Hey look, another long awaited comic update! >.<

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…

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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… -.-

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Yay! First page of 2019!

…and it’s already February. Wow.

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.

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A BIG: ONE! SIX! ZERO!

Yup that’s the page number for today. Not exactly special or anything. Just was trying to think of something to start this commentary off with…

It really is beginning to look like MitM’s going to an “every other week update” schedule…

As mentioned last time, I do really try to finish one a week, but things just haven’t really turned out that way recently. On an even more depressing note, MitM barely updated this year! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! >.<

With only 11 page updates this year, the story has been crawling…literally. And as much as I’d love to post one next Sunday to have an even 12 and pretend I updated at least once a month, I know that probably won’t happen with holiday plans and the like…

Which reminds me, I should really consider doing a Christmas special illustration, like…really soon. For some reason, Xmas specials have been a staple of MitM since its first year, SO I CAN’T QUIT NOW! >:[

Oh! Probably should say something about the page. It’s funny. The two panels I was worried about the most (the first and eighth) actually turned out looking the best in my opinion. The top down perspective was hard to conceptualize for me and the slightly upward looking foreshortening was also giving me trouble for those two panels, but they turned out alright. The other panels though…not quite as good…

Several little inking mishaps just kinda made several of the panels too hard to read in my heavily critical opinion. And I kinda wish some of the expressions were handled differently… 🙁

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Huh, it’s been awhile since I’ve stayed up late to finish a comic page. It’s kinda nice  It’s gonna be a rough morning at work…

“A page every other Sunday” is kinda my bare-minimum goal for MitM at the moment, but I still do try to finish one each week ^^;

Used a more traditional thought bubble for Dayton’s solo panel on this page rather than the “see-through” stuff I was experimenting last page. I kinda like the other more, but I needed something more solid to separate Dayton’s face from the stone.

Speaking of which…I don’t really think I illustrated in the last chapter that Dayton hung on to the stone from Coy. I mean, I didn’t draw him putting it down and he was the last one holding it, but I also didn’t show him tie it to his suspender strap, sooooooo…yeah.

Hey look, Jon’s back! When I had Nic show up at the shop at the end of the last chapter I was a little surprised when no one commented that he didn’t look like the archer from the night before, the wolf that he’s supposed to be (although that may have been because no one realized he was a returning character, not a new guy). When Jon showed up, I wanted to make it a little more obvious, so I kept his guard helmet, shoulder armor, gloves, and boots. Part of my decision also stemmed from his goofy personality (and the fact that I have no idea what his hair looks like!)

I did a slight redesign to his helmet though, which I’ll probably keep for other guard helmets as well. I added a strap to the face guard and a small, subtle brim on the front. Small, boring details to my poor, inconsistent world building, but stuff I figured I’d mention…

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“Hey! I thought MitM was going back to weekly updates now that Inktober was over?!”

hehe…
yeah…that was the idea ^^;

Balancing the new project, MitM, and my real job has been proving…fun.

Anyways, I’m sorry, I feel like MitM’s story is at a really important point and I should make a stronger effort at keeping a consistent schedule. I’d like to keep this current story arc moving smoothly (which it hasn’t so far).

As for some good news, this being the first page since the break, I do feel like I actually learned some stuff from Inktober!

There was still a fair share of ink missteps that I tidied up in “post” on the computer, but I enjoyed experimenting with some new ideas as well. Not sure if I like how I handled the thought bubbles on the bottom half of the page, but I wanted to try something new and this idea seemed cool (in theory at least).

Also a second apology from me this update to match the TWO close-up, shocked facial expressions on the same page by two different characters >.< I needed both panels on this page for pacing out the next page, but dang, after rereading it, it feels excessive to have two on the same page... JUMP to page Page 158

Wow…only one MitM update in September (and on the last day of the month too…) 🙁

So while I didn’t get around to updating the comic much, I ended up doing a lot of other stuff (mostly not art related though). I got a new job (thank goodness), and moved to a new apartment (also equally important). So far these two new steps have been treating me well, which brings me to some news about MitM that I would like to share real quick…

1) MitM IS GOING ON BREAK.
Yeah, I know, it’s basically been on break already, but hear me out. I plan on trying my hand at Inktober for the first time and that will undoubtably take a lot of my time and effort. Because I have not been very consistent with my art recently, I figured attempting a challenge that would require me to be drawing on a daily basis would be a good step back to making MitM a weekly deal once again. Well at least once November rolls around…

2) WHEN MitM RETURNS, IT WILL UPDATE ON SUNDAYS
So the new job has a very consistent schedule, thus my weekends are always…well that…the weekend. I feel that moving weekly update day over to Sunday (instead of Thursday) will help me to have a goal for my weekends and hopefully result in a more regular update pattern.

and 3) …well that’s actually it.

So while this site may be fairly quiet in the next month, hopefully my profile on FA and Twitter will be really active. I might try to compile all the MitM related artwork as a single blog post here though once it’s over (because there definitely will be some) ^^;

Oh yeah, page commentary, right.

Sigh…I messed up a decent amount on this page. Had to edit some stuff in post (digitally basically). Add a word bubble, change another, do a lot of line cleanup, etc. Tried some new stuff too (like the bottom left panel) which came out kinda neat, but I’m not sure how I feel about the panel layout. The angled overlapping ones are kinda neat, but overall I left a lot of empty, blank space in the top right :\

Also it feels weird talking about the comic narrative when things get serious.

“O-oh n-no. Nic looks like – well he might – h-he’s got a h-hole now…in his gut…”
“…”
“…that’s a bummer.”

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