Weekly Update - 113

Important news!

As we wrap up Chapter 8 of Kiva's story this week, I'm going to set his story aside for a bit to work on a shorter side-comic starring Riley.  I mentioned this on Discord yesterday, and people seemed to be pretty excited about it!  There's a specific way I want to present her perspective that I've never seen done before. It's also a different tone and, I think, possibly a more personal story.  I honestly can't wait to see what you guys think!

The pace of posting will remain the same, and though Riley's story is much, MUCH shorter than Kiva's story, I might bounce between them a couple of times, publishing the comics in parallel.  Whether I'm working on Kiva's or Riley's comics, Patrons will continue to have early access to the five most recent comics, as per usual.

I think this might afford me the creative reset I need so I can return to Kiva's story with all the enthusiasm and excitement it deserves.  Plus it will give me an opportunity to explore some other parts of this world and its characters.  I'll Ramble more about it in the Ramble.

You can expect to see the start of Riley's mini-series on the 18th!  (for Patrons only, public posts will continue as regular until Chapter 8 is done on the main site, then we'll put up a cool new webpage for Riley's minicomic.)

Comic this week?  Yes!  Chapter 8 of Kiva's story will wrap up this week, then Riley's story will begin on the 18th.

Drawing: Finishing Page 141, and Riley Page 1

Playing: Drawing! (See, I can tell I'm really excited for Riley's comic because I'm choosing to draw over playing video games, but also Rimworld and/or a bit of WoW when the hand starts to ache)

Ramble:

I love writing comics and drawing them.  I've learned a LOT about comics and myself over the past five years.  I've learned what makes my creativity drive go, what makes it stop, and when it needs a swift kick to get it to go again.

Nothing is more wonderful to me than starting with a blank page.  The possibilities are endless.  My creativity is free to prosper across that page without limits.  But each line of dialogue, each stroke of the paintbrush, fills in some of that space, and imposes a small restriction on what I can do with it or where I can take it.  Eventually, in expressing myself creatively, I'll find myself without the room to do so.  The page always fills up.

Put another way, it's like making a clay sculpture.  I can mold the wet clay into a form that I want with total freedom. After some time, it dries some, but it remains pliable for a while longer, allowing me to add details and make fine adjustments.  Inevitably, it dries all the way and becomes brittle.  Making any further adjustments to the sculpture risks damaging it, possibly even breaking it.

And I feel like this applies to all forms of art, comics included.  The parts of Kiva's story I'm drawing now are some of the oldest parts I've written, (with the exception of some parts already drawn and published -- Page 1-7, for example, are technically the OLDEST written parts, as one might expect).  These events taking place in the Citadel are parts that I've slaved over exhaustively, because they are important.  There is almost no wiggle room for me to make adjustments to the dialogue or the events, because I have spent the past few years carefully tailoring it to deliver just the right information to Kiva and the readers in just the right measurements. And I'm quite happy with the words I've come up with and the things I have planned, it's just that this inflexibility denies me what I enjoy most about writing and drawing: the blank page -- the freedom to design and create.  These are the parts of Kiva's story that are done, and they've been done for years.  The clay is rock-hard, and all that's left is for me to go through the slow mechanical process of taking the finished product out of the imaginary realm of scripts and storyboards and making it real.  That's largely why I think Kiva's story has felt stale to me these past few months.  I've just been going through the motions, not really finding any ways to make it exciting for me.

I've known this might happen for awhile, and I've planned for it.  This is my job now, and I'm under no delusion that I'll be able to publish these stories of mine without having to do a lot of unfun work mixed in with what I enjoy about it.  Ideally, though, I can avoid things getting too tedious with a little foresight and planning.  I planned to shift the focus away from Kiva at key parts of his Citadel adventure to focus on other characters, like Riley and Max, just to keep things feeling fresh for me.  I have a lot more flexibility in those storylines still, relatively speaking.  The problem is, next I've planned to cut over to Max, and I'm DREADING it.  Max has been a sore spot for me for a long time now.  I've been so disappointed in how I depict him.  He never looks cute enough.  He's supposed to be a solid 10, and my art falls short of that much of the time.  Aside from that, the part coming up with Max involves me also drawing a club that's filled to bursting with dancing furries.  Typically, every additional character I add to a page makes that page take longer by a few hours, with the exception of all the identical-looking "cultists."  So I've been trying to think of a way I can do that and also still keep my schedule.  I have some ideas, some techniques I want to try, but it's going to be quite the challenge.  It's a challenge I don't feel like I'm up to tackling at the moment.

Then we have Riley's side-comic.  I NEVER expected Riley to embed herself so deeply into my heart, but here we are.  The most challenging character I've ever written in my entire life, and yet I find her to be the one I relate to most.  This is a project I've been wanting to do for a long time now, the only question for me has been "when?"  Do I wait until Kiva's story is finished?  Another ten years from now?  Maybe fifteen?  Or do I draw it now, while it is fresh and new and I'm super excited for it?  I think I have my answer.  I know that I do my best work while I'm excited, and I know I'm excited because I've already started drawing and storyboarding her comic in my free time.

I really think you guys will enjoy it.  I know I will enjoy it.  And once I've managed to get some of the ideas for Riley's comic out of my head and out there in Realspace, I think I'll be pretty eager to apply some of the things I'll learn to Kiva's story.