But it wasn’t necessarily because I found it difficult to illustrate.
I inked the first 3 panels before COVID-induced lockdown was a thing (no joke!). I wasn’t very artistically motivated during lockdown and ended up being fairly busy once lockdown finished and I returned to full-time work. So this page fell dormant and forgotten for awhile. When I finally came back around to finishing it, I had misplaced it inside one of my other sketch books. I thought I had lost it for good.
I was so pleased with how the main, big panel had come out that I was disheartened to redraw it, further delaying its completion. I was extremely happy (and relieved) once I did find it though, and I proceeded to promptly finish it.
Anyways, that’s a lot of word vomit about nothing really. Hopefully the previous page’s 2 year cliffhanger wasn’t utterly awful.
Oh wait. That’s how I started my last post (and that was almost 2 years ago…)
It’s been a very, very, very, long while ^^;
Anyways, MitM is back with 4 new pages(!). They’re up (right now!!) if you wanna go check ’em out, and I’m planning on writing the usual blog entries for each page shortly.
If you’re asking, “Why revive your dead webcomic? and why now?”
Well…for starters, I don’t think I’ll ever truly label MitM “dead” or “done” (or at least for quite awhile). I suppose my reasoning would be that I’ve always wanted MitM to be a project that challenges and pushes me, allowing me to experiment with different art and writing. You could argue it’s something of a loose idea sketchbook (that I just happen to post online and spend several hours on each page…)
As for the “why now” part, well, why not? I can’t really think of a reason to hold off. Sure, I’m still kinda, super busy with other general life stuff at the moment, but just holding off till there’s a calm point doesn’t seem particularly helpful (or likely). Going ahead and just posting all I have at the moment incentivizes me to go and make more ^^
Speaking of making more, once again this chapter is (finally) wrapping up here shortly. So hold on to your pants.
Regrettably, I am not here to publish a new MitM page (hopefully I’ll get one finished up before tooooo long), but I did want to stop in an wish everyone a Happy Halloween!
2020 has been…one heck of a year, for just about…well…everyone (and it’s still not over). So to help spread some holiday treats, I wanted to post my Halloween mixtapes.
Back in 2019 I came across an old haunted house “spooky sounds” cassette. You know, the generic stock screams, howls, and growls you’ll hear at some corn mazes and spooky attractions. It inspired me to put together a mixtape of songs related to the theme of halloween (admittedly some aren’t quite on topic, but you get the idea). Before I made my mix over the original tape, I recorded the spooky howls to my computer and then mixed them in with the songs, crossfading between music and screams occasionally to add more “ambience” to the tracks. Here are the results:
Side A: RockSide B: Electronic
I had a lot of fun doing last year’s mixtape, so I decided to do another one this year. This time around I decided to make it on a full length 90-minute cassette and mix in some fun, spooky movie/show quotes.
Side A: Fun SpookySide B: Scary Spooky
Anyways, that’s what’s been happening around here for the last few weeks. I started October off by doing Inktober, which I did for the first 15 days before I switched over to making this year’s mixtape. I plan on finishing the second half of Inktober drawings soon (possibly in November or December). I’ll post any related to MitM here, but I probably won’t be posting all 31 drawings here. The rest will be on my Twitter and FA pages.
Until next time, I hope y’all stay safe and have a Happy Halloween!!! ^.^
Phew! That was quite a dry spell between pages, but the newest one is finally here.
It always feels weird providing commentary on the page when the story is more serious, so I’ll keep things brief.
I still haven’t decided how I want to use panels that aren’t just a generic “box-shape.” I do think curved panels, or weird trapezoid shapes can help make the action feel more dynamic at times, and it can create some very unique page layouts. However, they can get messy real quick if you’re not careful and can also lead to confusion on panel flow if they don’t have a distinct order.
I don’t know. I’m not about to stop using them anytime soon, just figured I’d mention that I may overthink panel layouts when I’m drawing a page :\
So as this year is wrapping up, I’ve been reflecting a bit on not only this last year, but also the whole decade that is coming to a close. Since it’s been awhile since I’ve literally posted…well…anything, I wanted to post a little (big) update; even if for no other reason than to write things down for my own sake to remember later on.
When 2010 kicked off the decade, I was a naive, scrappy little 15yr old. Now at the end of 2019, I am a sad, dull 25yr old.
That’s about it. Yup, the end.
technically the lyric is “…with A dead dreams…” :\
Alright jokes aside, I initially felt like not much had changed in my life. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, 10 years really ain’t a long time, even if these ten landed during a big transitional part of my life. My hobbies shifted from playing baseball, video games, snowboarding, and bible quizzing (yeah, I did that); to drinking beer and liquor, smoking weed, doing drugs, and-
Okay, okay. I’ll cut back on the depressing jokes and try to take this more seriously.
Just within this decade I…
…graduated from homeschool (if that means anything)
…survived college and escaped with a Bachelors degree of art
…moved from rural Montana, to Idaho, and eventually to Seattle
…spent almost a month in another country where I didn’t really speak the native language (which is something I totally recommend by the way)
…made my first online account (FurAffinity, for better or worse)
…discovered webcomics and started my own (and a few other short-lived comic strip series)
…went from seeing my first major concert to becoming a regular concert goer
…juggled a mixture of jobs ranging from cleaning toilets, traveling for tech support, doing construction, selling anime, to woodworking
…transitioned from hating coffee and beer to consuming each quite regularly
…shifted my obsessive interests from video games to music
…and that’s just the first 10 things from these 10 years I can think of off the top of my head.
Mutt in the Middle has obviously been one of the decade’s biggest surprises for me. Sure, it’s not really grown into anything special, but I only had a passing interests in comics before tackling the project. While I’ve read comics for about as long as I can remember, I actually would not have considered comics a big part of my life. When I first discovered webcomics I was intrigued though. Here was a vast array of comics that incorporated a range of styles, genres, and could literally be about anything. You could read one that was total trash, but then turn around and find one of your favorite stories of all time. The fact that these were largely made by ordinary people with sometimes only the bare minimum amount of art and writing skills instilled a dream in me that anyone could make something great if they were willing to invest the time.
I was in high school, I had loads of time.
My arrival to college may have taken away from my available time, but now I was really learning how to improve my artistic abilities. While I didn’t really learn about comics from my graphic design department (and they didn’t seem to have a terribly fond opinion of illustration), I did learn elements of good design that I was able to incorporate into my artwork.
As I moved on from college life to the average adult life, my time and motivation as an artist began to take a dive though. While I currently have a job I find enjoyment in, it does tend to leave me tired and drained after the normal 40hr work week. If any of you have been following MitM, you will already know that there really hasn’t been much to follow recently (the last page was like what? September?). What free time I have had recently has been more and more focused on my interests in music…
…and well beer. No seriously.
I have made several good friends in the craft beer (and cider!) industry, several of which are also big music fans. We meet up at breweries and share the weird, obscure (or mainstream) music that we most recently have been geeking out about. My music tastes (which were, mind you, already extremely broad in college) have probably doubled or tripled (if not more!). My extensive love for music and sharing it with others is the primary push for me to get off my sorry butt and start this whole YouTube channel dedicated to discovering music.
[Eclectic Fidelity] *logo WIP
Alright, so I’ve only created the channel and I have yet to actually post a video, but I am still very serious about kicking production for this into high gear. I have a few scripts already finished, some recorded bits started, and even artwork done to incorporate to the project.
Of course this does kinda place Mutt in the Middle in…well…sort of a pickle (ha, puns). Currently it lies in limbo in the middle of an action scene that I’d argue is really important (at least to the story). I have had the next few pages sketched (and half forgotten) within my sketchbook for awhile now, so I really should…well…”just do it!” Theoretically, I would like to finish the chapter and then “officially” take a break from MitM to focus on this potential YouTube project.
So…yup, that’s about it I suppose. If you managed to make it all the way through this lengthy, arguably unimportant blurb…well…good for you (I guess?). I do want to wish you a Happy New Year and the best of luck for the upcoming decade.
I will now leave you with a song.
A song released earlier this year that I love dearly, and one that instills me with hope.
Hey I fixed my printer! The ink cartridge was low so it locked up the entire printer and didn’t allow me to scan. I found a work-around by just removing the cartridge completely. Now it gives me a different error message but allows me to go back to using the scanning feature. Sometimes dumb problems require dumb solutions…
(I doubt y’all actually needed to hear that story, but figured I’d mention it real quick.)
Today’s page features not a single normal square/rectangular panel! Wowie! Sometimes I feel like an unusually shaped panel can give a better since of movement, but I’m also really bad at deciding what to use instead…
Also I’d like to keep pushing away from normal, oval-shaped word bubbles. I don’t know, I’m just bad at making good circles or ovals so I’m interested in what else I can use. (don’t mind me, just thinking out loud, might not do this)
Anyways, I was a little hesitant on posting this page since it lands on more of a cliffhanger than usual and since my update schedule recently has been…below average…but it’s finished and this’ll push me to get the next one done pronto, I guess.
Also, for your viewing pleasure: the one upside down panel, but right side up. Now you don’t have to flip your screen upside down. It’s much more evident that I wrote “Ahhh!” upside down once it’s flipped though…
Yikes…only 4 MitM updates this year… (that’s not good)
Sadly I had further complications with uploading this page, my scanner decided to break. So technically this page has been done for almost 2 weeks, but I didn’t have a way to scan and post it >.<; Anyways, I found an alternative (for the moment) and I hope to either fix or replace my scanner soon.
As for today’s page, I was decently pleased with it. It went through the usual rewrites, has (I feel) an average amount of mistakes, and a decent amount of action that I was fairly happy with how it came out. Some of the inking gets a bit muddy on certain panels and I didn’t shade the unconscious coyote that Dakota picks up on the “HMMM” panel because I feared it would get too indiscernible, but you can’t win ’em all :\
However I would like to point out something else: the panels. Like, the sheer number of how many are on this page. Holy crap! Fifteen Panels on a single page is definitely my all-time high so far on this comic project :O
This chapter is slowly (very, very slowly) inching its way to a conclusion. I kinda hope to rapid fire the last few pages before too long since MitM’s been really dragging for the last…well…year really…
I was a little frustrated with how this page came out honestly. Feels like the “actions” don’t correctly read and flow between panels, but I also had several different sketch thumbnails of this page that all had their issues :\
Anyways still trying to change things up here and there. I decided to make the word bubble outlines much thinner to see how they’d look (and hopefully I’d like to continue to experiment with different shapes).
Also tried something a little different with the “comic page teaser” that’s usually posted to social media. I’m gonna start posting those here with the commentary as well…just cause I suppose…
Holy crap! It’s already been nearly 2 months!! I gotta post something!!! O_o
This page feels like it’s been done for more than a month. I finished the sketch and even a lot of the inking weeks ago, but I just didn’t get around to finishing it off. The bottom left panel gave me considerable trouble too…
I’m not 100% satisfied with how that panel came out, but I promise you it used to look much, much worse. Working with a frustrating perspective and complicated movement was a real pain. I’m still (sadly) trying to nail down how I want the magic to look visually and my limitations as an amateur artist have also been a factor.
On an unrelated note: I got new pencils! I’ve literally used the same small box of pencils since page 1 (it’s kinda sad seeing them go…). I still have my old ones…somewhere…but they’re getting pretty small now (and beat up). I mostly decided to use my new ones for this page since I couldn’t find the old ones. Also this new pack of pencils came with a 4H (they go higher than 2H?!), an F (what the heck is that?! “Fine”???), and an 8B (I hardly used my 6B!).
Also if you’ve forgotten how bad I am with action sequences, don’t worry you’re about to get a quick refresher… -.-
Long downtime aside, things have been coming along though. Still splitting my time between working on MitM and Eclectic Fidelity (which still isn’t a “thing” yet) and, you know, the rest of life. I could repeat myself about how I’m still trying to update MitM weekly or at least every other week, but I feel like that’s becoming a broken record.
Don’t have too much to say about today’s page itself, but I was pleased with the symmetrical panel layout. Last time I tried a really symmetrical page it felt kinda forced and poorly designed.
I blame the action lines from the edges of the middle large panel on the fact that I was reading manga this weekend. Honestly not sure if that’s how I would have inked that if my reading material had been different…
Also today’s “teaser image” (the small slightly edited thumbnail image I’ve been using on social media sites) features some alternate dialogue I almost used for the actual page. Check it out below.
