7:14 Uploaded

Apologies for the delayed page. This would count both as last Sunday's and this coming Sunday's update.

As for the page, it's back to the three heroes inside the cave. I should think of an even faster way to shade things. Shading the cave, though not so difficult, was a bit time consuming. I'm pretty happy with the outcome of the first panel at least.

Delays

Uh-oh. It's starting again. The delays, I mean. Don't worry though. The only reason it is delayed this week was that I had to devote more time in writing a story for a contest I wanted to join which has the deadline this week.

Depending on whether I have enough free time during this week's evenings, the next page will either be delayed by a day or two or an entire week. So, I apologise for this delay coming so soon since I started updating again.

Anyway, I'm still all fired up about drawing comics so future pages should be updating at a more regular basis. Barring special occassions though.

LA 7:13 Uploaded

The original plan was to leave Sephriel's speech balloons empty to show that sound doesn't get out of the carriage. It's an enchantment, in case you're wondering. But, to avoid explaining it in the future, my wife told me to put in words in there anyway. As a compromise, I made it into mumbling sounded words and faded it to imply that the words are barely heard.

7:12 uploaded

Oh boy has this page been delayed. Partly because of the time I'm devoting to another comic project and partly because of the Drunk Duck server move. Anyway, it's now up again. Here is a new character, a bard. His name will be revealed in later pages and is not important at this time.

There are a couple of things that slowed me down in finishing this page. The first is the vihuela de mano variant (as in the medieval guitar) used by the bard in this page. I had to research which guitar-type instrument would be appropriate for the setting. I was about to settle for the Lute but I don't like the 90 degree angled pegbox on it.

The second problem was the horses pulling the carriage. I'm not sure how two horses are actually tied to a carriage and how their reins are tied to the horses. I had to look at different reference photos. I hope I got them right. I also had to again draw horses and what their correct leg placements should be, etc.

Well, I'm just glad it's done.

Another delay

Hello loyal readers. Just letting you know that this page will be delayed yet again, like the latest one. No need worry though. I'm already working on it and I just need one more day to finish it.

The reason for the delay is that I have been spending a lot of time in research for the short comic I'm planning to do for the Ponju Anthology. Today, for example, I've spent the whole day at the State Libaray of Victoria in the city looking at books with photos of Melbourne in the 1800s and Victorian-era costumes.

I also spent some time in the newspaper section. It's the first time I used the microfilm reading machine, too. I love it! I looked at the 1890 issues of the Herald and The Age. It's fun to look at what people in those days consider a newspaper. I want to go back there and browse some more.

Anyway, I should finish the page by tomorrow. I think the thing that will slow me down is the fact that I have to draw stupid horses again. Ugh.

7:11 - We're Leaving

I had a little trouble panelling this page. In my script, there was just too many things said in this page as is evident with the large globs of text on the actual page. I also had to explain the "Bag of Holding" that Lili has for the readers who aren't familiar with this popular Dungeons and Dragons magical item.

At Doujicon 2006

If you guys are wondering what happened to me at the Doujicon (comics creators convention) here in Melbourne last Saturday, the scoop is at our Palabok.com blog: At Doujicon 2006.

7:10 - Meanwhile, back in the cave...

I apologize for the delay of this latest comic page but things came up over the week. I usually try to get the comic page started in the middle of the week and get around to finishing it by Saturday evening at the latest. However, this week, I worked fast on a story idea I want to submit for entry in a comic anthology being organised by the Ponju online community. And so, I wasn't able to get any comic drawing done at all until I got that sorted out.

I could've drawn and finished it all last Saturday but I was at Doujicon 2006 held at Monash University (Caulfield Campus) all day. I'll talk about my day at the con in another post. I only got started with the comic last Sunday. And even then, I couldn't do it for the whole day because of house chores that needed to get done.

Last night, I absolutely rushed the last few panels of the page, scanned it in, shaded everything in painter, added the dialog and upload it by 1 am. I think it looks okay considering the way I rushed this page. Thank goodness I now shade things in Painter. Even something done half-assed gets to look cool.

There was something I discovered while rushing the shading in Painter though. It reminded me of the time I was learning to draw with charcoal. At first I was treating the shading like I was coloring my comics in the past except with a grayscale palette. But since I was in a rush last night, I just opted to use one of the darker shades of gray and just adjusted the pressure of the stylus to manipulate the degree of darkness I get (much like when I use charcoal). Cool. The things I learn by accident.

Anyway, I hope you found Nadine a bit funny here. This is actually the page in the script that pushed me to start drawing this comic again. I thought then that I must draw this page and have Nadine say that line. And so, here we are. Hope you guys like the new page.