February Roundup

Hey everybody! We've made it through February! Things seem pretty chaotic the world over right now, so I hope you're safe and healthy, wherever you happen to be!

This month was a doozy for art production. I'll post the RR stuff first and then BIG PROGRESS on the softball graphic novel second! 

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First, in not-great news: 

The Robber/Robber Kickstarter did not happen in February, as you can probably see. I was hoping to launch it by the end of this month, but with Kickstarter still floundering around with their ill-planned crypto ideas, and Hiveworks/Slipshine looking into developing a crowdfunding alternative to bypass KS entirely, I've just been kind of?? sitting on my hands?? waiting for either that to pan out or Kickstarter to backtrack. Honestly it's been pretty disappointing to have the whole project basically finished and ready to go but being unable to launch because of forces outside my control. The silver lining is that my partner Gannon and I have had more time to work on our very dumb alien video that I wrote about in January's update. I've ALSO begun writing RR chapter 2 in earnest, so if nothing else I can at least start working on that lol.

Instead of doing something simple, we decided to learn how to sew and make outfits from scratch?? it's hard??? but we're getting somewhere! 

IN BETTER NEWS: I did some pinups this month! 

Planning on re-doing Andy and Rob in the same space/planet theme because I got much better at using the new brush and now the original two look too plain!!! xU 

I also made some more of those square comics. I have a follow-up to #3 mostly inked and ready to finish up that I will hopefully be able to post later tonight! Here's a preview: 

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NEXT: we have BIG GAINS on the softball graphic novel! I'm currently inking away, and we've started courting a colorist. I quickly put together a few quick and sloppy example pages with a rendering style/saturation/color range that felt right to me. Here's what they looked like: 

and here were the inks: 

And the pencils: 

We're entering a pretty exciting phase of the project where every page I finish inking is a page that's OUT OF MY HANDS FOREVER!! (until lettering) and also I DON'T HAVE TO COLOR THE WHOLE BOOK!! Although, I have to say that throwing these two example pages together so quickly felt really comfortable and fun, and it really helped me realize how much I've improved over the last few years! 

I'm trying not to get ahead of myself (because I do that OFTEN!) but maybe...some day... my dream of re-releasing a fully colored version of Sakana will be a reality... ;o;???? (I have to actually finish Volume 4 first! I have to actually START IT hahaAAA!!) 

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Well, that's it for me in February! I'm sorry there's only been one Roundup the past two months. Really there haven't been any cons or other events to break up the news, just basic art production. Hoping to have some kind of decision on crowdfunding the RR book early in March, and maybe even start work on Chapter 2. Otherwise I'm going to keep posting new RR art to Patreon and working on softball inks! 

Wishing you all a good March! 

-Mad