#this game really makes me want to try drawing comic panels

[devsash]

Tav let out a shaky breath. His wings twitched again and he shivered. Silent tears spilled down his cheeks.

The back of his neck prickled as though he was being watched. Sniffling quietly, he glanced at the other sleeping companions, only to meet Astarion's gaze.

The vampire was in his bedroll, but his head was turned towards Tav. His gaze was thoughtful, as though he was considering Tav anew.

Tav glanced away. Hugging his knees to his chest, he rested his head on his arms, hiding his face from Astarion. His wings curled around him, blocking out the world and allowing him a measure of solitude in his despair.

[choochooboss]

Submas Sketchdump Vol. 4 July 2022 Part 2!!

I knew that particular month beat my all time record for productivity multifold but I had forgotten SO MANY PIECES from the original collection!! I think I finally got them all?? More stuff under the cut!!

BREAKMAS!! WIP of the first piece I posted of them, here's the link to the final version! I tried coloring this first but the black & white had ultimately more impact so I went with that!

TRAINS!! I like this base color version too! Link to the final version!

The top sketch is a direct reference to Cluedo! A spinoff game, "Missingo", starring certain familiar characters trying to figure out what happened to Ingo/trying to prove their innocence in the case! Also WIP sketches for these two Breakmas comic pages!

As you may know I adore butlermas! For the classy and stylish look which appeals to me in general, and coincidentally I had played PLA & got hit by submas train only one week before butler Ingo's banner rolled out! The pure bliss of finally meeting both twins in a game I felt was incomparable!! This moment in the Curious Tea Party event was really entertaining to me! We got to see submas get serious and stand up against this selfish collector thief! Two towering train twinks with commanding voices looming over the unfortunate guy was enough to make him change his mind ahah! They truly are the protectors

1-hour submas challenge prompt "Descend"! This is the actual one hour result before I continued rendering this!

Mmmmm not my first attempt at drawing them hug and definitely not my best OR last. I want to make that moment something very special when I finally go all out on it!!

Comic cover vibing~

The scrapped last page for this silly comic! Sorry the dialogue is all over the place on the first piece, might be hard to read! I wasn't happy with how I presented Elesa, I wasn't familiar enough with her character back then so I thought of her carrying a toy taser to threat her friend even as a joke was too much and I couldn't come up with anything else for it. This held me back from posting the other three pages for another 5 months! In the last panel

I prefer to not mess up the twins too much but my brain is still very curious and conjures some peculiar stuff like this sometimes.. I think I may have broken his arms there looking at the anatomy, ooops! I hope you don't mind the photo quality or the two weird guys in the corner, they escaped containment!

Idea of warden Ingo, being projected to modern era by his Alakazam, walking through crowd on a train platform & Emmet standing inside a passing train. Their eyes meet for just a few seconds...

Pokemas Ingo practise!

Another WIP of a piece I posted! I started this piece like this but then later I decided to flip the whole thing.

YET another WIP of something I already posted! No idea why I went and mixed up his suits but I like this sketch! They rarely end up looking this clean haha

Sketch version of the self-defense practise piece! I love getting creative with action stuff! I barely ever think of how difficult they are to draw, I just get so excited and fixated on visualising the scenes in my mind I just keep at it, pull out refs and pose in front of mirrors until it looks good to me! I want to draw more action scenes but besides being challenging to draw my brain comes up with more silly and cute ideas than cool ones unfortunately ahah

One more WIP, here's the link to the final results!! I really like how genuine their expressions look here even if the faces are a little off. I recall spending a long time figuring out this perspective. I thought it would be fun to you to see how all these pieces started and... looking at the sketch above and the stuff before that, you can compare some range of my style!

RANDOM SUBMAS MISSILES GO

OHHH looks like some nasty passengers got the best of them!! If I recall correctly there was no fight because they managed to paralyse the two before they could act. Fully awake yet completely helpless... how convenient unfortunate. Thank you so much for checking these out!! Not every sketch is that exciting but I'm always happy to hear your thoughts on these!

Previous posts: Sketch dump Vol. 1: April-June 2022 Sketch dump Vol. 2: July 2022 Sketch dump Vol. 3: August 2022

[alllgator-blood]

Disappeared for a bit but I'm still here, I just got overwhelmed and learned I should probably take this blog less seriously

I'm using the new year as an excuse to come back on here and try to not ditch my account for another 6 months-- I'm NOT good at posting stuff online to a crowd of more than like 5-20 followers, I originally wrote a huge long-winded draft describing all of my thoughts in great detail. It was too long. I guess all I want people to know is I'm somebody who's spent years making art that I knew nobody will ever see, so it's incredible and overwhelming to have thousands of eyes on my art all of a sudden? It's both the coolest thing and the scariest thing ever to me simultaneously, I'm by no means a Popular Artist but I went from virtually no interaction for years to suddenly tens of thousands of cumulative notes on my posts so it's huge for me. And I haven't adjusted super well to it, entirely due to my own shitty brain chemistry.

I don't want anyone to feel like I'm ignoring their messages or like I don't appreciate the fact they go out of their way to give me their thoughts/send me ideas, genuinely this is the most support I've *ever* had for my art and it's so so fucking cool. It's led me to create so much more than I thought possible! I used to run ask blogs for a couple very niche video game fandoms, and I prided myself on being able to draw full comics for EVERY ask I got, answer EVERY message and went into this blog assuming I could still do that. Um....safe to say I cannot....I have like 200+ asks and I think I drafted a dozen or more that I answered but felt my art was too low effort. I felt so bad I couldn't put maximum effort into everything, and I've been beating myself up over it to a point where *no* asks are getting answered, and this blog went from a really fun thing I actually woke up early just to check on, to something I wanted to avoid like the plague for the past week out of guilt. DUE TO NOBODY'S FAULT BUT MY OWN, everyone has been so chill when I've had to take breaks so idk why I feel the need to hold myself hostage.

So I'm gonna try and take it easier, give myself a break when my personal life goes horribly, close my ask box periodically if I feel overwhelmed, maybe hop on here like once or twice a day rather than compulsively refreshing every 5 minutes...I hope that makes things better. I realize I should probably just *do* that without announcing it, but I have no self discipline and unless I announce I'm gonna do something, it's not gonna fuckin happen lmao.

Anyway if you read this far, here's the first panel of a sequel comic I made to the christmas one I posted last time I was on here, this one is *very* representative of my mindset the last week and will hopefully not reflect how I feel now that I survived december. I know for a fact there's mentions I haven't gotten to check yet so I'm gonna do that after laying down for a bit, here's to a chill 2025 where my social anxiety doesn't eat me alive

[akanemnon]

hi!! i just wanted to say, i LOVE your art!! i started drawing my kris design with braces after seeing dubs of your comic on yt, and when i found you on tumblr i was beyond excited to see all of it in context. i’m a comic artist as well, and i was wondering— how do you choose your color palettes ?? besides obviously picking colors from the characters themselves, that’s a given— but your comics are bright and colorful and just a real pleasure to read because they’re so visually appealing. hope this question hasn’t been asked before!!

Thank you so very much!

So I really went into your question under the cut. So feel free to proceed if that is something that interests you.

The answer is honestly not that exciting. For the characters I really only do pick colors off the original sprites. Which is why they look so bright and colorful. If you try to do that yourself, you will quickly notice how SATURATED the sprites are. And not only the sprites, but also the backgrounds.

A little trick I use is that for pre-existing backgrounds I take all the colors and brighten + desaturate them just a teeeensy tiny bit. That way the characters in the foreground pop way more.

Another way to make the colors pop even more is to use colored shading AND colored lineart! That really IS what ties everything together. Let me show you..

This is a panel without the colored shading and lineart.

And this is it again WITH all that good stuff. Quite the difference, no?

But you're asking about color palettes, so I guess you also mean for the characters/outfits I designed? A lot of it boils down to color theory. I am by NO means an expert on that subject, but when looking at the Dark World designs specifically, you will notice how I did it.

For example: Frisk's Dark World color scheme is mainly analogous. That means the colors are right next to each other on the color wheel. But there is a little bit of complimentary in there.

Here, lemme visualize it...

Frisk's color scheme is a light green, darkish blue green, light yellow and a splash of pink. The red is there mostly just for lore reasons.

One thing I noticed when looking at the sprites of all the Dark World versions is that they are EXTREMELY bright and saturated.

That is something I tried to capture as well, but I think it didn't neccessarily nail it a lot of the time. Especially for Frisk's color scheme. If I stuck closer to what the game is doing, then in theory they would look more like this (using Kris' colors as a reference)

Looking back, I WOULD tweak their colors slightly more nowadays. Just so that the contrast between the colors is a little stronger and they don't blend together as much. This improves the readability of your design. Not all people are able to perceive every color of the rainbow, so readability is EXTREMELY important. Best way to see that is by desaturating them and checking the grayscale. Like so (left is the one closer to the game's colors)

Man, this REALLY makes me wanna fix their color scheme. This has been bugging me for a while now. (Though I'm kinda afraid that people point out that they look different.)

[suspiciousmcky]

So, my friend got me into the Professor Layton series, and I just finished the 2nd game, and so far, it's really silly and i like it, here's some art I made of it :)

My favorite aspect has been watching Layton, who is not parental/fatherly in any way and his 2 children he has acquired.

It's so funny watching these children do childish things and he's just standing there, powerless to stop them, like "please stop your embarrassing yourselves (me)" it's really fun

I got self conscious about the concept halfway through, so here's my explanation doodles aswell:

More art process under the cut

In a perfect world, the rendering would have looked more like this,

But I'm not sure I'm happy with the rendering in the comic, I feel the multicolored lineart just made the peice to busy? Specifically in the environmental panel.

I want to do more environmental drawing in the future so I might try layering the lineart, or maybe making it one uniform color.

It's a little upsetting cuz I really enjoyed how coloring the lineart would change the peice,

But maybe it's not for full blown illustrations? I dunno, I'll have to try stuff like this more and see where it goes

[sapphic-agent]

So. I finally read this fuckass comic that's been talked about again recently. I'd only ever heard about it before so I decided to check it out. I'm gonna go through some of the pages and give my two cents because why not?

I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I don't get how Katara is "out of character" here. This is very reminiscent of Book 1 Katara, who was playful and teasing and immature and acted like, y'know, a kid. I know Bryke might have you thinking otherwise, but she shouldn't baby Aang all the time.

Especially because he is supposed to be practicing and just... isn't doing it. This was her way of lightheartedly trying to motivate him, which I think is pretty on brand for her.

You could make the argument that Katara is being dismissive here, but honestly? The subject clearly makes her uncomfortable. She was kissed (without consent) before a major battle by someone she saw as a friend. Of course she was uncomfortable. She has every right to not want to talk about or acknowledge it.

Calling that out of character is not doing Kataang shippers any favors when the most common criticism against them is their tendency to brush aside Katara's autonomy.

(At first when I saw this panel, I thought maybe she was being a little abrasive towards him. But... She's the same way with Toph in The Runaway. This isn't behavior that came out of nowhere. Why is it that it's only a problem when it comes to Aang?)

I guess a better question here is, is Aang out of character? For me, it's actually yes and no.

I think they made him overly mopey. Like yes, he's had his moments in the show, but drawing hearts in the dirt? What kind of shit is this??

Not to mention his weird little monologue inside the rock ("Who's really playing games here, Katara?" Are you actually serious, Bryke? Idc what anyone says, those words would never leave Aang's mouth). It feels like a bid to make him more sympathetic so that the reader feels bad for him. I'm fine labeling that OOC.

However...

Do I think Aang would purposely physically hurt Katara? No. Do I think Aang would get so caught up in his emotions that he stops being mindful of himself and his surroundings? Well.

Both times you could label an accident. But both times resulted from Aang being careless and being unable to regulate himself. Now, you could make the argument that this is OOC because Aang learned and developed past this point. And I would agree, if we were talking about Book 2 Aang or even mid to late Book 1 Aang.

But honestly, character regression is very on point for Book 3 Aang. Especially post DOBS. Most of you already know about my beef with Book 3 Aang, so I won't get into that.

Now, I do think that Aang would be a little more apologetic and guilty considering how regretful he was in Book 1. But him prioritizing his own feelings instead of how he affected her? Completely on-brand. In EIP he was upset about how he messed up his chances with Katara, not that he kissed her without consent and upset her.

But even if this couldn't fit Katara and Aang as characters, even if they were outlandishly OOC and completely different from the characters we knew, that doesn't really matter. This comic is official and canon. Just like the comics where Aang ignores her in favor of his weird fanclub and she swallows her hurt and puts up with it. Just like LOK where Aang is a neglectful father and Katara is a mild mannered housewife.

You can dislike this comic and criticize its portrayals all you want. But it's still canon. You can't ignore canon, especially when your main argument for Kataang being better than Zutara is that it's canon

[sporeclan]

Hellooooo! I’m working on a clangen blog of my own, so I’m going around asking my favorite clangen blogs some questions. I’m happy to get answers to whichever you feel like answering (or none at all if you don’t feel like it!)

What program and file size do you use?

If you use a font, what font is it?

How far ahead do you recommend playing?

Do you have any advice for layouts?

Do you have any tips for lighting/drawing fur?

Do you have any tips for making cats look more unique?

If you do backgrounds, do you have any advice for creating them?

If you use them, where do you recommend finding reference images?

Hi!! :D

1) I use Clip Studio Paint! Unfortunately not a free program, but I'm very very fond of it. Definitely recommend it to anyone who has the money! My file size is about 1680px wide, I believe? With varying heights. I definitely wouldn't recommend doing it that way, but it's what works for me so :')

2) I made the font myself, actually! Highly recommend doing that tbh, it's a happy medium between getting something handwritten looking without having to spend a thousand years writing haha :D There are probably a hundred websites out there that let you make you own font, but I used Calligraphr

3) It depends! For me playing to about 12-15 moons ahead with a minimum of 6 moons works really well with my style and workflow. Makes me able to cobble together these small interpersonal plotlines while also letting me occasionally play and get new drama to get invested in these characters all over again about. But if I were going for something with a major overarching plot, I would probably go a lot further ahead, if not straight up take the playthrough as far as I'd want it/until a game over just to not risk rng screwing with my plans

4) I would suggest looking up comic panelling tips in general for a better explaination than what I can offer, but I'll try to explain my basic process :'D I mostly go by heart, but I do like to sometimes follow this rule of thumb I like to call the 'Z'

When we read text, we learn to go from left to right, then back to left at a slight diagonal to get to the next line. By following that simple shape when placing characters and especially text, it makes it flow much more naturally to us. And when your pages flow well, you get to break that flow when you want a scene to feel more tense! I tried doing that with the last two panels of the page above and I really liked how that came out :D

Another couple of tips is 1) try not to make the panels too uniform 2) if you want to use two panels for one scene, slanting the side of a panel can make it feel like they flow into each other better, like matching two puzzle pieces if that makes sense 3) small overlapping panels are great for reaction shots and so fun to do!

And lastly, don't be afraid to break the panel border!

It can add a lot of momentum and impact if used right! Plus it's so fun to do <3

5) No sorry, I don't do lighting/shading in my comics at all :'D

6) I have a couple posts here and here describing my own process a bit! But otherwise I'd like to refer to whisper-cats' response to this same prompt, it's pretty in depth and I think they give some really solid advice here!

7) Not particularly, just find a style that works for you the best. I don't do a lot of backgrounding, but when I do, it's in this lineless limited palette style because that's just my favourite kind of background to make

I do highly recommend trying to limit how much time you spend on a background. Don't burn yourself out on one panel because then you'll never wanna finish the whole page!

And for 8), I dont use references so sadly I can't give you any good recommendations there either :')

I hope any of this made sense, lol! Good luck with your blog!

[palenutbasement]

(all scenes are depicted as platonic)

So every Inktober I try to do something more challenging, and this year I thought I would make a short comic/fanfic. I think I got the idea for this one a year ago but I was already wrapped up with another Inktober. Eventually I solidified the idea by making my own prompt list some time ago.

This comic is split into three parts with 10 days focusing on each of them, 30 in total, everything is compiled here. I wanted to post them after October in case I wanted to change anything.

This first part takes place in the summit.

The comic is basically all improvised, that means no planning for the composition, plot, or sketching any drawings. The most planning I did was write a few scripts ahead of time within the month to save me some time but most of them would be changed last minute anyways.

As for the plot, I won't go too deep into it because I don't want to talk too much, so you'll just find commentary on the making of the comic and stuff.

This first part is a little gimmick-y compared to the next two, with new elements appearing almost every day. It’s because I relied a lot on the prompts (dog, milk, etc.) to keep things happening, eventually I move further away from them.

What is surprising to me is how much the art changes as the days go by especially within the span of one month. I did refine a few things to keep it more consistent but this is nearly indistinguishable from the original drawings.

I should also mention that my favourite aspect of this project was adding references to the game and subtle details (if you can find it all, awesome!!) This may have been done quickly but I like to have those things and put at least a bit of effort into the dialogue.

Part 2

Eventually I figured that drawing the same setting for 30 days straight would drive me insane, hence why this comic is split like it is. I’m glad I did because it makes the story a little more interesting, seeing the characters have different attitudes in different places and whatnot.

This one takes place in the cave directly after pt 1. Admittedly I do better drawing outdoor settings, it's what I'm used to, but the cave wasn't so bad to figure out.

I remember these two days I was streaming drawing the comic to my friends, so I kinda zoned out while we were talking lol

One of the prompts was about napping, so I made Dwarf sleep. I believe I was tired that day too and it was therapeutic to draw and include that. Also they look cute, I think.

18 & 19 have some of my favourite drawings in the comic. The campfire lighting is what we'd get if I had a bit more energy each day, and I like the perspective in the first panel of 19.

I find this last section interesting, because of all the 30 days, it’s the only one in Dwarf’s POV. I felt like it was fitting to do something like that at the time.

Part 3

Since we were approaching Halloween, I wanted to have a special part for it. It’s related to the other two parts but it takes place some time after. I’m really sorry it’s out of season, if it were up to me I would have had this post out earlier (thank my midterms for the delay)

Out of all the other parts this one is my favourite. Maybe because it’s more recent I’m inclined to think that way but it has some of my fave moments that I've written here.

Other than that I don't have much commentary for this part. More thoughts at the end!

I was caught up everyday atp, but I didn’t have much spare time to prepare for the ending (I wrote it the morning of that day). I think this is a decent conclusion though.

I intend on coming back to this story, maybe next year to make a continuation but we'll see what happens. There are definitely things that I want to come back to someday.

Thank you for making it this far btw. It's been an eventful month for me beyond this (Untitled) comic, but there wasn't a single aspect of this that I didn't enjoy doing. It's a silly project and I care about it.

Also, I'm not going to neglect the 31st of October! That day will get an illustration, where I will pick my favourite panel and redraw it. I want to take my time with this one so it's not out yet, but hopefully I can finish by Christmas.

[rontra]

your failteacher comic is so cool…. i can’t stop thinking about how masterfully textured your characterizations are, and while i had no context for the games (aside from, well, the Adult Women In Persona Curse lmao) being an ffxiv player made those gags really fun to read too ^_^

the best part of everything is that i genuinely want to try making comics about my own yuri rarepairs now… i was wondering if you’d ever be open to talking about your process when tackling these comics wrt the writing process and layout? you have such a strong understanding of panel composition that ive found myself admiring even small technical things things like your text and panel spacing. thank you so much for sharing your work!!

AUUYFDH THAJNK YOU .... this is so sweet 😭 i'm really glad you're enjoying it so much!!

if you're insane like me (been in pain like me) i totally recommend trying to make your own comics . its a very fun medium to work in!! comics have their own toolkit and language that i think is really strong and fun to play with. if you have specific questions for me about it i don't mind, but i will say that i'm kind of like ... yknow

FTyuri is drawn really loosely. i make a lot of "mistakes" (or at the very least, sub-optimal choices) in my paneling/layouts because i don't really have a plan for each page (LOL). i'm "self-taught" in the sense of "guy who reads a lot of comics and has internalized a lot of things as a result", so sometimes i do things based on intuition and vibe more than anything (and sometimes that does not work out super well!)

i guess what i'm saying is i'm a hobbyist who just kinda does whatever feels good, so my advice won't be particularly Scholarly AHJBHF but i love comics (reading AND making) a lot, so i don't mind if you're wondering about specific things i've done or how i approach them

i think... most importantly, you know, a comic is kind of a huge undertaking. it's A Lot of drawing. but it's also very fun. so pace yourself and choose a project with a length you think is manageable, but do try it! 😤😤

the second thing is... a comic is not just a collection of pictures, right? it's important to guide the reader through each page in the correct order, while also controlling the pace and flow of the story. you place speech bubbles or eyecatching elements where you want the reader's eye to go, and use things like the size and placement of panels and the gutters between them to slow down or speed up time. i have done some FUCKED UP text box placements in FTyuri that are totally wrong and it makes me crazy whenever i see them in hindsight but THATS OKAYYYY

'cause the third thing is you're always learning new things. even if you make a not-so-great layout or even if you never actually finish the comic, you're still learning stuff that will go into your next comic. and so on...

now, here's the "maybe don't actually do what i do" part AJHREDHB

i actually don't really plan anything at all. sometimes i have a specific idea for a page layout and have it in my mind beforehand, but most of the time i just pull up a canvas and start adding panels to it willy-nilly. i also don't write anything down in advance. at most i have a loose "i want to someday draw a scene where X happens" in my mind, but all the layout and dialogue happens when i get there

YOU SHOULD PROBABLY WRITE DOWN AT LEAST A ROUGH SCRIPT/OUTLINE. AND DO SOME THUMBNAILS FOR YUOUR PAGES. ESPECIALLY IF YOURE JUST STARTING OUT

edit: check the replies for a cool link about planning out a comic!!!

planning out the scope of your project is important! i'm just not that kind of girl 😭 and that does result in a lot of mistakes! but the alternative is that i never get around to actually making anythign at all, which is worse to me

for me, that stuff slows me down and drains all my energy before i even start. but this approach uh. does not work for everyone and its probably best to start with a more planned-out approach 😂 though, if you do try to pre-plan and find it makes your brain explode like mine does, you can try just drawing it and seeing what happens. bc like. hey. it works for me . i dunno

but yeah like i said if you have a specific topic/question i don't mind answering that more specifically!!! comics is a very broad subject so it's hard to know what to say about it just like Generally hahaha. thank you so much <3

[jojo-schmo]

hi jojo! im just wondering but ive been wanting to make a comic for a little while but im not too sure where to start 😅. i really love your style of art and your forgotten land roleswap, and i was wondering if you had any tips for beginners?

Hello, hello! Thank you for enjoying my Forgotten Land Roleswap comic, it means a lot! <3

I'm very honored that people have been asking me for tips and advice. All of this is coming from a hobbyist who draws these comics purely for fun outside of my regular day job. Some of my methods would probably deal psychic damage to a professional, LOL. But I'm more than happy to share some things I've personally learned! :)

First of all, the book, "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud ROCKS. It literally gave me a new dimension to understand the medium of comics and how it presents ideas and emotions to readers! And I haven't even had the chance to finish it all the way! I'm very happy I own a copy and I recommend having one of your own if you can, but it's archived here if you want to read it :D

I also like analyzing other comics and thinking about how they get information across to me as a reader. It's helped me learn more effective ways to visually tell a story, like what to include in a frame, how zooming in or out affects the feeling from the panel, maybe building a scene by focusing on other stuff if someone is talking a lot... etc.

ANYWAYS-! Some other tips I've learned through my personal experience-

I had to overcome a lot of negative self-talk in order to tackle a huge comic project like this and stay committed. I was a pretty severe self-deprecator for most of my life so far, and getting help has allowed me to catch myself when I'm slipping back into those habits, look in the mirror, and go, "NO, JOJO! You pour your heart into what you make and that is a wonderful thing! You are appreciated and loved and you deserve to have fun making something you are passionate about!!" Some examples of the negative self-talk I catch myself in....

"I'm a noob at writing and making a story interesting... What's the point of even trying?"

When it comes to starting a project, whether it's 2 pages or 2000 pages, is to just jump in and start! It's okay to be a little insecure or nervous about your technical art skills, writing skills, etc... But writing a "bad" scene is better than no scene- because you can always edit a "bad" scene down the line, but what can you do with nothing? Nothing!! I also put "bad" in quotation marks because I am trying to use that term less, and instead call them "early drafts." or "works in progress."

The first Roleswap scene I fleshed-out was the first Bandee boss fight, in May 2022. I made this drawing on an impulse, getting my ideas down on the page without thinking about the technical stuff like comic panel borders. I consider it like a "pilot episode" almost, haha. The final project is going to be very different from how things play out here. But it got me interested in the concept and excited to see where I could take it, and I made the decision to commit to an entire game plot's worth of AU comics!!

Also, what's the point in trying you ask? The point is to have fun! Making a fan comic in my free time means I don't have restrictions like deadlines, nobody's telling me what I can and can't write, and I can make the story as long or as short as I want! I have full control, which means the world I'm writing is all mine to create! Yes, with a fan comic there is a pre-established world with existing characters. But a universe like Kirby has enough open-ended concepts for people to take basic concepts in the world and take them to whole new levels! I think that's why there are so many amazing fan interpretations of Kirby characters and OCs. The rules are so vague, you can just make up your own a lot of the time!! And it's a wonderful exercise to learn skills for someday building an original world with all original characters from scratch! Magical!!!

"I'm not good enough to make a comic. I don't understand perspective or color and other stuff. Anything I make will look bad.

I once read a two panel comic on here. I can't find it anymore but I remember most of it. First panel showed the artist looking at what they're drawing on their tablet, looking defeated and sad. "Man, I don't even know how to draw this....."The next panel was like them smiling and shrugging, I think rainbows and sparkles were coming out of their tablet, ".....I GUESS I'LL JUST HAVE TO DRAW IT SHITTY!! :D "

IF ANYONE KNOWS THIS COMIC I'M REFERENCING, PLEASE TELL ME AND I'LL LINK IT!!! Because it permanently and positively changed my brain chemistry.

No kidding, making the decision to just do my best even if it's not perfect, helped me a LOT. I was always waiting to "reach a certain level" to tackle a huge project because I felt like I'd never do it justice at my current state. Except I had been telling myself that kind of stuff for years and I still didn't start any projects!!

So the day I said, "Oh well! If I draw backgrounds shitty, then it is what it is! I'll learn from it and draw the next background a little better," Was the day I could commit fully to the project. I'll keep studying how to draw them better for my own benefit, but I won't let my skill issues stop me from even trying!

And for my limited confidence in full-color art, I solved that by making the comic in black and white with no-to-minimal shading lolol. Because I can only address one skill issue at a time before it takes me 25 years to finish this HAHAHA.

It saves a BUNCH of time to work with skill issues rather than against them! Because at least experience is gained in other ways, and who knows, maybe that new knowledge will help address the skill issues someday! So identifying your personal skill issues and deciding which one to try to grow stronger, and which one to work around, could help with big projects!

"Nobody will read this. I'm going to put months or years of my life into a dumb little thing nobody will even care about."

Learning how to draw for my own enjoyment instead of somebody else's was one of the biggest breakthroughs I ever made. Enjoying the feeling of being challenged artistically and just doing my best, even if it's not technically perfect, is the reason why I was even able to start this!

And just because someone doesn't directly like, comment or whatever on a post doesn't mean nobody saw it! I used to get really down on myself for the lack of engagement on my art on other websites.

I was a lurker for pretty much my entire teenage years and never posted my own stuff or commented much. But that didn't take away the fact that I really enjoyed the things I saw online. Those positive feelings were real to me, even when I didn't know how to articulate it in words. Granted, I grew up into a Words of Affirmation main, and I use words to tell people the positive things I think about them as much as I can! But I know not everyone prefers words to express themselves. So I think about the people that I don't know enjoy my work- that just because I don't see it doesn't mean I didn't make a positive impact on someone by sharing my stories.

THIS IS GETTING LONG-- UHHH, STORY TIPS!!

If you work best on technology, start building the story in a Notes app, or a Google Doc! If you work best with pen and paper, start a notebook and rearrange stuff as you need to!

Or if you're chaotic like me, a mix of tech and paper!! I bought a notebook with ring binding so I can remove and rearrange pages of drafts as much as I wanted to! Like here's two very rough concept pages of one Chapter 1 scene made months apart.

I'd say planning out the biggest basic plot points and then filling in between as I went was most helpful! I also have separate notes for character motivations, important story-changing events, etc... So I can have my own reference when I'm writing new scenes!

Okay this was a lot, sorry about the yapping! Hopefully it helps even a tiny bit. If you have any specific questions I'm happy to talk about my experience in the creation process! Or elaborate on anything I said above.

And finally, because I'm not a professional there are probably plenty of other tactics that could work better for some people. My ADHD probably doesn't help with the chaos of my process either, HAHA. But thank you for reading this far and enjoying the peek into the rainbow glitter and soap bubbles that inhabit the right side of my brain, heehee.

[fernsnailz]

HI . GET ON THE DISSECTION TABLE. taking your brain RIGHT NOW OH MY GODDDDD. OH MY god ,,, everything in the zine,,,,,

obviously the quality of your work, the art itself is so good ,,,, but OUGHHGGGGHGH i need to bang my head into a wall until im unconscious . like the title itself, starting off . woe mama we are in for a fucked up roboty treat . your comps . your writing . in the most respectful and awestuck tone possible . i need to kill you

my favorite i think is how you draw gemerl ,, all the robots you nail their expressiveness but oughh ,, him in particular makes me kick my feet . 'you are everything i fear becoming' makes me actually tear the fucking floorboards up the themes of autonomy ,,,,,, ,,, and how you storytell through your comic panels,,, the 'what a fool you are to think the doctor is gone' panel set makes me drink 2 Monsters and eat glass

THE . THE IMPOSSIBLE GOAL COMIC RAGHHHHHH. FAV FAV FAV . geninely shaking and trembling looking at it like jesus thats so fucked up ,,, your mind . your writing is so everything !! i would love to get any insight for how you workshop it because it is consistently breathtaking it sticks with me so heavily,,, one time i accidentally stole a line of dialogue word for word from your Never turn back zine comic and had to change it dfhjd,,,,, (wow this line is so cool ! ...a little toooo cool. squint.) but yeah god the last comic wow,, your panel compositions are banger after banger you are so good at consistently writing evocative stuff,,, tragic, rlly funny, hopeful, its so inspirational

thank u so much for putting together such a cool zine, would love to have it physically one day !

GOD. THANK YOU SO MUCH THIS EDIT IS KILLING ME. this is such a rewarding ask to get, i'm so glad you picked up on these things!!

my writing work shopping style is. hm. a bit all over the place. i have a lot of thoughts about it i'll put under a cut if you're interested. there's a lot of little things i've picked up that help me out so so much that i would really love to share!

ok FIRST i should note that it took me so goddamn long to write this thing. like i had the very very VERY first concepts for metal sonic good future like. a year ago. the first scrawlings are literally in a notebook right after some thumbnails i was using for dance in fire and i was editing dialogue up until two days ago. i'm ill

BUT!!! there are a few things i like to keep in mind when i write/edit that have really helped me!

GET OTHER PEOPLE TO READ YOUR STUFF. ESSENTIAL STEP. i get stuck in holes with my work a lot and having beta readers and other eyes on this thing made it like a million times better

sometimes you have to kill your baby. there will be certain lines or moments that you ADORE that simply don't fit into the larger piece, and you gotta just cut it out to make it better sometimes. but usually this gives birth to an even cooler and more epic baby. or sometimes your killed baby is also resurrected later to be used in a different scene. does this make any sense

figuring out what emotion you want a scene to make people feel is very important - with this in mind, i also pay really close attention to how my writing or scene concepts make me feel physically. i think this is the thing that has helped me most with work shopping anything i want to be evocative. does a line make me tense my jaw? make my teeth vibrate? make my chest tight? do i suddenly feel the blood in my hands? if it makes me feel something within my body, i try to draw on that physical sensation when forming the rest of the scene.

ok this last one is. stupid. as i was wrapping up this thing i went through a final edit phase i'd call "Garten of Banban Vision." Garten of Banban is an indie horror game that has uhhh kinda mid dialogue. a lot of it focuses on exposition, and any emotion in it feels a bit hollow. with this in mind, i read through everything one last time and imagined like all of the lines were from a Garten of Banban game and spoken in the character's monotone voices. if the line felt like it could fit a little too well in the Garten of Banban world, i considered editing it. but if i started thinking "oh shit this is pretty good for a Garten of Banban game" i knew it was fine. do you understand what i was alluding to when i said my writing process is a bit all over the place

in conclusion. writing hard

[ihatebrainstorm]

i never got very far into the comics because adhd is a harsh mistress, so i don't really know anything about brainstorm. what are your favorite things about him?

Aw man there's so many things I love about him, and I'll try to avoid spoilers but there is a certain in the story that really flipped the switch about how I thought of him kaksdf- Also this will get very long winded and incoherent very quickly bc uh I love this stupid asshole and he occupies 90% of my brain at all times: (i apologize in advance)

Surface level wise, I love his stupid arrogant humour and how seemingly absorbed with himself he is- I love how much of a ridiculous scheming little prick he can be gahgh, idk I think I just really like that character archetype?? At least going off of characters from other media I immediately get attached to lmao

He's just so sillyyyy and a menace and a prick and a stupid little annoying asshole but then he's actually really caring towards his friends and I want to shake him and rattle him and throw him out a windoww (He'll be fine, he can fly)

He's a trickster and he does science for the love of the game- Experiments with everything and everyone, builds whatever stupid idea just for the sake of building it, and idk I relate to that ig and I respect that

His stupid moldy egg colour scheme. (idk that's how I always see it) idk why,, I just like it. but also I don't like it. but also I do... but also I hate drawing with that colour scheme

HIS WINGSSS HIS STUPID WINGS AND HIS HEAD THAT ARE ALL PISS ANNOYING TO DRAW BUT I LOOK AT IT AND GO "yeeehaheehe he's so annoying i hate him i love him wow i love airplanes" I love airplanes so much, I love how he has a jetpack that he barely ever uses, and an airplane altmode that he also barely ever uses, and I love that he can fly, I love flying characters, I love flying animation, I just love anything that can fly, I like flight and flying

That stupid silly prick little annoying scrunkled lovable punchable face he always does:

like don't you see that and want to sock him directly in the face <33

Nerd. i like nerd characters. and he is quintessential nerd. loud mouth babbleton yapper info dumper extraordinaire and I wouldn't have it any other way

HE'S SO GIGGLY AND ADORABLE SOMETIMES. AND ANNOYING. AND A PRICK. AND GRGHRGHRHHHH WHY IS HE LIKE THAT I WANT HIM TO SHUT UP AND NOT SHUT UP.

His friendship with Nautica and Percy <33333 Their little science trio is so adorable and fun and the stupid silly science antics potential is through the roofff- Like look at Nautica and BS aghgghgh they're so adorablee <333

Simpatico. i. idk why but something about that ship makes me so damn happy- like somethign about Brainstorm being so goofy silly, constantly trying to prove his worth in contrast to Percy's super analytical no nonsense attitude, eventually drifting towards Percy mutually respecting the silly fella makes me so happyy.... It's a really funny dynamic to me, and there's that point in the story where I feel like you can see Percy start to really admire BS.. it really flipped a switch for me- Also that final simpatico panel in the last LL issue makes me so happy bc they both look so happy and I love seeing happy characters :D

Edit: Forgot to mention, but also something about post-war Percy finally returning to science work, after years of being a sniper? To me at least, it felt like Percy was relearning his love for science outside of his duties, and Brainstorm's little arc + Nautica's arrival helped him gain new equals to work alongside with- They bring a bit competitiveness and discovery to science that helps reinvigorate Percy's intrinsic love and interest after years of strict duty

Brainstorm's angstt.. his internal conflicts, lack of self-worth, being so absorbed with his work that it ends up harming him, and the way he cares about people he's close to which eventually all leads to his arc all are stuff I really relate to heavily so i chomp it down with salt and pepper

His weirdness,, like he's sorta funky weird and I appreciate that a lot, because it all makes sense or no sense to him and him alone, and yea that makes my brain happy :)

His own little hyperfixations/general fixations like researching time travel, the dead universe, sparkeater stuff, multiverse stuff etc. etc. (like who else goes: oh huh this creature almost killed me, lemme go make a gun that makes more of those things :D) he just like me fr fr

His deceptiveness, sneakiness, and doing shady things under the table (I can't get too into it bc it's pretty heavy spoiler stuff so yea) Also his weird moodiness sometimes

His friendship with Chromedome,, they seem to care a lot about each other, but are also in the midst of drifting apart??? Old acquaintances/ coworkers/ friends who've been working together for ages and know deeply about one another, including the crappy things they've done in the past, but are now kinda distant? Yet they have a certain flavour of sad care to their dynamic which feels real and melancholic,, also the way you can kinda feel how his experiences with Chromedome's past sorta influences how he sees Nautica's decisions later in the story gghhgughhh

This bozo idiot getting partially Mike Wazowski'd on the cover of MTMTE #28

His MTO backstory and theorizing about how he ended up doing science??? How'd he get there? Why is he so adverse to calling himself an MTO? What was the Operation he was born into about???

His strange spookiness- like he isn't scary per-say but sometimes he's just kind of a spooky menace creature and I love that :) It's like adding layers of mystery to his erratic goofy outer-personality and it's really intriguing (kinda like cuddling with a cat then watching it stare you down from the dark corner of a room an hour later)

In conclusion: I want to kick him into the stratosphere out of spite and love <3 thank you for coming to my incoherent, likely uninformative Ted Talk :)

[rockybloo]

Hello! I was just wondering, how did you learn to make comics? Do you have any resources for making comics? Sorry if this is annoying, I just really want to up my art game, ya know?

I am a terrible person when it comes to any kind of advice so do not take my word as gospel for "Ok I gotta do this now"

ANYWAYS I learned how to make comics by reading them. I have no formal training, I haven't even read any tutorials honestly, save for how to do SFX because those are the most hardest part of comic creation for me - I just see the stuff others do that I think is cool and try to adopt it or reverse engineer it in my head to break down HOW a panel was drawn.

I have no resources other than just go out (or go search online) and find comics that interest you and figure out what catches your eye the most on a page.

AS FOR HOW TO GET BETTER AT MAKING COMICS, you just keep drawing them and your skills increase - just like when you write or when you draw.

If you want better advice - I would recommend watching and reading posts by actual comic creators (or at least ones that take themselves more seriously than me). Comics is a very diverse artform and many people have many ways of executing it.

[alllgator-blood]

I just wanna say as a boy with autism the way you portray leshy reminds me so much of myself thank you… I’d like to imagine him having something special to him like a little blanket or a trinket of sorts that he just can’t go without or something like that

UGH I judt love it so much… thank u… I love your leshy and I love your other bishops too theyre all so perfect

AHHH this is really wholesome, I'm really happy you can see yourself in him! I remember getting an ask a long time ago that was like "which of your bishops have autism and why is it all of them" and I still totally agree with that asker, but leshy's autistic traits in particular I try to write a bit differently. I feel like my own autism was handled incredibly poorly by everybody responsible for me when I was a kid, like family/professionals/etc. so instead of patience or support I was just kind of met with irritation, punishment and threats. When I first was like "leshy absolutely has autism, how do I write this?" I wanted to write somebody who definitely had more ""noticeable"" traits but also clearly grew up with people who never made him feel like he had to be ashamed/hide himself. He runs out of words sometimes, but has other methods of expressing himself. He's silly and impulsive but he's NOT unintelligent or incompetent. Any accommodations he needs aren't seen as inconvenient by his family. So like, the IDEAL life that I didn't get but can give to a fictional character >:)

When I was cosplaying leshy last year, someone came up to me and gave me this awesome replica of a gold coin from the game? So I'd have to say he has a lucky coin he takes with him just because of that. I CANNOT stop fidgeting with it when I pick it up, plus he can make Evil 50/50 Decisions with it, so it's functional as well as satisfying to hold. I have added it to his inventory in your honor!

Here is a panel from that WIP comic of him with his "inventory" he keeps in his cloak, the context is that he's retrieving a charcoal pencil to draw the Indescribable Anguish he feels over not being able to recognize his reflection. The other picture is demonstrating how he kinda uses his cloak as a built-in blanket? He just loafs in it and it becomes one lmao- the dialogue will make more sense in the final comic skjdhfkjsdhf

[floofanflurr]

Hi yes I would LOVE to hear you ramble thank you

EHEHHEHEHEH THANK YOU SO MUCH!

For context to anyone else reading, I’m going to be talking about the Papyrus - Genocide Route Confrontation comic I just made and posted!

(For anyone else waiting for an ask response! I haven’t forgotten! I’m very backed up! SORRY FOR ANSWERING OUT OF ORDER I JUST REALLY WANT TO RAMBLE)

Ramble under the cut!

OKAY SO I SUPPOSE I SHOULD START OFF WITH CONTEXT! I got the song “Control” by Halsey stuck in my head for Undertale. And! Sure, it would work great for a player controlled Frisk, but the main lines that REALLY got me were:

“And all the kids cried out ‘Please stop you’re scaring me’”

“I can’t help this awful energy”

“Goddamn right you should be scared of me.”

And OKAY. SO OKAY. In the song it’s a back and forth- but what if they were both Frisk? Just… this scared little kid, who doesn’t know any other way to save themself other than puffing up and making themself dangerous before anyone else.

They were hurt, so now they are GOING to hurt others. Because they’re terrified.

And Papyrus. PAPYRUS MY BELOVED. He’s so unbelievably brave and wonderful and I always have his geno route confrontation in the back of my head. I always see more art where he loses. Where he’s killed, and it’s not even a hiccup in Frisk/the Player’s run. Just a victim in the sadistic persons game.

But despite how infrequently I see art of him winning compared to being killed—how many runs does he actually stop? A lot.

This comic was my love letter to Papyrus and his character in game. Because he’s wonderful. He knew exactly what he was getting into but he did it anyway.

He had to have been terrified.

SO RAMBLE ABOUT COMIC DETAILS!

This was so fun to do, thematically! Typically for a comic, I try not to do straight on or straight sideways panels too much, because that’s not very dynamic. But it served a purpose here!

Every panel you see from the side is what’s actually happening. But then we get the POV panels—which are what Frisk and Papyrus are seeing. Here’s the first couple of pages for reference!

So! The sideways views are accurate. They’re both shaking. Papyrus is sweating… and, if you zoom in… Frisk is crying.

But then we get into the POV panels- the first one which is a more realistic skull that we are looking up to see. Because I’m sorry, and I love Papyrus(and sans), but an animated skeleton IRL (before I had the context of loving Undertale) would be TERRIFYING. And he’s so much taller than them!

The sweat and nervous expression is still there, but it’s smaller. Harder to see. Frisk isn’t seeing that through the snow and terror.

And this is just as biased in view as the next thing we see—what Papyrus sees when he looks at Frisk. Dust covered hands, gleaming red eyes. (But, if you zoom in… They’re still crying. But Papyrus isn’t really seeing that. And because he’s taller than them, and because of the thick snowstorm, he can’t really see their expression.)

So I had a lot of fun with the snowstorm and POVs. Drawing attention to what I want you to see.

Fun fact about a sobbing grimace- it sure looks a heck of a lot like a smile if you can’t see the eyes :)

I was relying on readers to be biased towards Papyrus on the first read through! Seeing what he does. Aka, not noticing just how terrified Frisk looks. (I recommend a reread to check out those cues tbh. It was very fun.)

And stars, I love Papyrus. He’s confronting this mass murderer, and they look fucking scary. He’s terrified, but he’s doing this anyway.

And then… the snow clears. And we see from Frisk and Papyrus’s perspective again.

Papyrus isn’t so scary. And… he’s scared, too.

And Papyrus sees Frisk. Really, truly, sees them. And realizes exactly what’s going on. If he hadn’t kneeled down to hug them, he wouldn’t have gotten that straight on expression of their face. Frisk wouldn’t have seen that he wasn’t so scary

He doesn’t try to dodge when they run at him. He has no way in hell of knowing that they won’t hurt him. But as they rush at him, he can’t see the same demon he did before. All he sees is a scared little kid who is trying to hurt other people before they’re hurt, too.

And then. And then, because Papyrus cares so much, and because Frisk is shaking and scared, and they don’t want to hurt him. They just want to not BE hurt.

He gives them a hug.

He doesn’t know if they’re going to drop the knife. But he does know this-

They need someone to not hurt them. To look at them and offer mercy and for it not to be a trick.

This little kid needs a gosh damn hug. And even if he dies because of it, Papyrus is going to give them that hug.

And Frisk doesn’t actually want to kill anyone. But… other than Toriel (who betrayed them!) this is the first kind touch they’ve had since they fell. And this is the first monster that didn’t try to hurt or kill them.

Stars I just fudging love them so much.

BUT YEAH, I PLAYED AROUND HEAVILY WITH POVs and the concept of the snowstorm blocking the view. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.

one last bit of ramble! There are lyrics that go with the different panels! So LEMME JUST SHOW YOU THEM

Im bigger than my body

I'm colder than this home

I'm meaner than my demons

I'm bigger than these bones

And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"

I can't help this awful energy

Goddamn right, you should be scared of me

There’s a few others but there’s a 10 image limit on mobile, and these are the most important ones.

BUT YEAH. FUN TIMES!

The song lyrics line up with what Frisk is thinking and feeling! Which contrasts nicely against the actual comic, because the reader is mostly seeing what Papyrus is feeling/thinking.

THANKS FOR LETTING ME RAMBLE! …also if you’ve made it all the way through this long post, here, have a cookie: 🍪

[puffyducks]

DCRC Week #8 (Part 1)

ODIN WEEK! ODIN WEEK! ODIN WEEK!!! It's PKNA #5: Portrait of the Hero as a Young Duck btw. Please enjoy my epic edit- I mean real panel I mean totally real screenshotted and unedited comic panel.

Also, I try to put spoilers for the comics I'm reading about as they happen in the story, but this time I couldn't help myself so beware of reading this if you haven't read the whole chapter yet.

I already have this panel saved in my folder, it's so iconic in my head. He wanna be Batman sooooo bad.

Gotta love these military guys opening fire like their lives depend on it and PK is just behind them making silly little jokes like :D

Wow this guy seems interesting I wonder what his opinions on AI art are

Gorgeous panel and some gorgeous one-point perspective here. Sorry for being an art student but we made a lot of drawings like this and it made me learn that drawing buildings makes me want to die. So this is even more impressive to me in that regard.

Lowkey cute asf for Odin to just put a whimsical little garden in place of where Ducklair tower used to be

Donald is so SAD it breaka my heart 💔 RIP Uno who is totally super dead 💔💔💔

Donald is SO SMALL. Shoutout to the PKNA writers for pushing the entire main Duckverse cast to the side so that they could create an all-new roster of characters that all fucking TOWER over Donald in height. Lyla, Angus, Xadhoom, Styvesant, soon to be Odin in like a few pages. If you need to know anything it's that Paperinik is a little SHRIMP and he is so tiny and small and the most specialest boy ever.

haha..... yeah..................

DEFEND UNO'S LEGACY DONALD!!!!! Also Lyla... okay and I guess Geena cause she's the ACTUAL robot he's defending-

This is the part where I look at the camera like it's an episode of The Office btw. If you know you know.

babygirl

OOOOH SHIT IT'S YA BOI!!! I forgot about him trying to meet Donald by just slamming his ship into theirs. Like I GUESS that's a surefire method to speak to someone...

Cheeky son of a-

GEENA YOU FUCKING NARC

Snitches get stitches Geena... (imagine a little text pops up on screen like in a video game and says "Geena will remember that")

Hmmmm where have I seen this shot before.... *flashback to issue #0.1 which I put a filter over to make sure you know it's a flashback to an earlier chapter*

oh right.

Crying over this shot they BOTH wanna be Batman man 😭 two dumdums that were made for each other

He's so cheeky I hate him (affectionate)

So obviously they bring up that Odin just means "One" (or Uno) but it's also worth pointing out what an Eidolon is. Eidolon is a Greek term, meaning "a spirit-image of a living or dead person; a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form" (at least according to Wikipedia).

"ODIN EIDOLON" LITERALLY TRANSLATES TO "UNO'S GHOST" I FUCKING HATE HIM. I'M SMASHING HIM WITH HAMMERS. AFFECTIONATELY.

Anyways to wrap up with some final thoughts-

Something that doesn't really get addressed in this comic (probably for plot reasons, it's not super relevant) is just how comforting it must be for Donald to travel to the future and see that the Evronian Empire is all but wiped out, a shell of its former self. Obviously timelines can still change, we saw that in Day of the Cold Sun, but it still must be nice to see that all the fighting he does is going to pay off in a big way.

Btw remember that bit in an earlier chapter about Uno finding Lyla attractive? Yeah well I should think so considering that YOU'RE THE ONE THAT BUILT HER- Okay well he's not the DESIGNER but still I think that connection is funny ok. I wonder if Uno scanned Odin's gun and was like "oh"

I like this comic, I think it's another really good one. I mean it's no Earthquake but still, between Day of the Cold Sun, Earthquake, and then this volume I feel like we've just had banger after banger after banger. I'm also super stoked to have Odin in the story now, even if thinking about Uno way outliving Donald and being excited to see him again after 200 years makes me really depressed if I think about it too hard. I'm happy that he got to escape the confines of Ducklair tower and even got a cunty green suit in the process though, good for him. Donald is REALLY gonna regret not accepting that explanation from Uno though, RIP 🙏 SUUURELY he'll figure it out one of these days guys. Like EVENTUALLY. Right???