#i do hope you all will like it. this is actually my first webcomic

[gacha-incels]

do you have a post debunking the tsunul video about projmoon? i claimed projmoon is misogynistic and people keep linking the video 🙄 iirc you debunked it before but u know how the tumblr search function is

yeah sorry I was in the hospital for a bit unexpectedly and I’m just trying to recover from this stupid fucking illness flare up thats kicking my ass 😭✌️so I haven’t posted in a while and I’ll probably remain offline for a bit after this check in. I don’t do this like tit for tat debunking where I watch these “fandom” videos, so personally I think the best way is for you to be presented with the straight facts of what happened, then what’s going on with South Korean society, how this all affects one another , etc, and with this knowledge you can then formulate your own arguments because you’ll actually understand what you’re saying.instead of just repeating it. Like you get what I mean? I think this works pretty well… When someone sends u a video as a response, you never really know if they understand what they’re sending or if they just see it as an “I win” or a “now I can keep playing my gacha guilt free” button lol. uh my basic post regarding PM fans making these videos or linking to them, I wrote it here

Reply from when he for some reason mentioned my blog and misrepresented it (unfortunately and weirdly would not be the first time for some reason, I did not know this person existed before people told me about him here? lol)

Twitter user citrussalt’s replies to him & her translation of the IT Union chairman’s tweets regarding the real meaning of unfair dismissal. This I believe is one of the most important aspects to the case, and one that, if you’re simply looking at this situation to exonerate PM, you will completely blind yourself to the country’s systemic misogyny and how it relates to the case so that you can simply say “it was ruled that this was not an unfair dismissal”

I posted something similar here

and responded to the overblown claims regarding the kgcs here

Post with some of the earliest article links of the event in korean

PM pressing criminal charges against various unions/labor activists have been dismissed. they never pressed any against the incels that accosted them I guess! lol

Mimi (Wonderlab) taking her webcomic down and no longer wishing to be associated with project moon. She has faced mass harassment by both western and eastern fans, and has said she has more grievances with PM she has not mentioned.

Monggeu reveals PM told her to not make her work (Leviathan) “Too PC”

Project Moon references DCinside jokes

Continued with Ilbe jokes

monggeu (Leviathan) extremely poor treatment working at Project moon

if you’re talking to someone who only understands this style of arguing I mean one of their VAs had misogynistic social media posts but he was not subject to scrutiny and firing like vellmori was for hers

Newer: SK limbus fans ideologically verify, stalk, and bring one girl to a suicide attempt because they only want “pure” fans returning to the game, not anyone who questioned PM or KJH’s leadership

I think those are all the basics, I hope it can be helpful, if you are looking for any other post in particular lmk!

[nekropsii]

Woof, I really haven't been posting lately, apologies everyone!

I've been hard at work on scripting for Sovereignstuck lately. A lot has been getting done recently with regards to the project. I can only assume some of y'all guessed that already considering I dropped off the face of the earth pretty soon after the T-Minus 100 Days Showcase. Well over 100+ pages have been written into their final drafts, and I'm still working hard. I haven't had much time/energy to blog with all that on my plate- it takes a lot of time and energy to write, especially considering the approach I'm taking to it!! Thank you all for your patience. I do hope you all enjoy the final product once it begins to release on 9/19.

As a general life update though, my tablet recently broke. F in chat for a real one, I've had that thing for years. Luckily, I was able to acquire a new one a few days ago, and while it is undoubtedly better than the last one, adjusting to it is quite difficult... Once again, I had the previous one for several years, and autism hates changes like that, lol.

I'll continue posting sporadically, but I cannot promise absolute consistency. I'll try and continue giving updates like this, though!!

Thanks to all who read this, and I'll see you again soon!

[deoidesign]

How I save time on backgrounds as a full-time webcomic artist

Hi! I make webcomics for a living, and I have to be able to draw a panel extremely fast to keep up with my deadlines. I draw about 50 panels a week, which gives me about 45 minutes per panel if I want any semblance of a healthy work-life balance.

Most webtoon artists save time on backgrounds by using 3d models, which works for them and is great! but personally I hate working in 3d... I went to school for it for a year and hated it so much I completely changed career paths and vowed never to do it again! So, this is how I save time without using any 3d, for those of you out there who don't like it either!

This tactic has also saved me money (3d models are expensive) and it has helped me converting my comic from scroll format into page format for print, because I have much more art to work with than what's actually in the panels. (I'll touch on this later)

So, first, I make my backgrounds huge. my default starting size is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels. My panels are 2,500 pixels wide, so my backgrounds are 4x that, minimum. Because of this, I make them less detailed than I could or that you might expect so it doesn't look weird against my character art when I shrink portions of it down.

I personally find it much easier to add in detail than to make "removing" details look natural at smaller sizes, but you might have different preferences than I do.

I also make sure to keep all of my elements on separate layers so that I can easily remove or replace them, I can move them to simulate different camera angles more easily, and it's simple to adjust the lighting to imply different times of day.

Then I can go ahead and copy/paste them into my episodes. I move the background around until it feels like it's properly fitting how I want.

Once I've done that in every panel, I'll go back through the episode and clean up anything that looks weird, and add in solid blacks (for my art style) Here's a quick before and after of what that looks like!

This makes 90% of my backgrounds take me just a few hours. This is my tactic when I'm working in an environment that an entire scene, or multiple scenes, will take place.

But many panels will inevitably have a location that's used exactly once, and it would waste time and effort to draw a massive background for those. So in 10% of cases, I just draw the single panel background in the episode. I save all of these, just in case I can re-use it later (this happens more often with outdoor locations, but I save them all nonetheless!)

I generally have to draw about 2 big backgrounds per episode, and 3-5 single-panel backgrounds per episode! At the beginning of an arc/book the number is higher, but as the series is continuing and I'm building up an asset library of indoor and outdoor elements to re-use for the book, the number generally goes down and I save more time.

My series involves time travel and mysteries, so there's a lot of new locations in it and we're constantly moving around. If I were working on a series that was more consistent in this aspect, this process would save me even more time!

Like I said earlier, this also saves me a lot of pain and gives me a lot more options as I'm converting from scroll format to print format!

panels that look like this in scroll format...

can look like this in print!

because I drew the background like this, so I didn't need to go through the additional effort to add in the extra detail to expand it outwards at all.

Anyways, I hope this helps someone! As always if it doesn't help, just go ahead and disregard. This is what I do and what works for me, and I feel like I only ever see time-saving tips for comics that involve 3d models and workflows, which don't work for me at all! I know there's more people like me out there, so this is for you!

Enjoy!

Also obligatory "my webcomic" if you want to see this in action or check it out!

[comicaurora]

Just a quick question as someone who is well-meaning but just a little confused about the kindle thing:

is it just the filesize of the pages that's the problem w/ downloading? I'm not sure what the difference between dl-ing up front or while reading would be from a hosting perspective. (unless ppl are actually wanting every page at once instead of like a few chapters' worth)

Sorry if all this is annoying, I'm just trying to better understand the problem. I don't mean to bother, so if it's not something you want to talk abt, then that's completely fair.

I guess the thing I keep snagging on is that it's not at all what I intended for the comic and it's not what the site is optimized for. My site follows an extremely normal webcomic format, the tumblr mirror has multiple pages in each post if people need improved loadtimes, and I'm getting kind of thrown that people are suddenly asking for it to be in a completely different offline format? A webcomic has "web" right in the name. It doesn't work that way, it hasn't worked that way the entire time the comic has existed, and frankly, while the intent was definitely not malicious, being asked "hey I'm having a lot of trouble pirating your work, you should make it easier for me" feels Weird And Bad for reasons I would assume are self-evident.

From my side of things, I'm hoping to get Aurora physically published in the future, and physical publication these days usually also goes hand in hand with an ebook release. Publishers already need convincing why they should physically publish something that exists for free online. If I jerry-rigged a downloadable ebook version myself, why would a publisher go to the effort to do it for me? It'd be like self-publishing the book first and then asking them to pay to do it all over again. I would very much like to not fuck up the publishing thing and that means I'm not touching anything a publisher would want to do.

Aurora is entirely free. It has no affiliated patreon, and after a brief run and some laughably poor policy management from google's ad plugin, the site no longer has any ads. I'm not saying this to guilt anyone - just to contextualize why, after finally completing the work of four and a half years of my life that I shared 100% freely with the world for the sheer love of creation and the profound joy it gave me to see people fall in love with this story I care so deeply about, why it sucks that people immediately, not even 24 hours after the final page of arc 1 goes up, start complaining that it doesn't exist in a nice little bundle on all platforms on and offline.

I promise it's not a big deal, but it's not a pleasant experience either.

[genericpuff]

You probably don't want to talk about 'Kaos' anymore so you don't need to respond to this, I just want to tell my thoughts

At first I thought that "Hades and Persephone love each other", "Demeter is a helicopter mom" and the famous "Hades is misunderstood and the least bad of his brothers" 🙄 good thing I was too shy to say those thoughts on the internet

Ironically, thanks to "Lore Olympus" I realized the altered perception that almost everyone has about this couple and poor Demeter (now she is my favorite goddess ♥️). The clearest example is that pretentious webcomic.

When I saw the HxP version of 'Kaos'... I liked it

I feel like it's because I don't really see them as Hades and Persephone, I just see an old couple who genuinely love, respect and support each other and not a bastardization that only exists to fulfill a twisted fantasy (*Cough* LO *cough*)

I've only seen up to the beginning of chapter 6, but so far I like this version of Hades, he's not a hypocrite who feels superior to Zeus, he genuinely cares about his family, he doesn't want Zeus' pride to destroy it and tries to warn him and that went very wrong 😞

Well, that's all I wanted to say, bye 👋

I actually don't mind talking about Kaos at all, it was a great watch!!!

I was a little sigh when Persephone was like "ACTUALLY I went down WILLINGLY" but I'm glad at least that so far that it was more so just a brief, inconsequential mention and nothing that seemed to imply toxicity between her and Demeter. That said, there's still clearly meant to be a second season (whether it gets renewed is a whole other issue) so I'm reeeeallly hoping it doesn't go "haha psych!" and pull the rug out from under me with Demeter slander, but we'll see.

Again, thankfully it wasn't too major of an inclusion that it doesn't ruin the overall presentation of H x P in the show, the casting is genius (I hadn't even realized at first the actor portraying Hades was David Thewlis until my husband pointed it out and that made me love him even more hahaha) and the dynamic between Persephone and Hades is very fun as they're both clearly on the same playing field in terms of age and life experience, Persephone never seems like she's just an accessory to Hades and if anything it's Persephone who's often having to run the show (but it doesn't ever put Hades down either, he's just overworked and tired and his wife is trying to make him do self-care aahah)

And yeah, I mentioned this in a previous unrelated ask but I really feel like there's too much focus around teenagers / young couples / May-December couples (i.e. "old guy x young girl") in a lot of romance these days so seeing Kaos' depiction of H x P as a middle-aged couple who are clearly in love but also have a lot of burdens between themselves and their responsibilities was very refreshing and needed. I know a lot of romances are centered around younger couples because then they can play on the whole dramatic, "whirlwind romance" trope, but people older than 40 can have great romance stories too! And frankly considering how many romances are centered around the "first love" couples who are just constantly making out / flirting / having sex / etc., it's weirdly fun to watch a couple who are clearly past that puppy love stage and are now just working together as a unit the way experienced couples would. The love has moved past the short-term excitement of kissing and sex and moved into the long-term strength of simply committing yourself to another person and tackling life's problems together.

That's not to say that young couples can't be depicted in that way, either, but again, a lot of it often gets thrown to the wayside in favor of the more "exciting" stuff like the "will they won't they" trope and the love triangles and moments of "firsts". Ironically, those moments of "firsts" aren't so special when every romantic couple in media is having them 💀😆

Sooo yeah! Hades and Persephone in Kaos are very fun and endearing to watch, they genuinely feel like two people committed to both each other and their responsibilities as rulers of the Underworld and it shows in both their actions and how they behave together while standing against Zeus. I really hope that it gets a second season, and that whatever is contained within doesn't fall into the same "Demeter was the villain" shtick. I don't see what's so difficult about having Persephone choose to go to the Underworld without it being at the expense of her mother, it's wild how so many stories can't seem to play to both sides of the myths.

[beekeeperspicnic]

Hi, I was just wondering if you had any tips for people scared of embarking on a long and time consuming project like game development. Seeing your progress is really inspiring and it got me thinking.. how do you deal with it all without feeling overwhelmed? (Perhaps you have a stronger mind and will than I do and the answer is that simple lol but I still wanted to ask)

Btw I'm absolutely loving the game so far and I cannot wait to play the whole thing! 💕

Oooh thank you very much, I'm pleased you're looking forwards to the game and this is a really good question!

I feel like I actually really struggle with feeling overwhelmed by projects. I have friends who have been creating the same webcomic for five, ten, fifteen years, and I find the idea of committing to that so scary! I naturally seem to latch onto a new thing every few years.

For that reason, I tend to flit between creative projects that I can finish in a year or two.

So my advice is:

Start with a project small enough that it doesn't feel overwhelming. Small things are great! Short comics, short games, short interactive experiences! And sometimes they can build up into something bigger - I made lots of short comics over five years or so, and over time I had enough to collect into a book!

If you want to do a longer project, it's great if you can plan points at which you can pull an escape cord and say "I'm done with this now" but still have a completed product of some kind. With The Beekeeper's Picnic, first I made a "proof of concept" demo which was just testing the idea of having a character walking around Holmes' cottage and garden. If I'd wanted, I could have left things there, and I'd have still had a little thing to show off that people could have enjoyed playing. Or, I could have developed things from there into a much much shorter game if I felt I was losing interest. Similarly with comics, I've sometimes made them episodic so that I knew I could wrap them up neatly.

I hope that helps!

[seeminglydark]

Hi your OCs are cute and you should be very proud of them! I would love to know more about them, feel free to gush about them in my general direction

HELLO and thank you! I really appreciate that! I will gush about them just a little bit cuz of course I'm always happy to get the opportunity too. First off, they are both from my webcomics, Seemingly Dark (side characters) and Mil-liminal (main protags) for those who may want to actual story! both comics are supernatural/horror with a healthy dose of dysfunctional romance, and both are free on webtoon or tapas!

They are childhood nextdoor neighbors (and of course sweet on eachother!) The blond cheerleader character is Caroline Greensboro aka Angel, pre-transition, and the punk is Jonathan 'Sully' O'Sullivan aka Hurricane Sully or Ponyboy, my ocs have a million names just like me. Carrie is the one who is ACTUALLY trouble, a little menace, and Sully spends a lot of his time trying to fix whatever messes they get into. Sully is gay, but Carrie comes out as transmasc to him at prom after they take on a giant blob monster, and after that he does his best to support them even though they can't actually be out. And of course, they start to date just before tragedy strikes, and they get separated for quite a few years.

Carrie gets a job at the local gasstation as the overnight attendant, and transitions once they can, now using the name Caro Greene and they/them pronouns. They create a podcast called Mil-Liminal about all the weird things that happen on the midnight shift, monsters and spookies galore (you can listen to it! Just search for Mil-Liminal where ever you listen to podcasts.) They become world famous after their podcast goes viral. They are still an absolute menace.

Sully goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit, gets out, is homeless for a bit until he catches a break and a job at a tiny coffee shop in a small middle of nowhere town. He starts going by John, and is grumpy and disconnected from most, except for his beloved cat he rescued from a dumpster.

One fateful day Caro bursts into the coffee shop on their way to solve a mystery, and the rest is history. I'd tell you but it would be too spoilery if you choose to read the stories haha! They do smooch a lot though.

info on the characters in the current timeline in Mil-Liminal : Caro Greene is 25 years old, 4'9 (147) nonbinary transmasc, (they/them pronouns)

johnny O'Sullivan is 24 years old, 5'11 (181cm) GNC masc he/him pronouns, asexual, blind in one eye from a childhood accident

anyway thank you for letting me, i love them with my whole heart and i hope other people do to!

heres a little round up of all the mini comics ive posted of them here on tumblr!

[wishjacked]

Happy #WebcomicDay!! :D

This year we're celebrating the process of making pages... so below the cut I've got a bunch of pictures sharing how I go about making pages of my evil post-apocalyptic workplace sitcom, Cargo!! :D

So! My process!!

Writing-> I think sometimes there's pressure to "write" your comic a certain way, I see people talking about script format and stuff a lot. That really doesn't work for me, though! I write my "first draft" script in short scenes on scrap paper, in whatever order they come to me. Sometimes a scene will just be one or two lines, and then a little description of what I want to happen in the rest of the scene.

Later I type the scene up, and write the "connective tissue" that fits between the disjointed scenes so they all flow together like they ought. I don't do page breaks or even character tag or action notes hahahaha I like it to be as BASIC as POSSIBLE so it's easy to edit. And since I'm the person drawing it I can almost always remember who's supposed to be saying what lmao

I edit a lot, but the most major editing is also probably the last bit... when I letter my pages usually I realize "they would never say that" and so I end up rephrasing everything. My art brain is sometimes waaaaay better at phrasing hahaha. Like you can see in the finished page for this script I rewrote like basically all of it, and actually went back to the original "sketch" script in a lot of places.

Thumbnailing-> my thumbs are really big, I draw them with markers on printer paper and keep them in a binder!! I like to thumb scenes in batches and I also usually write my dialogue on them, just so I can read through them before (and while) I draw to get a feel for how the pacing works. :)

Sketching-> OH sketching is also really hard for me! I don't have a good visual imagination so it's really important for me to make sure I have good references. Last year I was especially focusing on setting.

My comic is set in Florida. I'm lucky in that I used to live there and still go back to visit sometimes, so sometimes I can gather my own reference images! But more often I start on Google Maps or Zillow, trying to find buildings that have interesting features or the right kind of "look" for what I want. I'll also look up other interesting elements, my comic is set in a post-apocalypse and I'll research home gardening and things like that which people would probably have.

For example, in this set in chapter 7, I used Google Maps images, photo references of indoor hydroponic gardening, and like, 90's-00's hacker computer setups haha. Also my BFF Roomstyler.com, where you can make 3d house interiors haha!!

Lineart-> I LOVE lineart it is my favorite!!!! I sketch and ink two pages at a time, and it usually takes somewhere between 10-12 hours to do both steps.

I actually think my art looks best when it's just lineart... but I think my STORY is better with color, like it makes it clearer and easier to read and it has a better atmosphere HAHA.

Colors-> I think it usually takes me 4-6 hours to do 2 pages (I haven't timed myself as consistently as I time my lineart and sketching). I have a big file with small copies of my previous pages that I color drop from, and my characters are all flats only. The limited palette that I use is also really handy, it streamlines coloring a LOT.

Finishing Touches-> aka I steal mercilessly from my one true love, my internet home, the beautiful and blessed Wikimedia Commons

I put lots of overlay layers on my art! I like textures so having some strange little textures or pictures on things makes my art feel a lot more finished to me.

And finally my very most favorite ✨finishing touch✨ is the bright colored/patterned gutters that I use. Here are some of my favorites that I've made and used in the past!

And that's all!! I hope you guys have a very happy Webcomics Day and find lots and lots of wonderful new things to read!!!

[homestuckreplay]

To be fair, you have to have a very high wisdom to understand Colonel Sassacre. The mischief is extremely nuanced, and without a solid grasp of mangrit and maturity most of the pranks will go over the typical reader’s head.

(page 759)

If I was making a webcomic, I’d probably take a well deserved few days off between story acts, but not so in Homestuck. We’re back, and kind of, sort of, unofficially, maybe, in Act 3?

For Act3posting, I’m gonna do a couple things.

- Hard cap reaction posts at 500 words. Time to get economical.

- End reaction posts with a command suggestion. I can’t access the actual suggestion box, so can’t influence the story directly, but I still have ideas I’d like to share.

Starting now.

So, there’s a message from Nanna in the front of Colonel Sassacre’s – and not just any message. I’d call this a prophecy. This is real fantasy novel territory, with battles and royalty and chosen ones and protagonists with cool dramatic titles and wise old spiritual guides who know far more than they should. I eat this stuff up even when it’s cliché. I wonder if the story within Sburb and the story outside of Sburb could be totally different genres.

Nanna says this book’s ‘journey will end on the Final Day of [her] life’, with Final Day underlined, so we know it’s plot important. This means she wrote this some time ago, already knowing about John’s future. Signing up to be a Sburb beta tester because it’s the Game of the Year no longer feels like a happenstance. This is cosmically fated somehow, which… is a little sad, because it takes away some of John and Rose’s success from them, if they didn’t get to this point in the game through skill but through destiny. I’m gonna have to get used to that concept, and start thinking through how free will can be exercised in a story that plays with time this way.

These titles are SO cool. ‘...the Heir of Breath and Seer of Light, the Knight of Time and Witch of Space…’ these fuck so hard. I want one. These probably correspond to John, Rose, Dave, and their secret fourth player Todd from Missouri, maybe in the same order we meet the characters, although maybe there will be a surprise shakearound. After all, Rose seems way more associated with darkness than light, and ‘Witch of Space’ feels like it’d fit her way better than ‘Seer of Light’. And no way does Dave have the earnestness and devotion necessary to be a good knight – John, on the other hand, could rise to that challenge.

Nanna’s ‘P.S. HOO HOO HOO!’ could indicate that she knew all along that she would become Nannasprite, and perhaps knew that she wouldn’t be able to deliver this message directly in sprite form, as it would be game spoilers. Or it could be that she always liked to say hoo hoo hoo, carrying the spirit of the harlequin even without being prototyped with the doll. Personally, I hope both are true.

According to the Adventure Map, Act 3 is called ‘Insane Corkscrew Haymakers’. This is really different from the first two act titles, which are both very literary sounding, have musical allusions, and indicate a setup and inciting incident of a story, respectively. A haymaker is either ‘a powerful blow with the fist’ or ‘a machine for curing hay in rainy weather’, and this is not a farm story, so my guess is the punch. Act 1’s title related to John and Act 2’s to Rose, so this should be Dave’s, especially as his narrative is often treated less seriously. Perhaps these insane corkscrew haymakers happen during his rooftop battle with his bro?

> John: Find a prank to play on Nannasprite.

[thedumestflower]

okay so, like a year or two ago i made a really bad rant about the boyfriends webtoon and i fucking hate it, its written in bad taste and i was way to incoherent but i do wanna say this:

the boyfriends webtoon shouldn't have gotten the amount of hate it did, the creator shouldn't of been harassed or anything like that, alot of people hated it because it was gay, and alot of people hated it because how it showed gay people, but its just a cutesy and fluffy and overall harmless little comic about gay people. And you cant fault it for that, i can however, talk about my very subjective and influenced view of how is overall kind of mid as a story.

The characters feel very weak and not very realistic or intriguing to me. The creator gave them real problems and issues but the fact that everything is so cutesy and pastel, and everyone is so supportive and loving that no problem really feels like a problem, it usually gets resolved in a couple of chapters anyways, none of them are really flawed, like actually flawed in any realistic way either, im not saying they should all be tragic and sad and all hate eatch other, but i just feel like its missing a lot of things in its story. it just feels like its detached from reality. And i know its because its ment to be a comfort thing, but from my subjective and very influenced veiw its just not that good of a story.

Another thing very me specific is that the gimick that the characters have are based off of highschool tropes, and that in itself would be fun, but the creator doesn't do anything to intresting or creative with them, and they barley even conform to the tropes they claim to be, and i know the creator tries to subvert those tropes but it feels like its just falls flat (again with the characters haveing no dimension to them and feeling very disconected from reality) i could talk about this in more detail but this is already gonna be long as shit so i wont.

another problem with the story is that the characters all got together within the like, first 15 chapters of the story, and the rest of it is them just dicking around, and that would of been fine but the characters aren't interesting or intriguing or anything enough for me to care about them, and because its a romance story, i think the "will they wont they" should of been stretched out a lot longer.

something i also wanna touch a little bit on is that im not the biggest fan about how the asexual character was represented, and i know the creator is mega projecting onto him, but as a aroace myself i dont think i like the fact that the asexual was also sexualized, and again im aware that this character is a projection of the creator, and i do understand that people who are ace can and do have sex for any reason and that they are still valid, i also wanna say the main ace representation in the boyfriends webtoon, the ace representation who i feel is very sexualized, and who the creator drew actual porn of, is not a very good representation of asexuals and personally makes me uncomfortable

at the end of the day, the boyfriends webtoon is harmless, its just a cute pastel webtoon, and if you like it? then hey! good for you! you can engage in media you enjoy without other people telling you what to do, and i respect you for that! I hope you keep liking your little gay webcomic.

have a good day everybody

[beesmygod]

"A GHOST STORY" IS A WEBCOMIC I MAKE THAT I WILL BE RE-POSTING, GRADUALLY.

the top row is from 2013. the bottom row is the re-draw from 2018. man what the hell was i on when i was doing the shadows in the re-draw. i've never had a good grasp on how top make shading effective and i'm lucky people paid this comic any attention lol. AVGN voice: WHAT WAS SHE THINKING!!!!!!!

one thing i tried to do in the re-draw was make my sound effects more visually consistent: no more red unless it's influenced by magic or the sound being onomatopoeia'd has a strong association with the color red (like a siren) and using palooka BB for clunky, "heavy" sounds. typesetting is not my strong suit, at all. it's a harder thing to get an education on outside of classes specifically designed for it and i think a lot of it is intuition. i did not pay enough attention to how i did my sound effects early on, wielding them haphazardly without enough care about HOW the sound actually sounds. and by extension, how to transfer those nuances onto the page.

part of that is because typesetting is very boring lol. it's the least fun part of the process for me because it involves a lot of minuscule futzing with font sizes, angles, outlines, ect looking for something that "looks/feels right". or at least right enough. and i have to do it without hearing any other sounds or else i can't concentrate. anything involving words requires me to lock myself in my office and run simulations in my brain like i'm super-computing.

actually, one good thing about revisiting these old pages is that i'm becoming more aware of the things i do think about while making pages now. i def was just thinking "GET SOMETHING ON A PAGE IN ORDER FOR THE STORY TO PROGRESS" at the time. which is good! but the bare minimum for comics. getting the idea onto the page and shipping it is all it takes to make a comic. but im trying to make good comics, which as it turns out, is really hard.

this comic does get better, i swear (I HOPE!!!). for a while i paced my comics way too fast bc i was convinced people would get bored with me if i wasn't constantly delivering hits ("hits"). which is a way, way too cynical approach to art and one's view of their audience. i have been trying to slow my pace, which has been detrimental in some ways but the story i want to tell is a little more deliberate than i was allowing myself at the time.

---

♥ read the comic: A Ghost Story ♥ support the comic for as little as $1 a month on Patreon ♥ pay what you want for the re-draw of the first chapter on itch.io

you can block the tag "#AGS repost" to keep this off your dash

[ask-the-bone-boys]

ATBB's Future

Hiiii y'all, its uh. been a minute huh

Now that it's been a bit over a year since I put this blog on hiatus, a loootta stuff has happened and changed and i've been doing a loootttta thinking!

Looking back on it, like really really looking, my biggest reason for the hiatus was that at some point the blog just kinda became more of a chore than something I wanted to work on for fun. Ask blogs are a lot of work, even when you're just using talking portraits rather than drawing out every individual answer, and with how much ask culture on tumblr has died out over the years there just wasn't really enough payoff to make it feel worthwhile to keep burning myself out.

I think it's a really good thing I stopped it when I did, because having to deal with all that in my senior year of high school would have been a nightmare. I've actually just finished up my first semester of college now, and there's no way in hell I would've been able to keep up at any rate! With all of this in mind, I've gained a newer perspective about how to approach things going forward.

I'm still really attached to this story. With how much time I've spent thinking about it and developing it in my head, I can't let it go, even if the blog isn't really working out anymore. I keep thinking of different ways I could fix the decisions I made early on, as well as the super cool directions I could take it in in the future, and I just. I GOTTA.

So, I've decided to reboot it entirely as a fic series!

This means that, unfortunately, there won't be nearly as much artwork to accompany it, but it's far more likely for the story to actually progress! Writing is way less draining for me and once I get going I can do it much quicker than art anyway, even though I do still sorta wish I had the spoons to just turn it into a full-blown webcomic instead haha

This DOES mean that updates won't be nearly as linear as they were here, seeing as right now I've mostly been working on backstory fics that took place before the blog's main story, but that can at least give you guys more context for how the characters interact with each other! I'll also state that while I do write faster than I draw, I still do it a hell of a lot less, so updates will still probably be pretty infrequent. But at least they'll happen at all, right?

As for the state of this blog itself, obviously I'm going to leave it up! I still love looking back on the old interactions you guys had with my characters and your reactions to certain plot points (your reactions to Fluff tagging along with the rest of the group were my favorite by far) and I think it would actually kill me to erase them. I'll be posting the fic updates here too, just like I did for Self Hatred!

And even if it's not going to be an ask blog anymore, because of how much I still miss that kind of interaction with you guys, I think I want to do a sort of "last hurrah" event, to finally send off the asking format with some good vibes.

You see, there's a character I made up around this time of year two years ago. He's a pretty cool guy, but he doesn't actually show up until a specific turning point later in the story. I've been excited for you guys to talk to him since the day I made him, but a little bummed lately that you may not ever get the chance. I still need to get a lot of stuff prepared, so I'm not quite ready to announce or start anything just yet, but there's a reason I waited until my winter break to start thinking about this seriously.

I think you guys would really like to meet him.

But anyway, that's about all I wanted to say for now! This is a very long post already so it's time I start wrapping it up. As always, thank you all so much for sticking with me, even though I really haven't been consistent through the years. I hope this change doesn't come as too much of a disappointment, and that you'll keep sticking around for the reboot!

[captainmera]

Uhhhhhhhh

Do you happen to have a tut on how you draw your little poses? Like when you draw you? This is like a very weird question but I am in dire need of help with poses and I absolutely adore all the ways you draw them (and just in general)

Totally fine if not though,😭🫶

STEP.1: draw head.

STEP.2: choose an expression and then draw what you want the hands to be doing/gesturing. (think body language and emotion)

STEP.3: draw body as quick and flimsily as you can using lines in the shape of only C's S's and I's.

if you look at most of my quick sketches or doodles, a lot of the lines are just wonky CSI's, it's called the CSI-method. As a comic artist you just wanna communicate a pose as best as possible without lingering too much. At least if you do full colour + background + character designs + camera work + storytelling + and + and + lots of things... You don't have the time, you just wanna get to next page, tell the story.

And, like...... Allow yourself to draw crappy once in awhile and post it anyway. Idk if you've read my webcomic but there are very obvious pages where it's like WOAH MAMA THAT'S EFFORT and then there are pages where they all look like muppets. But it also makes the cool pages look even more BAMF thanks to it, it gives everything a nice melody and bounce from page to page.

I am inconsistent and I use that to my benefit by leaning into it and letting it punch emotion home more.

it's about communicating a feeling, I think, rather than always being accurate.

I am actually-- really, really, bad at dynamic poses and camera work. Like, legit super bad at it. I bullshit everything, lmao;;; I encourage anyone to also bullshit, and use references if you want! Like go! Whatever makes it fun and less stressful.

see? it's all nonsense but it looked nice anyway haha!

I didn't really consider perspective or anything, I'm trying to teach myself to draw from different angles and it's hard because I like my face-forward-camera lol. But I was focusing more on framing:

so that colours and shadows highlight the scene, so I can say more with one panel than I could with words. It's about the CINEMA~~!

Or, if you close your eyes and then open them. Where does your eyes go? That's the flow of your art. Sometimes it goes in different directions, but there will be key areas your eyes are drawn to. In this image, Hunter will most likely be first, Good! And then secondly Camila, also good! ... Sometimes it's the pizza as second, less good but it still works.

MY POINT IS

THE POINT IIISSSSSS---!!

As long as you have fun playing around with it, you'll learn from it. Don't hate the process, learn from it. If you just relax it'll definitely look better anyway.

My fanart looks better than my serious stuff sometimes lmao, because I put too much pressure on a perfect finish and that just works against the grain of what I'm actually, like, good at doing.

I AM JUST SAYING WHAT WORKS FOR ME.

You should absolutely study backgrounds and perspective and anatomy!

I'm just saying that, like...... It's okay if it isn't perfect. You wont die, people will like it, you'll like it. It's OKAY.

idk if this is what you asked for but I hope it helped.

[genericpuff]

How should someone write for a comic? I want to start a comic but I’m a bit in the dark for how to write one

This is a very, VERY broad subject that, like the question of "how to draw comics", is very multi-faceted and impossible to tackle in one response. Especially because I myself also will not have all the answers.

What I will say is that regarding writing comics, let's say webcomics, it's not an uncommon thing in the slightest to see writers come into communities like /r/webtoons and ask for people to help them draw their passion project and to that I say... please don't LOL That's not to say that's what you were going to do at all, just wanted to throw that out there as an initial opening disclaimer. Ultimately the reality is that in webcomics, many of the people creating these projects are artists first and writers second (as one of those skillsets is way more accessible than the other), and already have their own passion projects that they're working on. So if you're going into purely writing comics, you're gonna need to manage your perspective on the industry and how it functions from a writer's POV rather than the POV of an artist who picked up writing as a consequence of wanting to get into comics.

That said, the beauty of writing comics is that, in general, it requires a lot less overhead than drawing a comic. That's not to say that it's necessarily easier, because god knows writing presents its own unique challenges, but writing a script generally takes less overhead and resources than turning that script into a comic. I can pump out 10 episodes of rough scripts for Rekindled in a day or two, with tweaking and editing along the way, but actually drawing those episodes takes weeks LMAO (and I wouldn't be able to pull off a lot of the stuff I do now without the help of my assistant @banshriek who not only provides a lot of expertise in drawing backgrounds, but lightens the workload in their help with shading and rendering! they also provide great feedback when it comes to the roughs stage <3)

So if you're starting out, just like the advice I give to budding webcomic artists, it's about starting. Build that experience, get some projects under your belt no matter the size or length that you can use to show your skills (and shop around for feedback from those willing to give it!), etc. Familiarize yourself with various genres, both writing AND reading! Like scripts for film, writing a comic script doesn't HAVE to come with the visuals even if that's the end goal, you don't HAVE to relegate yourself to finding an artist to draw your comic and then posting it online in the hopes it'll get seen. There's a lot that can be done with a simple comic script, whether it's sharing it to the world as is, adapting it to a novel, or pitching it to publishers/agents. Being a comic writer comes with a lot more flexibility in that way than being just a comic artist with no script (though, again, most indie comic artists will simply pick up writing to create their passion projects, it's a much bigger task for writers to pick up art for the sake of creating a comic).

Also establish your goals. Is your plan to write for some major industry some day? Or would you rather stick to writing for smaller productions? Just like with drawing webcomics, you should be setting your expectations in places that are reasonable to meet, rather than shooting for the top of the game right off the bat. If you're wanting to get into writing comics, your first major goal should be something like writing a complete script and NOT, say, getting to write for Marvel/DC lmao

As for the actual writing of comics, I highly recommend you read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, it delves into both the history and technical aspects of writing, drafting, and pitching comics in a very easy to understand way (it's a comic about making comics!)

Here are some other helpful resources I was sent by a pal recently that might also help familiarize you with the process of getting into the actual industry as a comic writer!

I hope this gives you at least a good place to start from! Again, it's ultimately a very broad topic that will vary from person to person (esp when it comes to the differences between genres and target demographics, ex. someone writing an action comic isn't likely going to use the exact same processes as someone who writes romance), but I hope this at least helps you find some direction in it all so you can establish your goals and start making steps in the direction you want to go in.

Good luck!!! <3

[isekai-crow]

2024 Winter Anime Lineup (Master Post?)

First post for a new blog where I'm going to try and record my opinions, break downs, comparisons, and various degrees of squees about anime!

The lineup for this year's Winter isn't as packed as the 2023 Fall season was, but that's always the case. It sure is still causing my To Watch List to keep getting longer... but more importantly because it's so lacking in big name shows one of my most anticipated shows gets to shine...

SOLO LEVELING

俺だけレベルアップな件

LET'S GOOOOOOOO!!!

I'M SO EXCITED FOR MY SHADOW BOY TO FINALLY ARRIVE!!!

also, holy CRAP look at all this TRADITIONAL FANTASY!!! There is even a decent selection of non harem Isekai this round too! And a lot of awesome sequels/continuations!

Anyways, here's what's on my to watch list for this season! I'll be posting about them in their own or other threads as I figure out how I want to set this blog up. My reasons for WHY I'm watching what I'm watching

Definitely Will Watch!

Solo Leveling / 俺だけレベルアップな件

Apothecary Diaries /薬屋のひとりごと(Continued)

Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi) / ダンジョン飯

The Villains Day Off / 休日のわるものさん

Undead Unluck / アンデッドアンラック(Continued)

Fire Hunter (Hikari no Ou) 2nd Season / 火狩りの王

High Hopes / Might Drop / Taking My Time

Sasaki and Peeps / 佐々木とぴーちゃん

The Witch and the Beast / 魔女と野獣

Doctor Elise / 外科医エリゼ

Cherry Magic (THIS ENGLISH TITLE LMAO) / 30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい (DEF WATCHING THIS ONE NOW)

Shangri-La Frontier / シャングリラフロンティア　(Continued)

Beyond Journey's End / 葬送のフリーレン (Continued)

Gonna Give Them A Few Episodes

Mashle Season 2

Fluffy Paradise / Isekai de Mofumofu Nadenade Suru Tame ni, Ganbattemasu (I'm doing my best in another world to pet fluffy creatures)

Ishura

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic / 治癒魔法の間違った使い方

Blue Exorcist / Ao no Exorcist (OUT OF LEFT FIELD THIS ONE)

Delusional Monthly Magazine / Gekkan Mousou Kagaku

This is already insanely long, so the second half of this essay about what I think is below ↓↓↓↓

DEFINITE WATCH LIST

SOLO LEVELING - I've been waiting for the solo leveling anime since BEFORE the anime was ever announced, re-reading the webcomic/manhwa multiple times and just HOPING someone would animate these gorgeous shadows. It is a very well done power fantasy with only squints of romance, and while I'm sad it's been localized to Japan (and all the fuckery that comes with of Korean erasure), I got to see the first two episodes at the World Premiere and I. Am. So. Hype.

APOTHECARY DIARIES existed completely outside of my head space, and my initial response at the premise was, Raven of the Inner Palace? I wasn't actually expecting much from it and then the first few episodes BLEW ME OUT OF THE WATER and now I'm obsessed.

DUNGEON MESHI is one of those manga I've heard about, but tried reading and it was too slow paced for me (I say, currently slogging through The Boat Arc (TM) of Hunter x Hunter), but the anime gives it life and I think I'll enjoy this alot. I love cooking anime and fantasy, so this will be fun!

KYUJITSU NO WARUMONOSAN is just straight up Crow Bait. That curly bowl cut, the gap moe of a villain who loves cute things, and voiced by fricken Shintarou Asanuma!!! (I know him as Samatoki from HypMic, other's will know him from the "Fucking Bullshit" song from Carole and Tuesday, and a host of other roles) Also, all the pretty sentei / power ranger boys!!! I'm so hype, in the most relaxed chill way for this.

UNDEAD UNLUCK is so weird in that it involves a lot of random sexualization, but it doesn't make me uncomfortable like Seven Deadly Sin's random gropping did, maybe because there is actual implied consent involved. Fuuko and Andy are Poly and I love them for it. And the world building is TOP NOTCH.

FIRE HUNTER - If you haven't seen season one, you are missing out. A darkly beautiful post-post apocolyptic alternate Japan-esque world, from the POV of a young girl, and a young genius boy having to let himself be manipulated by capitalism to survive, and gods? a magic system? but so soft that it's barely there even while being a full on fantasy story.

High Hopes or Taking My Time

SASAKI AND PEEPS- What a weird little show that has the weirdest combination of isekai, the most "this is fine." salaryman, and a fricken' CHUNIBYO BIRB. I've already watched the first episode and it feels like there are two magic systems going on and its a bit confusing, so we will see how this plays out!

WITCH AND BEAST - I keep wanting to call this Beauty and the Beast, because the beast is a rad bad ass looking lady, and the witch is certainly one of the most beautiful undertakers I've ever seen. I think he carries his boyfriend around in his coffin backpack, so I'm hype to see WTF is up with that >o>

DOCTOR ELISE - Why do manhwa I read keep randomly popping up as anime??? This is a vilainess turned good story, and supposedly the market is full of these, but none of them are the good ones I've read, so I did a double take of happiness when I saw this. THIS ONE IS GOOD. An spoiled princess gets killed, is reborn in Korea and becomes a doctor, only to be killed by Airplane-kun, and winds up back in her old body where she decides to become a doctor again! The prince is even not your typical icy asshole! (although maybe he is a little at the beginning..)

CHERRY MAGIC - THIS FRICKEN ENGLISH TITLE GOOD LORDS ABOVE. I'm dying. I'm also excited to see this one play out and I'll be hiding behind a pillow giggling like a mad lad while I do. It's been a while since there's been a good BL that's not SAD (looking at YOU Given and Banana Fish, but avoids eye contact with Sasaki and Miyano) so hopefully it doesn't dip into that territory. Going into this one mostly blind as to the premise apart from the obvious Gap-Moe with the love interest.

SHANGRI-LA - I started watching this on a whim as the Fall season started to wind down, and found it to be a good potato chip to have on in the background. I'll probably continue watching it, but not weekly.

FRIEREN - This is what I watch when Jujutsu Kaisen hurts too much to keep going. I'm only a few episodes in, so it'll be slow going, but I think it's about to pick up it's pacing a little where I'm at, and it'll be good comfort food to have.

MAYBES

Mashle Season 2 - The pacing was SUPER WEIRD in the first season that despite all of it's shitting on the properties of she-who-shall-not-be-named, the end of the season kind of fell flat. I wanted to like it more, so I'm hoping Season 2 does that for me.

Fluffy Paradise - I love isekais with an adult in a child's body pretending to be just super smart, and this doesn't feel like it's going to do that, but still looks cute none the less. I'll give it a few episodes, but will quickly drop it if my watch list is too long.

Ishura - Is this what life is like for D&D Characters when they hit level 20? I HOPE SO. I LOVED the Legend of Vox Machina, and hope this has the same sort of vibes, but I'm going in blind!

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic - Love me some fucked up healing magic. Please DO NOT let this be ANYTHING like Redo Healer. I refuse to watch that even those FUCKED UP HEALING MAGIC IS FUN. But this. This I want to see. Please let this also not be a harem. I'm fine with ~vibes~ but please no actual harem that's not actually Poly.

Blue Exorcist - THIS IS TOTALLY OUT OF NOWHERE. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN?????? I remember the last season feeling like a disappointment? But can't remember why? Gonna see if this is worth re-watching the seasons from like... a decade ago.

Delusional Monthly Magazine - I watched the PV and had no fucking clue what was happening. Therefore, I will be watching a few episodes to sate my curiosity about WTF OR possibly just get myself even more confused and rage quit. lmao

I've watched the first few episodes of a couple of these, and will be watching a few more tomorrow, so Next Goal: Post a write up or three about what I think!

[procuder]

what is this.

Seriously, like, what on earth is happening. What on earth is happening here. I thought it would turn out better, but no, I raised my hopes too high.

How they portray og Lloyd's character??? Like, god excuse me Lee Hyunmin-nim, but what the hell??? Are you? ???????????

At first, I didn't think it would be this bad. What makes you think that Lloyd's mistreatment of Javier for so long was simply because he didn't know what to do when he was a kid, and he always wanted to be Javier's friend? I was quite interested in Lloyd's character. So this is it. FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHAT THE HELL??????????????

It was almost good, because, of course, he felt inferior to Javier when Arcos adopted him. It's normal for a 10-year-old to feel jealous and feel like they're about to steal their affection, especially if that child looks better than them in every way. And especially if they know that they will never be like that because they don't think they are good enough. Of course, that's just his own pov btw. I already know how much his family loves him. But that's what can happen, right? Because I don't like who I am also, and I know in my heart that my family loves me, but still🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

And yes that shit happened. So 😮‍💨

BUT IF. IF. If he could think like whatever you made him in the webcomic, he would have done it a long time ago. If this were his actual character's trait, he would have done it long ago. I didn't even think he'd apologize for something like this and in this way, you know? He always thought that he would change something in his life in the next life instead of. Yeah. Whatever tf he is doing in the webcomic here. I won't argue with you that Lloyd feels guilty for his family. But. Not with Javier. He hated Javier as much as Javier hated him, and he always would. I really wonder what makes you see Lloyd like that? Great. Now people who only read webcomic will 😮‍💨😮‍💨🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ SHAKING MY HEAD.

“I'm sorry I broke that wooden sword. Actually, I want to be friends." MY ASS what????? Is this where you sacrifice so many details for?? what??? I have so many things to say, but my God. I'M DONE.

And more than that, you changed Lloyd's will just because he was reincarnated as Suho? He doesn't want to deal with human stuff anymore, and he wants to be reincarnated as a whale because he doesn't like the stuffy atmosphere of hell. Yes, that's it. Easy and simple. The funny idea of someone who has been hiding in hell for a long time and fears of being eaten by the devil. But now you have changed him to want to be reincarnated as a human again to be a better person and work harder than Suho???

Excuse me, WHAT? He wants to work hard?? What makes you think that way out of all his character? Oh my god, they also cut out the scene where Javier, despite not liking Lloyd, wishes him a good new life. Huh? Okay??

THEY EVEN CHANGED HOW TIME RUNS. What is the point. WHAT IS THE POINT??? How important is it to change it? How important is it? From 1 month = 1 day to 1 month = 1 hour?? I wonder if there's any need for you to change it. Are you making a new story or adapting it?

But considering the fact that bk_moon approved every change, then it was...okay, never mind.

Anyway this chapter is pain hold your disappointment before reading it...😭

Oh yes, more than 3 times of Hellkaros thoughts of wanting to go home were completely omitted and now Javier and Lloyd were going to find the Dragon King. Great.

:(

I want my cookies back.