dupe

workload poll

nice and simple! after i finish sketching do you still think about it, i should work on:

april 2022

hi again everyone. it's april, and i still haven't started catharsis! i've only sketched the first page.

this month, or close to it, i will hopefully finish up the sketching phase of do you still think about it, which i then either want to split up with work on catharsis, or set aside for a while to work only on catharsis. i'll put up a poll for which is desired.

my physical therapy is winding down. medicaid only gives me 15 sessions a year, and a month of twice a week is 8 sessio...

FaD strip: it'll last longer

i uploaded this one publicly a while ago, but i realize not everyone who is a patron uses social media. it's also just nice to have it here.

this is maybe a great example of the benefits not having a mind that can visualize well. i knew the beats i wanted in the comic, but the first panel, showing off the sunset, was really giving me trouble.
in my mind, i had like, 12 different kinds of beautiful sunsets that i had wanted to combine. you don't usually get every color of the rainbow ...

do you still think about it, page 21 [sketch]

this page was so annoying to sketch. probably just bad real-life circumstances souring the experience.

for the first 2 panels, i wanted sugar focused on her work again. i ended up having her scanning samples to catalogue them for another assay, partially for variety, and partially because i just think that it's something she would start to do after lunch.
i was going to have the bat coworker clocking out as the first panel, followed by a beat, and then the other coworker coming in, b...

do you still think about it, page 20 [sketch]

okay, my brain is fried, so i don't have much to say about this page, and i think i already mentioned the intention behind sugar's shift in mood here, with people who are depressed usually not being unhappy LITERALLY 100% of the time.

writing digital interaction is really interesting and really difficult to make sensory. i'd love to explore it more, but i think it would require a character who lives... more digitally, and not just as a method of communication with a real person who is n...

do you still think about it, page 19 (sketch)

it'd be very weird to me for sugar to just not communicate with lola all day, or vice versa, so this is her lunch period. it means that there's essentially dialogue in this "silent" comic, even though the texts themselves don't make noise. feels a bit like cheating, but, meh.

this is also probably the most expressive sugar will be in the comic, as she has the benefit of interacting with her favorite person without really necessarily needing to moderate her outward appearance to lola, or...

march 2022

hi everybody. march has been pretty hectic. 

it's my birthday month, and my mother was visiting for half of the month.
i'm also doing physical therapy for my hand twice a week, so it ends up being about every other weekday. it ends up hurting or leaving my nerves raw a lot, so sometimes i've been not able to draw because the pain is suddenly too high, or because i'm exhausted mentally and physically after the appointment. it's frustrating, because they're about 90 minutes long, ...

do you still think about it, page 18 [sketch]

LOTS of small details to keep track of in this page...

-sugar's hairstyle is different in the ID. i assume it's the hairstyle in her ref chopped off to just a nub on top, which grew out over time, probably forming the base for her current hairstyle.

-the machine sugar's idling by in the first panel is an advia centaur XPT, with some connected machinery in the background. this is the machine that she was preparing a quality control run for on the previous page

-the machine sh...

do you still think about it, page 17 (sketch)

it feels SO weird to have these people working in a lab not wearing face masks, but any video taken pre-covid seemed to be that way!!! just breathing all over the tests and whatnot!!!

anyway, i feel strange about condensing a huge period of time that sucks out any full time worker's energy and social life, but at the same time, no one wants to read sugar doing incomprehensible sciencey tasks for like 10 pages.
here, she is mostly sanitizing and doing quality control. she's dropping t...

do you still think about it, page 16 [sketch]

the lab coats are hot pink in this (unless i decide to make the scrubs pink) -- there are small things, like that, and the placement of the ID, that kind of liken the medical setting of sugar's job to the motifs of the nurses in fresh meat. here, the light on the time clock reminds sugar of the lock on the doors in that ward. 

i'm still fiddling with exactly where i want sugar's schedule to be in the overnight, but starting at 3 sounds about right for me. one part of the changes ar...

do you still think about it, page 15 (sketch)

i really struggled with a lot of this page. i don't feel like i pulled off the splatter to indicate repeated fantasy well. also, the train was so hard to draw that i forgot to draw viscera sleeping in it in the background as an easter egg... i will add her to the final page, though.

also, the second to last panel is based on the longwood medical center. sugar doesn't work there, but she works nearby in a medical laboratory, which i made visible in the background.
also also, apparentl...

do you still think about it, page 14

i'm not super satisfied with the pacing of this page, but i'm hoping that the start of the next page can round off the lack of an extra beat i wanted here.

i had to do a ton of confusing research about the area sugar lives in and the MBTA -- ironically, sugar only lives a few miles from her place of work, but i wouldn't want to walk around in the middle of the night either.
i also ended up taking artistic liberties here anyway, too; the line she's taking technically only runs until 1...

do you still think about it, page 13

this. page. required. SO MANY references. the buildings and cityscape needed to look like boston -- the back bay area, specifically. they're very quaint and gentrified-looking.
at the same time, i was NOT that skilled at drawing when i wrote drop-out, yet i drew the general area of their apartment on page 6, right at the beginning. the buildings largely consisted of cubes, working against most of the aesthetics of higher-income areas of boston. the only buildings i could find that really ...

folie a dupe: the cage, part 2

so relieved to finally have this done. i really didn't think it would be such an undertaking to draw the exchange. i believe i'll be drawing another large exchange between these two at some point, but maybe not. this was exhausting! i'll definitely focus on some shorter strips with blue first at least. half of the battle of this was the size, and the other half is how rendered it is -- the palette isn't really super limited, and there are lots of details and backgrounds.

the quote about...

do you still think about it, page 12 (sketch)

the pages really add up when they're smaller. the sketch for this one is messier. it's a bad brain day, but not so bad that i didn't get it done. :)

this page is definitely supposed to relieve some tension, while building up what eats away at sugar so much. right now, it's her job to the audience, but i also think the end dialogue will build more context than just that she doesn't enjoy having a job. it also just contextualizes their relationship's dynamic more and makes lola Less Of A ...

untitled comic development session 1: the comfort zone

this is a comic i've started working on, largely because I Want To. i'd like to be able to print it one day, which requires a radically different format from how i've been making comics. images made for print are much larger than web resolution images, and those smooth, crunchy pixels don't hold their qualities when sized up.

to be honest, i've enjoyed my work with posca pens a lot too, and it's made me want to attempt comics like this traditionally. i wanted to compare what i could do ...

do you still think about it, page 11

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it turns out there's actually a huge chunk of script my brain wrote that i didn't remember, so it's actually 2 more pages (including this one) before we jump to the car!
i'm trying not to gut the script as i go in general, but these pages are also u...

do you still think about it, page 10

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through the last few pages, i've noticed a lot of continuity errors -- some just because i decided to retcon details. i'll be changing sugar's hairstyle to mostly only be grown out ...

do you still think about it, page 9

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wow. okay. back to business. not super happy with the face journey in this one, but it's whatever. clearly we're getting at an overdose here with sugar. i wanted this one to be calm...

work priority poll

since i can't really do full shifts as it is, work will be slower. i want to know if there's a particular leaning towards working on catharsis, or do you still think about it for the time being.!

february 2022

hiii everybody, happy new year! you'll never guess what i did in january!! i messed up my hand by pushing it when it hurt on that last "do you still think about it" update!!!

more seriously, it's still somewhat achey, but i can draw for a few hours without pain again most days without making it worse. however, knowing that it can hurt and that i need to be careful means that i work a lot more slowly. it's like one constant distraction. still, it's better than nothing. maybe this time i'...

do you still think about it, page 8

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okay, my hand REALLY wants me to stop and go lay down or something, but i didn't push it this far just to be unable to publish this page for another day, so the commentary is going ...

FaD strip: the cage, part 1

this comic is very large, so i decided to split it at least in half. it's been a 2-month uphill battle to finish this comic, although i very much want to. it's also very hard to load as a full image -- i needed to close painttool sai and reload to clear some memory more times than i can count on both hands because of how big it is.

i thought about naming this one "the cage of rage" or "the cage of hatred" which reference an anger management concept and a more oblique affirmation that th...

catharsis development session 4: the script

i'm going to start this post with the structuring of the script. this is the first time i have made a script so detailed. let me post a couple of screenshots of drawing a blank's second draft and fresh meat's script.

(a likely familiar portion of fresh meat's script.you can see that there is little description of the setting, tone, or actions of the characters, although i would put bracket act...

december 2021 q+a

okay, wow, i forgot to post this altogether. i don't have a huge urge to do the formalities this time.

this is a question-and-answer for questions about catharsis -- anything about catharsis, as long as it's feasibly related to the characters, plot, process, whatever for the comic in some way.
i've noted a decent amount of people expressing more interest in the comic than i would've guessed, so, i don't know, perhaps people would appreciate an avenue for questions before it starts. 2021-12-09 01:21:05 +0000 UTC View Post

do you still think about it, page 7

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sorry that it took me so long to sketch this page. my hand has flared up again... right at the second-to-last panel for this one.

a few details/thou...

december 2021

hi again everyone. it's the last month of 2021.

my hand has been aching again. it's largely my fault for just not keeping up with exercises or stretches once it stopped hurting, i think. -_-; lesson learned, maybe. i'm kind of letting it rest for now, but clearly it means that it's going to be kind of stop and go for updates this month until it feels Normal again.

catharsis has about 9 scenes left to be written in the script. i expect it to be done come january -- then, i will be ...

do you still think about it, page 6 (gore warning)

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alright, so, here we are, at the meat of what this comic is.

i really had to think hard about showing gratuitous violence, especially to a relatively beloved character, even i...

do you still think about it, page 5

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PATCH NOTES 1.5.2
-shortened all of sugar's claws for continuity
-flipped sugar's hair in panel 2 because it is a mirror image
-removed the first smear of panel 6 because i...

do you still think about it, page 4

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alright. this page serves mostly as build-up between the mirror page and the next page, lest they be too close together.
for breakfast, sugar is making eggs benedict with salmon ...