deadwinter

Comic Report #103.2 - Tiny Little Couple

Hello!  Here is the textless version of this page!  I was hoping to get it done last night but details which I'll outline below came up that slowed me down a bit, and then today I had to wait out a heatwave power outage.  Fortunately none of my work machine was affected by the power outage (thank you to my UPS) but in spite of that, here we are!  Chops & Bobby are ready to make their comic debut.

I have a rule I like to maintain where even if I repeat a backgroun...

Comic Report #103.1 - Design Time

Hello again!  As promised, this week I worked entirely on getting the comic done, and I'm pretty close to having it ready to go.  I expect I should have this page done this weekend, probably some time tomorrow evening.  I think last page writeup I talked about painting night scenes and how I like to paint lighting, so instead of writing about that today I'll talk a little bit about character designs.

Lou hasn't been in the main focus of the story for a bit but we have see...

Game Journal #164 - Impact

Hello!  I had planned to work on the comic this week, but after I wrapped up Lou's game animations I thought I'd start on Lizzie's real quick, but then I hit a hurdle and I got kinda stuck in to solving a fun design problem, so that's what I focused on this week.  I feel bad about not having a comic update today, so this week's game report is open for comic subscribers to read as well.  I swear I'll progress the comic this coming week, but I've more or less hit the milestone I ...

Comic Report #103 - Here He Is!

Today's a big day! It's been a hot minute since we've seen Lou in the comics, but now it's time for him to make his big return!  He's also the focus of my game development efforts at the moment as well so July is essentially The Month of Lou.  Let's just get right into it then.

Out of the whole crew Lou probably has the most important job of all- his practical repair and mechanical adaptation skills are a perfect fit for Tombstone's growing needs as a long-term home for surviv...

Update Notice: Saturday

Hello!  I just wanted to make a quick post and say that I'll be moving this week's work report to Saturday. I have to help a friend move so I am going to come home very tired but I also have a very large gamedev report to write up so I'm gonna type it up fresh a day late.  Thank you for your patience, I am excited to share what I've got cooking.

Comic Report #102.2 - Spotlights

Hello again!  This page ended up going quicker than I expected, so I've got a textless page to share with you.  I'll be quick because it's getting late, as these textless updates often are.

So a secret about doing these backgrounds is that I actually have a little map set up for where all the flood lights and cables in Tombstone are.  for this page I kinda fudged those details in order to set up shots where they are shining down on Lizzie and Alice, because I felt like pu...

Comic Report #102.1 - Lighting in a Bottle

Hello!  This week I focused heavily on this comic page above other obligations because I really want to get it posted on Pride month, and I expect I should have it finished some time this weekend.  Since this was a painting heavy week I get to post a bit about painting  today, I have some gamedev stuff to share but I'd like to get back to finishing this comic as soon as possible, so I'm gonna save the gamedev writeup for next week so it's a bit more substantial.  

Si...

Comic Report #102 - Beep

This week I've got a very fun page to share with you!  It's been a minute since we've seen these two together, and when we last left them they had just found their love for each other, sitting together and enjoying the view across the river.  Since then I've had a few other scenes I've needed to draw and story-wise they needed to depart from their lunch breaks and head back to work.  

After a bit of time in-comic and real-life has passed I wanted to kinda bring the two ba...

Comic Report #101.2 - Dinner Time

Hello!  Here's the textless update for this page.  I'm really tired tonight and I just want to get the text lettered and posted so I'm going to be brief with this one.  I'll have gamedev stuff to share on Friday, but for now please enjoy the new comic page!

I'm real happy with how this page came out.  I feel like it is just really full of life- from having a bunch of old friends gather together to all the little sub-actions everyone is doing between pages- it just fe...

Comic Report #101.1 - What a Crowd

Hello again!  This week I put most of my time towards working on the next comic page.  We've been making progress on a new game feature but it'll take a little more time before it really comes together, so this week will just be a comic report while we flesh out the new game elements.  That's going to be a really cool update, but for today let's just talk about the comic page.

Between last week and this one I did a lot of cleanup on my character poses, though they mostly ...

Comic Report #101 - Table Talk

Hello!  This week I put a bit of time into getting some gamedev tasks in the can but I also wanted to get the next page started, since it sets up a fun new scene in the story.  The big page 600 reveal was that these knuckleheads have moved to Tombstone, but since then we took a couple little detours to wrap up a few other loose ends, but now it's time to check in on the crew and integrate them into the neighborhood.

This page is fairly rough at the moment because I want to blo...

Comic Report #100.2 - Explosive Finale

Hello!  Here's the finished textless version of this page for you.  I got a couple little details to highlight and then I'll be getting back to work lettering it and getting it posted on the main site.  

The first little detail is one I'd worried about in my past two entries for this page, the severity of the first panel shot.  A reader here kindly pointed out that the shattering glass aesthetic wasn't actually dispelling or mitigating the effect I hoped it would, an...

Comic Report #100.1 - Pane-staking Work

Hello again!  This week I managed to get the inking phase finished and started painting the next page of the comic.  I had a bunch of pencilwork I needed to pin down between last week and today so I'll go through it like any other Friday.

There are a couple details on this page that have been challenging to sort out.  I think I mentioned last week about handling the first panel in a way that conveys the moment without being overly gross about it- I feel like using the bro...

Comic Report #100 - Back to the Future

It looks like today marks the 100th update since I started putting numbers on updates on this Patreon, so it's fitting that this page is sort of a special one.  I say it a lot but I always mean it, thank you sincerely for supporting this project all this time, I literally could not be working on it without you.  Now let's get down to brass tacks and talk comics, and why this one is a bit special.

If I were to sing my own praise I think one of the strengths of my comic work has...

Comic Report #99.3 - All Caught Up

Here is the textless page, at last!  This one has been a real slog, but I'm happy to finally almost be through it.  I'm gonna keep this one quick because I want to just letter this and get it done and posted.

One of two details I've included here:  when Monday was introduced in the comic he was quoting movies, but as his character evolved and fleshed out he became a lot more reserved and stoic.  When he confronted the rest of this squad in the alley behind the bar at...

Comic Report #99.2 - Almost There

Hello again!  I've made a lot more progress on the comic this week, and I plan to have the page ready to post this weekend.  I try to be conscious of how long the gap between pages gets and really don't want to go over a one-month mark, and since the last page went up March 25th I am determined to have this thing done before April 25th, just for my own peace of mind.  It has been an incredibly dense page, though, and I have found myself slogging through it trying to just get ov...

Comic Report #99.1 - The Long Road

Hello again.   This has been a challenging week for my art on all fronts but I am happy to report that I have made headway through some harrowing obstacles.  There is basically just this page and another page before I reach the end of this flashback scene and resume modern times so I am excited to get there, but hoo boy!  Let me tell you about it!

It took me a bit of time to carve through the inking phase of this comic just because of how many figures there actually ...

Comic Report #99 - A Breakthrough

Hello again! I've been on a roaring streak of gamedev animation lately but I did want to get the next page started for this week's update. I am really on an animation hot streak though so there will be more gamedev updates to follow, but for now let's focus on the comic!

This page is the one that ties this flashback onto the previous flashback it's building on.  The events of this page coincide with the events of page 36, so the dialogue is more or less already written.  This ...

Comic Report #98.2 - Ding!

That's our floor!  The new textless page is ready for you to preview, I'll be lettering and posting it proper after this article goes up.  I wanted to push to get this page done before Friday so I didn't have to post a partial page and then another update later that night, I'm getting it all done now.  Tomorrow there will be a gamedev post as the primary Friday writeup, but for now you can enjoy the above page!

In painting these pages, the hardest thing has probably been ...

Comic Report #98.1 - Imperfections

Hello again!  I had a pretty rough week this week, and as the title of this week's post implies it was largely a combination of Daylight Savings, a now-earlier appointment and a broken smoke detector that blasted me out of my rhythm for about three days out of this week.  I didn't get as much progress done on the comic as I had hoped and I apologize for that.  I did, however, make a lot of headway on gamedev sprite colorization and some other sprite work for my day job, the for...

Comic Report #98 - The Plan

It's been a pretty busy week this week, especially considering the last comic page went up just at the end of the weekend.  I've got a lot to share, both here and in a gamedev post to follow, so if you're a gamedev patron keep an eye out for that as well!  But for now I'm gonna just hop right into it and introduce the next page for you!

The past few pages have been an introduction into this scene, Mayor Richardson reacting poorly to meeting Monday and Monday rooting around in ...

Comic Report #97.3 - Onward

Hello!  Here's the textless version of the new comic page for you.  There shouldn't be too much dialogue on this page so the write-up ought to be quick.

I had a lot of fun painting the elevator mirrors in this page.  I tried to imagine how real mirror panels worked, and draw not just the primary reflections but the secondary reflections inside the mirrors of the mirrors.  It's quick and splotchy but it does what mirrors in an elevator are meant to do and makes the sp...

Comic Report #97.2 - Slow Elevator

Hello again!  I'm going to be realer than I've ever been on this journal: I could have had this page ready for today but Elden Ring dropped and I had to sort that out this week.  I did make progress through a thicket of figures on this page, and I expect I should be able to have it finished up this weekend, posting it online on Monday at the latest.  

The middle part of this page was probably the hardest part, since it had such a high concentration of bodies to paint. &nb...

Comic Report #97.1 - Drawing The Line

Hello again!  It's a snowy Friday and I have a ton of write-up to share with you.  This week that's going to mostly be the gamedev article, though, as we hit a pretty major breakthrough in our development.  This article might be a bit more brief but the gamedev one will make up for it.

A lot of this week was spent inking this page.  Inking is usually the most meticulous part of the process and this page just has a whole lot of bodies in it to account for.  One o...

Comic Report #97 - The Team

Hello again!  As promised I managed to get this whole page sketched up for today's update.   There's a whole bunch to post about here, so I'll just jump right to it.

This page and the previous one have been setting up a flashback scene to reinforce some loose or weaker parts of the earlier comic, and I've been very careful about how to patch up the holes in the walls to make sure the whole house stays strong.  To reiterate a bit, Monday's introduction in the first 50...

Comic Report #96.2 - Let's Do The Time Warp Again

Hello again!  I've got the textless final art to share with you tonight, which means the final page will probably go up in an hour or so.  This page is a bit novel since there isn't really a lot of spoken dialogue, there's just some printed text on document paper which I decided to leave until after this post so there's still that reason to check the final page on the main site.  

I'm actually quite pleased with how the final panel turned out.  I'd initially worried ...

Comic Report #96.1 - Illuminating

Hello! We're back again with this week's work report.  I got a fair bit of work done on the page this week, and I expect I can get the rest of it finished this weekend or like Monday or Tuesday at the latest, so you can expect the update to be ready sooner rather than later.  

First though, some other news: last weekend we got the last of our website housekeeping done.  We cleaned up a few stray security gaps in our new https:// configuration, and I went through and clean...

Comic Report #96 - From The Top

Hello again!  This week I've got the sketch for the next page ready to share.  This one is one I've been thinking about for a while so I think I have a fair bit to type up about it.  But first: we've been continuing our ongoing website maintenance and spring cleaning process, and we have upgraded the site to be HTTPS compliant, the certification is in place so modern browsers won't scream at you anymore for visiting an unsecure site.  It's literally just a platform for ser...

Comic Report #95.2 - Someone's In Trouble!

Hello!  Here's the textless version of the next comic page. I don't know if I can get something else substantial done alongside this for tomorrow so this might just be the post for the week.  If that ends up being the case I should have a double-good post for next week, but either way I'm gonna give it my best shot to come up with something after this page goes up.

I feel like the experiment with the background outlines went pretty okay on this page, things felt like they came...

Comic Report #95.1 - Process

Hello again! This has been a busy week for me, I feel like I got a lot done but I also didn't get enough done.  From the top: I did a lot of cleanup on the comic's archive page, which had been neglected for a long time.  http://www.deadwinter.cc/archive  All of the minicomics are now archived here, along with supplemental extras like the Reckless Hold 'Em rules or the guest character guide to the Survivor'...