Retouched

I was really unimpressed with myself for page 7:5 so I went back and retouched it. I cleaned up some of the lines where I could. Then I applied the same Painter-shading technique I first used on the next page (7:6).

It wasn't too big an improvement from the earlier version but at least it looks less embarassing now.

Page 7:6 Uploaded

I'm sure the old readers are surprised to see another update this soon.

Anyway, about this page... I tried to do the page a different way this time. Instead of applying the shading on the paper with pencils, I used Painter to do the shadings.

It's not necesarilly faster or easier to do it this way. But I'm hoping that it looks prettier at least. More professional looking. I also wanted to brush up my Painter skills.

I would like to eventually become better at "painting" in Painter and every practice I get should help.

Anyway, enjoy the new page. I hope to update real soon again.

My Current Art Setup

I've started drawing the comic again. I haven't really drawn much since I moved to Melbourne from Canberra. In Canberra, I had a desk with all my art implements within hand's reach and my reference books on a shelf nearby.

When I moved to Melbourne, all my art stuff went into boxes and it was only now that I've really unpacked them again. Although I still have the old desk I used in Canberra, I no longer wanted to restrict myself to one room where I can do my art work.

So, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the laptop table I bought from Freedom Furniture could actually be used as a small-sized drawing table, too. Meanwhile, my laptop and tablet are sitting on the old foldable table I used in the past as my portable drawing table.

On the picture, you'll see my Dell laptop and wacom tablet. On the PC screen is Painter where I worked on the Lili Unleashed drawing. On the "drawing table" is my A5 sketch book with all the sketches and designs for page 6 of chapter 7. Also on the table is the unfinished sixth page along with my mechanical pencils and rulers.

I'm quite happy with this current set up.

Chapter 7 Cover Finished

Like I said in a previous post, I'll let you know once I've finished drawing the chapter 7 cover. Well, it's done. You can check it out at:
[LINK]

I also uploaded the drawing separately on my DeviantArt account without the cover text. You can check it out at:
[LINK]

Page 7:5 Out Now

The last time I actually came out with a comic page update was back in April 20 last year, just in time for Lovarian Adventures fourth year of existence on the Web. And before that, the last update was in October 14 two years ago! Well, there's a new page out.

I want to apologise for the quality of the two latest pages. Like I said, it's been a while since I've drawn comics and I've grown rusty at it. I hope that I would be able to get back into my old groove given time.

The next thing that's going to come out would either be the finished version of the Chapter 7 cover page or 7:6. It will depend on my mood. When will the comic be updated? I don't want to give a definite schedule so I'll just say that I'll post it when I'm done. I know that to many of you old-time readers, it's a bit scary when I don't give a definite schedule. After all, given my embarassing update history of late, the next update might be next year! But do not worry. I'm still pretty much in the mood to draw more comic pages. I just don't want to give a commitment now because I might just jinx myself.

The pessimistic among you may be wondering, how long before I start posting on the blog about quiting being an artist again. I honestly don't know the answer. All I know is that I want to at least draw all the remaining pages for chapter 7 and hoping that my art improves again with every page. By the end of it, I'm still not sure if I'll go on drawing chapter 8 or just proceed to do the picture-book summaries I mentioned before.

I also realised that maybe the thing that killed my enthusiasm for my own comic was my initial mindset that I could eventually earn something from doing it. I no longer believe that at all, now. All I want to do with the comic now is to tell the story and draw it for fun. If people ignore it, that's fine. If people read and like it, great!

I admit that the story I'm weaving isn't for everybody. The setting itself is pretty typical D&D fantasy stuff with some minor changes and some high-brow fantasy afficionados might be turned off by this. All I want is to tell the story of these five main characters and the setting is only somewhat secondary. So, if you don't mind the setting and you've enjoyed what you've read so far, I hope you'd stick around a while longer.

A New Lease on Life

I know I just posted a few days ago saying that this graphic story is essentially dead. And that I'll be posting children's picturebook type pages in the future basically just outlining how the story would have progressed and ended after Chapter 6 if I had decided to continue doing this comic.

Well, I had to re-read my chapter 7 script in order to summarise the events that would've occurred right after chapter 6. But after reading it, I now wanted to just draw the whole of chapter 7 as an entire graphical comic chapter. That is, I want to continue drawing the comic pages of chapter 7 rather than just giving it the picture book treatment.

In fact, I've already finished drawing page 5. I just need to add the dialog on my PC later tonight. But, I won't post it immediately.

I just created a Drunk Duck account:
http://drunkduck.com/Lovarian_Adventures/

I've uploaded the archived pages for chapters 1 to 3 in Drunk Duck and will upload the remaining ones some time later. Once I've done that, the new page will appear on Drunk Duck. I'll probably change the forwarding URLs for http://lovaria.com and http://lovaria.palabok.com to point to the new Drunk Duck URL.

And so, I hope my loyal readers whom I have abused so much will be glad to hear of this news of new pages to come. After chapter 7 though, it's likely I'll still go the picture book route. But in some areas of the story, I might go back to comic book mode. Time will tell.

No More Comics... For Real, This Time

First, thanks you for all the loyal readers of Lovarian Adventures. I know I have been promising you a new comic page to come after the very old latest one. And I have yet to deliver on that promise. The thing is, after a lot of soul-searching, I have decided that I really no longer have the required enthusiasm to finish this would-be comic book epic.

However, I feel real bad for all of you who have stuck with me through all these years only to find out that the story will not reach a proper conclusion. So, even though I'm no longer interested in drawing any more comic pages for the Lovarian Adventures story, I still want to at least tell you how the story was supposed to progress and ultimately end.

I intended on writing just a plain textual summary of the events to follow up to the climax of the story. Kind of like something you'd read in an encylopedia entry for a certain story. But I thought that maybe I can still give you some last time treats while doing so.

The plan is, I'll make still poster-type images of important aspects of the supposed story along with the text summary. The idea was inspired of the "Previously..." portions on TV shows which shows quick clips of past events along with some minimum narration. But instead of past events, how about future events. But of course this isn't TV so I can't very well do TV clips so I'll have to resort to still images that go along with narration (in the form of the text summary).

So, again, I'm sorry for discontinuing this comic once and for all. But if you wait a while longer, I'll be posting some "flash-forward" graphics and narration. Thanks for your support. Come back in a month (I'm feeling pessimistic) to see if I've already posted the so-called flash-forward stuff.