Another page accomplished! :3

Could Coy’s “crystal” hold any actual importance??? We will never know…
…well, until the next page comes along I suppose…or the next…or the next…or…

So I actually wasn’t impressed with my backgrounds on this page. Yeah, honestly I felt they were pretty bad, so I tried to use more texture in my pencil shading process to help things out.

I may have an unhealthy relationship with symmetrical page layouts. Last page was possibly the most symmetrical page I had made so far, and this one ain’t too far off either. I’m gonna have to do something really lopsided and asymmetrical before too long. Also for someone who likes to do different panel layouts, I sure seem to do the whole small-characters-panel-less panel on the bottom of the page a lot. Whether it’s the very first page, or only ten pages ago -.-;

JUMP to page >> Page 128

What would you have done in if you were in Dayton’s position??

Another great fun fact, the “raging bear” was originally supposed to make an appearance in the story. I previously mentioned that when I started MitM I almost began roughly at the beginning of this chapter. It would have introduced Dayton as a character on the way to go fix Coy’s door, but would diverge as Coy is introduced to the reader by being chased by a bear. It definitely would have been much more livelier than what Chapter 1 turned out as, but I decided to focus on some more world and character building. Honestly if I went back I’d probably write it like that to help prevent the boring information overload that I feel the chapter became.

Wow. There have been a few times that I’ve made mention about the symmetry of a page before, but this one probably takes the cake as the most symmetric for sure. Also since the last page had so many “panel-less” panels, there are none this time around! >:D

JUMP to page >> Page 127

Another week, another page 😛

This week’s page is (I feel) admittedly a little darker than most pages. Also used my first censored cuss word. That’s like junior high levels of edgy >:3

But seriously, I didn’t take long to just dash to pieces this pure, innocent image of this newly introduced young coyote boy. I mean, come on! He was literally just formally introduced on the previous page! Yeah, maybe you’re saying that Coy’s character has been tarnished in any way, but I’ve definitely placed him into a fairly unwelcome environment pretty quickly.

I really wanted to more firmly establish that there are races other than just the Red Wolves that are largely disliked. Sure, the distaste for Reds is much higher than Coyotes, but Coyotes aren’t exactly living the dream either. Also please bear with my idiotic idea of the term ‘yote. It’s something that I envisioned being slightly derogatory towards Coyotes, but now that I read it aloud it kinda just sounds stupid. Well, we’ll see if I ever use it again…

I could be wrong, but I think this is the page with the most “panel-less” panels. I normally don’t have more than one and occasionally two. While I was trying to think up something unique to do with these panels I had a very dull composition (that was extremely reminiscent of the recent page 124). Then I had the idea to just get rid of all the corner panels. I was left with the interesting “3” panel setup seen here. Well that’s just some useless ramblings from a comic creator though…

JUMP to page >> Page 126

I have returned! And a day early!! :O

I found the time to actually write the script for this page and roughly the next 5ish pages as well during my down time in the last two weeks. Since I had one of the more time consuming parts of making the page done, this page was finished quicker than I had expected. Well that and this page only had 6 panels so it flew by pretty quickly. Instead of waiting for tomorrow I decided to just go on and post it.

Sorry for teasing a character introduction on the last panel from the previous page. Waiting three weeks for a proper character intro ain’t terrible, but not exactly the best either ^^;

Also, HOLY CRAP! It only took 124 pages to finally show off the character talked about ON PAGE ONE >.< For a character whose name changed multiple times during development, his actual character design didn't change too- okay so it changed a good bit too. But Coy's hat and missing tail were decided upon fairly early on. Yes, I'm straight up mentioning that he has a bobbed tail just in case someone is wondering why it's not there. "Did you forget to draw his tail?!?!" No, although that wouldn't be the first time that has happened in this comic. I very deliberately have the back shot in the fourth panel to help clarify. More fun "behind the idea" stuff. Coy was originally written to be a little older. Not by much, but Coy would have been a little younger than what Dayton is in the comic, basically a young teen. At this stage in the writing Dayton was still gonna be a young adult (somewhere in the 20s) and Janice was actually gonna be his younger sibling. When I made Dayton closer to my age when I started the comic because I thought it might help me with writing his character, I also pushed Coy back a few years to keep the age gap between him and Dayton. So instead of a young adult and young teen, it became an older teen and a young kid. That doesn't really benefit you as the reader of MitM, but now you know 😛 JUMP to page >> Page 125

CHANCE! or…er…Coy! or Charlie…or…you get it…
(Which reminds me I need to add him to the “Cast” page)

So, update on my end. I’m gonna be like super busy for the next few weeks (and not exactly have access to my scanner), so I will probably not post a page for the next two weeks. I will still try to draw a page or two in my free time, but no promises.

Anyways, hope you enjoy this page at least. Bye for now. Hope to be back as soon as possible ^^

JUMP to page >> Page 124

Alright! 1! 2! 3! Go!
(It’s gonna be a long time before the page number lines up so perfectly…)

Wow. Not much here. Just five panels.

B-But there’s some really cool trees! :3

Despite its slow pacing and not progressing the story, I felt this page was still important for at least a scene change if not also a little more insight into Dayton’s character.

JUMP to page >> Page 123

Phew. I did it. I wrapped up Sam and Janice’s talk in only three pages. O.O

Sigh…I just had to goof up Sam’s expression in the fourth panel though. No amount of post-editing could save it…

These last two pages have been drawn slightly different, from a process point of view at least. Normally I draw the boxes/panels, illustrate them, and then place text balloons over the drawings. These last two pages though I’ve drawn the word bubbles right after the paneling to help better place the illustrations and not have to worry about cramming the words in a more restricted space.

Not a particularly exciting “page commentary” today, but didn’t really have much to say about it, so I filled this time with boring behind-the-scenes info 😛

JUMP to page >> Page 122

HOLY DIALOGUE BATMAN!

Maybe it’s just me, but this page seemed like it had a lot of dialogue while I was drawing it. Part of this page’s lengthy dialogue is me still trying to test out my conversation skills between characters and trying to capture the odd quirks that occur in a casual exchange of words. Also I was surprised by how much I wanted to get said between Janice and Sam in this scene…

Fun side story, Charlie was the original name I had chosen for…uh…we’ll call him Coy for ease. Anyways during the preparation for this comic Coy’s name changed a ridiculous amount of times. Eventually I came up with this stupid idea to weave it into his character. 😛

Also since I’m in Pacific time, I’m just barely getting this update online on Thursday. Success!!

JUMP to page >> Page 121

Ugh. I think I tried to say too much with this page…

I worked on several different scripts for how the dialogue would proceed on this page, and I had issues with each version. While I’m mostly content with this one, I still wish I left out the last line on this page. I feel like I should have just ended it with, “Uh, yeah…”

On a more positive note, I’m feeling more confident in my inking. Also if you honestly thought the inside of the carpentry would look just like it did 4 years ago on Page 1, you would be sorely mistaken 😛 My backgrounds have come a long way…

JUMP to page >> Page 120

SAM!!!

Haven’t seen this guy in like………4 years…

After starring in the first six pages, I knew he had to go. He was just too “A-list” material and he was bound to steal the show. Well…that or I just spent 113 pages getting back to where Page 6 left off… ^^;

Also I don’t care if it’s only been one day in the story, Sam had to look different. It’s been four years for goodness’s sake, my style’s changed a lot, and there was no way I was gonna draw him the same way as I used to.

I hadn’t drawn a full-bleed, full-page panel since Page 86 (although I came close to doing so a few times since then), but I really wanted to give it another shot. It may not be as impressive or interesting as 86, but I feel that it’s more successful. Page 86, while I’m still fairly proud of it, gets (extremely) complex and hard to see what’s happening especially on the last four panels that also have backgrounds which get meshed with the background they’re already on top of. I tried to minimize the amount of backgrounds on this page, apart from panel 1 and 3 that are important for setting the scene, but even these are located on the top half against the less complex ceiling. This combined with a little more contrast between the dark darks and light lights. It’s still by no means a masterpiece, but I hope that it’s a step in the right direction ^^

JUMP to page >> Page 119