deadwinter

Comic Report #110.2 - Details

Hello again!  I'm back to share the textless version of the next page with you.  I'm gonna be quick with it so I can get back to work.  

Last Friday I came into this thinking this background would be a cinch since I drew it once, but I underestimated having to draw it again.  It sounds silly but there's a whole lot of little details I needed to keep track of, and that first panel in particular was kind of a pain to chew through.  I've got a few more pages in thi...

Comic Report #110.1 - Breathing Room

It is Friday, which means Patreon gets to look at work in progress.  I didn't get the next page quite as far as I'd like to have but I pushed it close enough to the background pass phase that I expect to have it done sometime at the end of this weekend or at the start of next week.  The past few updates I'd been trying to not go over my one-month mark on the 7th but I think I should be far enough ahead of schedule that that should not be a concern this time.  I also got a littl...

Comic Report #110 - Taking Inventory

Hello!  I got the preliminaries for the next page to share with you today.  I've been working this week to hit gamedev milestones on my two game projects and the Dead Winter one I'm excited to share because that one looks really sick. I'll be typing up something about that tonight after this article goes up so keep an eye out for that if you're a gamester.  I want to keep the comic line going though so today I'll be able to share the next little arc in the story with you.

Comic Report #109.4 - The Details

Hello again!  I'm pleased to report I hit my deadline, I can get this page texted up and lettered before midnight so I should have it posted very shortly.  I'm happy with both how the page came out and how quickly I was able to put it together, relatively speaking.  It's crammed with little details but it also has just the vibe I was aiming for.  That's it for Lou for a little bit, say bye Lou!  We'll catch up with him again in a few.

The past few pages have bee...

Comic Report #109.3 - Almost There

So my holiday rest is over an this week I went all in trying to get this page wrapped up before the 7th, since the last page went up December 7th and I try not to stray over those one-month lines.  I made a bit of progress on the gamedev front this week- I got Alice's new muzzle flash ranged attack effects set up- but I focused almost entirely on comic work.  I'm gonna save the gamedev report for next week so I can a) have a more comprehensive milestone to share and b) spend more ti...

Game Journal #181 - One More Layer

Hello!  So it's the end of the year and I got something fun to share.  The past few updates have been about working on effects animations, and this has been a learning process for me.  All my animation knowledge has sort of been self-taught, I've never had an animation class before, and while I learned to animate people from making comics VFX animation has been its own discipline and something I've been trying to master both on this project and on Kitsune Tails, my other projec...

Comic Report #109.2 - End of the Lines

Hello and Happy New Year!  I made an effort to try to rest this last week of the year but I ended up doing a bunch of work anyways.  I made gamedev progress and also got through the tedious ink and flat phase of the current page, so I expect I can get the remaining five panels done in the next seven days and get this page posted before the 7th.  I also made some big progress on the gamedev front which I'm excited to share as well, so I'll be closing the year out with two posts ...

Comic Report #109.1 - A Bit More Detail

Happy Holidays!  This week's update is a bit more time on last week's update- I spent a lot of this week hitting some animation milestones for Kitsune Tails (I wish I could share what I do on that but sooner than later you'll get to see it) so I couldn't make it to the ink and flat tone phase for today.  I did, however, flesh out my vision for Marty Mulgrave's office, and I gotta say I've landed myself into a bit of a pickle here.  I wanted to capture an authentic feeling of th...

Game Journal #179 - Effects!!!!!

Now that I'm over the massive work mountain of actually coloring all these attack animations I decided to take some time and sort out the visual language of how their effects should work.  There's a bunch to share today so I hope you enjoy the little journey.  I'll take it from the top:

This ...

Comic Report #109 - The Book

Hello again!  Today I've got an early look at the next comic page to share with you.  I put a lot of focus on getting a gamedev task completed this week so the page sketch is a somewhat skeletal state at the moment.  The framework is there so I can show you what I'm going for, so let's hop into that.

The opening panel of this page is probably the clearest of all because I knew exactly the kind of visual joke I wanted to stick in there.  The first shot is Lou knocking...

Comic Report #108.2 - Follow My Lead

Hello again!  Here is the textless version of this page, ready to post.  Tomorrow is the one-month mark on when the previous page went up so I'm happy to have this one done before going over that line, but I'd like to get the next one posted sooner.  It is what it is though, I've been juggling a lot of things so I'm just constantly working.  This one was fun to work on, though, and I'm excited to get the next scene going.  

The big hook for this page has been a ...

Comic Report #108.1 - Follow the Footsteps

Hello again!  Thanks for your patience last week, today I've got an update on the comic progress to share with you.  I'm expecting I can have this page finished within the next week- my one-month update deadline is the 7th and I try not to go longer than that with these updates, so that's the line I'm pushing for.  Fortunately this page is pretty easy on the drawing hand so I feel like I shouldn't have too much trouble hitting that goal before this time next week.  In addi...

Game Journal #176 - Three To Go

Hello!  It's been a holiday week out here and I've had some other obligations to take care of.  This is a bit of a short progress report for what I did get done before traveling, I didn't get comic progress done so I wanted to open this post up to the non-gamedev supporters as well.  Thanks for your patience this week, I'll be back on comic stuff next Friday.

This week I managed to get Monday's first three-hit combo all the way colored.  There's a second three-hit co...

Comic Report #108 - What Are Friends For?

Hello again!  This has been a pretty hectic week for me but I managed to get the very beginning of the next comic page started.  I'd thought about trying to hack out more detail before this post went up but I think I'll let it be a look at the fleeting super-early phase of a page before it becomes the greyscale work of art we all know and love.

So the overall theme of what I'm looking for with this page is a linker between "meet up with Lou" and the next big moment of the comi...

Comic Report #107.3 - How The Sausage Is Made

Hello again!  Here's the textless version of the next page.  I used Daylight Savings to my advantage and got this far an hour earlier than midnight, so I'm gonna keep this quick and see if I can't get it lettered and posted before the top of the hour.  

All the back-backgrounds on this page went about as quick as I expected, but it's kinda funny how a common effect in art felt really prevalent on this particular page.  There's this thing that happens when you're pain...

Comic Report #107.2 - Steam Powered

Hello again and welcome to November.  I've just got a comic page again as I try to hack through rendering this steam engine and get this page posted online sooner than later- I'm expecting to have this page finished over the weekend so you can expect to see the textless page posted here in the days to come.  

I am mostly through painting all the engines on this page but it's been a bit more of a pain than I expected it to be.  It's all the little facets, I think, that mak...

Comic Report #107.1 - Black & Blueprints

So I just checked my computer calendar to make sure today was actually Friday.  Okay, cool.  Anyways, hello!  I've had a pretty hectic week this week, moving some remainder of my physical Dead Winter books to a new storage unit, and friend let me tell you those things get heavier every time I gotta move 'em.  That job's done, though, so for the rest of the week I focused on making progress on the next comic page.  There isn't a gamedev report for this one, I got Monda...

Comic Report #107 - The Magic of Engineering

Hello!  This week I managed to get the next page penciled up sooner than later so hopefully it won't take me too long to get it finished.  This one's a fun one, since it follows up on a detail from page 506, which was posted-- almost ten years ago?  No!!      Well, anyways, today we get to experience Peak Lou as he explains what keeps the lights on in Tombstone.  

For a little while the comic has sort of downplayed the fact that it's a zombie...

Comic Report #106.3 - Captive Audience

Hello again.  Here's the textless page for you, I zipped through it quicker than I expected so I'm happy to get it done sooner than later.  I'll keep this post quick so I can get back to lettering and get this page posted up before bed.

I'm usually pretty meticulous about background details but I let myself slide in a few spots on this page to help speed it along.  This might all sound really petty but in the second panel there should be a traffic light on the corner of t...

Comic Report #106.2 - Word On The Street

The mHello!  I had hoped to make it all the way to the end of this page this week, but I only made it to almost-the-end.  That's fine, though, since I can get this finished up this weekend no problem; it's a six-panel comic and there's only four backgrounds left to paint, and one of them is a freebie so that's just three backgrounds to do before I'm home free.  There isn't a gamedev update this week since I really want to focus on getting this comic out, I'm over my one-month-i...

Comic Report #106.1 - Former or Ladder

Hello again!  This week I've got some comic progress to share with you.  Thank you for your patience on this one, I'd been chipping away at some gamedev tasks the past few weeks and I'd just been focusing on the one thing instead of splitting my time up, but I'm very close to wrapping up that milestone so I can just focus on this task.  I expect this page should be ready to read in the coming week, there isn't any particular background detail that should be too egregious to pai...

Comic Report #106 - Thumbs Up

Hello again on a brisk, chilly Friday afternoon!  This week I've got an early stage comic layout to share, as well as a batch of old thumbnails.  Thumbs are an important part of the comic process but one I don't usually talk about on here because showing them would spoil what's coming, but since I'm at a break point I can share the previous batch with you.

When I first started this comic I was working as a bowling alley mechanic, so I would thumbnail my comics on the clock on ...

Comic Report #105.3 - Here They Are

Hello again!  I've got the textless page for you.  Well, mostly.  I just saw an error right now that I need to fix before I get the lettering done and the page posted.

The error that I just spotted was: I forgot to draw Bobby's gloves in the last panel.  The characters in this comic accumulate a lot of little details- like Lou's bullet wound from the van chase a hundred years ago is still on his neck- and for the most part I'm good about keeping track of them.  ...

Comic Report #105.2 - Home Stretch

Hello again!  This week might be a bit of a short update, but I am happy to report I am making good progress at a good speed on this page- my one-month deadline is like the 25thish and it's not even the 10th yet so I'm on my merry way with this one.  I lost a bit of time this week since I'd gotten my Omicron Covid vaccine booster shot and spent a day in the booster haze, but I don't feel bad about that one.  The new boosters are out in the US, so check your local pharmacy to se...

Comic Report #105.1 - Over The Line

Hello!  I made a bit of progress on the next page this week.  I've felt sore and tired so I took a bunch of rest to keep from overworking myself, but I did manage to get over the peak of the work mountain in time for today.  It should be easier for me to make more progress on this page in this coming week with the lineart out of the way but I did just need a bit of rest so I should be good to continue.

Since I mostly just did lineart today I'll share a little bit about th...

Comic Report #105 - The Power of Friendship

Hello!  This week I managed to hit my gamedev milestone pretty early so I could jump right into the next page.  This works out pretty well since this page is shaping up to be fairly character dense, I don't know if that means it will be faster or slower to draw so it's good to get a jump start on it sooner than later.  

Edit: The power actually went out here in Boston as I was typing this, so I might keep this a bit shorter than otherwise.  Thank you for your patienc...

Comic Report #104.3 - A Joyous Moment

Hello again!  Here's the textless version of the next page.  I'm pretty happy with how this one came out, and I got it done earlier than I expected even after taking my time a little bit to watch a fighting game tournament while I worked.  I'll be brief as usual with this writeup and get back to lettering the final page as soon as possible.

When I write a scene I usually feel a certain way about how it will be received and sort of live in that space until it is over. &nbs...

Comic Report #104.2 - Shades of Grey

This week I focused mainly on getting comic work done.  I put some time into day job artwork but Dead Winter Game work is on pause until this page goes up.  I'd mentioned it last week but I don't expect the backgrounds here to give me a lot of trouble so I'm planning to have this page posted this weekend, so keep an eye out for that textless post coming up soon.  Since I've been working on this that also means there isn't a gamedev report for this week, but once the page is don...

Comic Report #104.1 - Clean and Sharp

This week feels like it went by super quickly, like I was just here yesterday typing up last week's report.  I got a bit done but it doesn't quite feel like it's as much as I wanted to.  I have been sorta mentally checking the one-month mark from the previous page I posted as a "don't you dare delay beyond this point" marker and that point is two weeks away so I think I'll be fine on this one.  I'm nearly at a gamedev milestone with Lizzie's attack animation coloring so I have ...

Comic Report #104 - Big Hugs

Hello!  This week I have a comic page sketched up for you.  When I'm juggling game development and comics it's always fun to bounce back to the comics just for how free my restrictions are compared to my game art needs, and seeing what ports back into the comic from the game work itself.  I think in recent years my art style has gotten more streamlined and clean, and that's largely due to hopping between drawing those game sprites and making comics.  This page is a pretty ...