I’m back (again)!

Did I say I’d only be gone for a week? Silly me, I totally meant two weeks ^^;

…Alright, you caught me. I wanted to update last week, but I was really stumped with what I wanted to do with this page for forever. Eventually I changed some major things at the last second (I even wrote a new word bubble to photoshop in over an old one because I changed a line that late in the page’s process). Well, we got here, and now I need to go worry about writing the next page >.< As usual, some of the inking could use some work. The page is a little odd (in my opinion) with how much of a focus is spent on faces, almost giving the page a "crowded" quality that some of my other pages don't have to worry about. I spent a good amount of time lining up and placing the word bubbles. I wanted quite a bit of important conversation on the page and several different character expressions, so I tried to make sure the reading flowed better than usual. The are a couple of MitM's previous pages that really bother me with how unintuitive they are to read. It's definitely an issue I run into with my work, so I want to work on fixing it 😀 Hmm...should I go into what changed at the last second about the script? I'd like to, but at the moment I'm afraid it could spoil a few things, so I'll hold off for a bit. I'll talk about it by the end of the chapter, that is if I don't forget, so remind me if you really want to know 😛 JUMP to page Page 147

Well…

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it? Somewhere around seven weeks actually -.-;

Sorry everyone. October was crazy busy for work and travel, and on top of everything I was (still are) getting ready for my first art dealer table at a convention. That convention is next weekend, beginning the day after Thanksgiving. So…while I’m finally back with a new MitM page, there’s a pretty high likelihood that there won’t be another page next week 🙁

But I at least wanted to get one done this week since I had a little extra time available. This page has actually been sketched out in my sketchbook since before I started my break. I almost had enough time to draw it back then, but I would’ve really had to be pushing it, and – if you can’t tell from reading the page yourself – it was kind of a cliffhanger that I would’ve felt guilty about leaving everyone on for over a month.

That said, it’s kinda noticeable with this page that I’ve had a long break. It looks terrible! The ink job is definitely below par, some of the characters aren’t well defined, and oh gosh, the last panel’s perspective is one of my biggest perspective goofs in a long time…

Anyways, the comic is (hopefully) about to get really interesting (because, you know, it hasn’t been so far :P). What’s got Sam on edge? What’s Nic after? Who is Nic exactly? (Since I haven’t explained that very well…) And who’s at the door? So many questions! Find out next time!! Hopefully in the near future!!!

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What’s this?! A Friday update?!?! Why didn’t anyone tell me I missed Thursday?!?!?! >.< But seriously, I just had a bad case of writer's block earlier this week when I was writing this page, and then Wednesday came along, and I didn't have anything ready, and I was too lazy to do any work on the comic, etc., etc.. So I did it all late last night! ^^; In the end, even after putting it off and all, it was a pretty fun page. I really liked how I mirrored the three Dayton panels with the three Ray panels. And yes, I realize that this is the THIRD page in a row that I used a long, background panel for the middle of the page. I promise I'll try to mix things up next week... Hey would ya look at that. Coy is back! 😀 (And only a split second too late...) JUMP to page Page 145

So, if you’ve visited the MitM home page anytime since 3:00 AM (mountain time), you may have noticed the newest page has already been up for awhile. I finished it (obviously) very late last night and was just too tired to write the page commentary at that time, so I just now got around to writing it ^^;

You know, apart from the book title (which doesn’t follow the correct perspective very well), I’m pretty happy with how this page came out. There’s not really a lot of inking mistakes and I like how the backgrounds and panels worked on this one.

Hmm…so we get to hear a little more info on Ray’s backstory. If I was to take a step back and try to critique my own work, I’m not so sure about Ray’s role (or how I’ve handled him as a character even). Since a majority of the major plot elements were initially jotted down by my high school self, there’s a nice variety of stuff that doesn’t feel very…good. Some things drastically changed over the years like the bandits, who were created on the spot at the beginning of chapter 2, or the fact that Joel (the character that chapter 4 revolved around) was not designed to be blind, but instead handicapped in different way…

When I originally came up with the character Ray, I wanted him to be a writer, thus providing the inspiration for Janice to pursue the same field. He also was going to be at odds with Dayton to provide…drama! But seriously, I felt he was important to the story and included him. However, so far I feel like I haven’t effectively used him as a character, or at least his “page time”. I was mostly pleased with how Chapter 3 panned out, but I cut it shorter than I had originally anticipated to have the “bandits ending” scene. Chapter 5 didn’t have a lot of room for him honestly, and I wasn’t even planning on having him in this chapter at the time of starting this chapter.

Basically I’m not so sure anymore if he really adds to the story yet. I don’t know, maybe I’m just crazy… -.-

I really shouldn’t stress this much over him though. After all, there are sooooooo many “well written” characters in the rest of the comic, what’s only one poorly written character? xD

JUMP to page Page 144

Finished this page late, late, late last night, but was just too tired to upload it then ^^;

YAY! Got to try out some new stuff on this page. I really like how the first panel came out with the silhouettes of the bandits. I also love how calm the bottom left panel with Ray is, and I was happy with how I kept the background simple. The fourth panel’s simplicity almost comes off as lazy though… -.-

I was pleased with how the small inkings of the coyotes came out and I was fairly confident that they would be hard to read if there was a background. So instead of simplifying the background I was like, “Screw it! Just get rid of the background!” I’m still not convinced it was the best decision, but at least I was able to experiment with a new idea 😀

Oh! And this is my first “meanwhile” blurb. I’ve definitely cut away for “meanwhile’s” before in the comic, but I’ve always tried to stay away from narration-esque, worded statements like “later that same night”, “elsewhere”, and the like. It’s not that I dislike that stuff, I’ve just never really used it (kinda like how my thought bubbles are used fairly sparingly, and I even question those when I do them…). Anyways, thought I could do “meanwhile” slightly different instead of just within a word box, so I came up with stretching it across the page between panels (almost more like a big sound effect).

Fun side note: I just realized that I didn’t draw sound effects for Dayton running. In my thumbnail rough sketch of the page I drew that panel with the “TMP” sound effect multiple times. I’m content with them not being there, but I should practice my onomatopoeia a little more often than I currently do.

JUMP to page Page 143

Well I took my personal challenge from last page seriously. This page is FIVE panels tall! :O

If you haven’t noticed yet, since page 140 I’ve been testing the waters with some silly comic panel teases that get posted to the social media sites (Facebook & Twitter). Go check ’em out if you don’t follow MitM on social media as much.

Hey, question for all you guys. Should I only shade with ink the characters? not the backgrounds?

For a good comparison look at all my recent pages from this chapter. The only heavy inking is only on the main characters. Background elements (including background, crowd characters) are only simple outlines with some pencil shading. They don’t have the dark inking. However, if you look through some of last chapter (when I was originally testing the waters with this style) I shaded some background elements. Both Pages 117 and 119 shade both backgrounds and background characters.

Do you have a preference?

JUMP to page Page 142

I present to you, yet another inking catastrophe! Tada!! 😀
(And a day early!!!)

Yeah, I’m less then thrilled with how the inking came out on this page…
(Mostly the two close up panels of Mr. Connors. Drake and Mel get a little muddy…)

Apart from the inking missteps, it’s an alright page I suppose. For those very few followers of MitM that are actually keeping track of the multiple random ways I’ve been laying out my panels per-page, you might have noticed that I don’t normally stack four panels vertically. I’ve definitely done it before (actually, looking back I did it almost all the time in Chapter 2 and even quite a lot in Chapter 4), but my point is that recently I’ve normally stuck to 3 panels tall on average. I need to make sure not to fall back on the three panel tall layouts all the time ^^;

And yes, I’m sure everyone is terribly fascinated by this subject 😛

JUMP to page Page 141

Alright, I’m gonna try something different.

If y’all didn’t know, I post an update to my Twitter and the MitM Facebook page whenever MitM updates. On Twitter I normally post an image of the current page and a link to here, and on Facebook just a link to here. Recently Facebook has been really frustrating getting the link setup correctly with a preview image and all. I’m gonna try cropping out and editing a part of the page to only display in those places. Hopefully it’ll encourage people to come to this site to view the full page.

So how about today’s page? Well I wouldn’t blame you if you complain about the lack of backgrounds (apart from the first panel). I thought about adding it in the middle panel with Mel and Levi, but decided it wouldn’t really help much. The big one though, is the last two where I basically left them in an “unfinished” state. I really liked how ridiculous they were without the rest of the background, so…well…I left ’em like that. That’s about it…

Also I finally decided to squeeze my fursona into a background panel for once. Although it’s not terribly subtle…

JUMP to page Page 140

Instead of dwelling on how this week’s page is once again a day late, let’s just focus on this cool page ^^;

So…this page sure doesn’t have many panels! Ain’t that interesting!!

…

…don’t honestly have much else to say :\

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Yay! Ryke is back! Well…not yet, but at least he was mentioned.

I actually debated with myself all the way up until drawing this page this week whether or not I should keep Ryke. Er…what I mean by that is whether or not he would stay in the chapter. I very seriously considered just having him give the bandits a map or directions to the carpentry and then saying “toodles!” But after thinking it over I decided that I could use him effectively in this chapter.

Let’s dive into the art of this page, cause I actually have some stuff to say about that.

First off, my bad on the top two panels. I didn’t realize I was shading on a textured surface till those were finished, so they have some weird subtle texture to them. ^^;
Also in the top right panel, Ryke’s eyes (in my opinion) came out terrible! D:< I almost inked over them, but was afraid it would just look sloppy... The two other Ryke panels, I like. I think they have some fun detail and an easily distinguishable character. And then that leaves us with the other two... I'm gonna go ahead and say it up front: I really like both! HOWEVER! I think the bottom one does a better job of separating the characters from each other and the background. I feel that one of the differences between the two panels is that the top one has about the same amount of small details on the characters and the background, while the bottom one has less small details on the characters (mostly because they are closer) and more details in the background. I tend to get pretty line heavy in my background details, so I hope to counteract this by drawing less small details on characters in front of detailed backgrounds. Maybe that'll fix it (or maybe it won't!) xD On the whole page, I really tried to build the backgrounds around the characters. Some lines halt before touching the characters or just help accent the character. I really like this idea (even if I didn’t pull it off very well on this page), but I hope to make backgrounds more like that in the future.

JUMP to page Page 138