I need to pay attention to the technique, study, study, study, and I do for a few pages at a time, then I get caught up in the story again. Well, not so much with old X-Men. There, I'm too amused/disgusted by the corniness, surprised that I was ever young enough to appreciate Claremont's overblown writing style, to stay immersed for long. ("The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Twelve" -- variously attributed to Theodore Sturgeon, David Hartwell, and Terry Carr, probably among others.)

my new favorite poem

I logged into regency this morning and /usr/games/fortune said:

"It's Like This"
even the samurai
have teddy bears
and even the teddy bears
get drunk

I printed it out and stuck it on my cube. It's not attributed. Google searches yield some people paraphrasing it badly and using it for a .sig, and various spambots using it alongside links to sites that offer mortgages for penis enhancement products or something.

I can't find an original source. I can't stop wondering about it's origins.

It is a thing of magic, this poem.

dirt tacos

My laptop, Le Jaseroque, had 512MB of RAM in it and was slightly overtaxed when trying to manipulate a 600 dpi, 11"x14", multi-layer document in Photoshop -- particularly, saving the doc took a good long time. I never benchmarked it but it was up in that 30-seconds-plus range where you may as well go move some fluids into your coffee cup or out of your bladder while you're waiting.

As Forrest says, RAM is cheaper than dirt tacos, so I went to Crucial and ordered a gigastick. I just now dropped it into the machine; new total of 1536MB. I pulled up one of my pages, 10 layers of inking in progress, made some edits, and hit save. I was expecting it to be maybe a little better? Bam. 8 seconds to write out a 56MB file. Nice.

My first computer was a TRS-80 Model I. It was loaded - the 16K model with Level II Microsoft Basic. My current machine has about 100,000 times as much memory.

Endless Sea status report

Pages plotted: ~35
Pages scripted: 20
Pages pencilled: 8
Pages inked: 1
Pages completed: 0
Pages to go: 80-100?
Days to go: 322

Finished inking page 1. No new picture for you until the page is lettered 'n' all! I'm starting to get the hang of the Wacom tablet. I think the major problem with my inking now is my style, rather than the interface. I'm very inconsistent in my hatching and feathering - sometimes it's dense, sometimes sparse; sometimes dark, sometimes light; sometimes indicating one light source clearly, sometimes... not so much. Getting the line weight consistent from stroke to stroke with the tablet is a relatively minor problem next to that.

It's unfortunate that page 1 is going to be one of my worst pages, but the first that people see. I should have started drawing from the end of the book. On the bright side, for what I'm trying to accomplish, I think page 1 as inked is good enough. Page two will be better. Pages 5 on are gonna be great, as my pencilling got a lot tighter.

Endless Sea status report

Pages plotted: ~35 Pages scripted: 20 Pages pencilled: 8 Pages inked: 0 Pages completed: 0 Pages to go: 80-100? Days to go: 324 New pencilling techniques adopted: 1 Big-ass scanners acquired: 1 Location of my Wacom tablet: next to the couch Portion of latest page which is going to be copied and pasted in post: 43% Don't even talk to me about: facial proportions Things that are kicking my ass: work

Myï Kaveli, a soldier of a house allied to Kaleja's. That's a stripe of blue war paint on her face - part of her dress uniform.

The 24 Hour Comic

About a year ago, meriko, James, and myself each did a 24-Hour Comic.

Here's mine, The Littlest Revolution.

Endless Sea status report

Pages plotted: ~35 Pages scripted: 20 Pages pencilled: 7 Pages inked: 0 Pages completed: 0 Pages to go: 80-100? Days to go: 331 New pencilling techniques adopted: 1 Big-ass scanners acquired: 1 Percentage of pencilled pages which feature Kaleja in profile in the last panel: 43% Why: No idea

Asian Arch Akimbo

Endless Sea status report

Pages plotted: ~35 Pages scripted: 20 Pages pencilled: 6 Pages inked: 0 Pages completed: 0 Pages to go: 80-100? Days to go: 332 New pencilling techniques adopted: 1 Big-ass scanners acquired: 1 Don't even talk to me about: Wacom tablets

"On the 2nd of Ripening, year 467 Imperial (17th of Hounds, Year 71 4th Code), Jaï I'San and Dylaan Lutrec I'San were assassinated in their home outside of Raë-Salrek."