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Jun 2022

I find me making my comic weirdly nostalgic (mainly because it took me so damn long) so I wanted to talk about it! I'd love to hear what other people's experiences are as well!

My characters actually started off as fan ocs, and whole concept of a mosquito dude owning a cult made me think "huh, this would really work well as an original work." I had a lot of webtoon people say that starting with a short comic was good so that you can learn but WHOOPS my comic project is in fact very big, and it's a massive passion project. (idgaf, I'm sticking with it)

So I remember outlining the first couple episodes and being so excited because I'd wanted to work on a comic for a while. I was really bad at pacing at first is what I learned! But I just kept working on it, fixing things and I made myself sit down and work on my outline every day. Same with my script, I really enjoyed writing it.

I started making mini comics for Instagram just because I wanted to test out a comic style that works for me. They were very exposition heavy, but it kinda worked in my favour, as people were able to get a bit of an idea of who the characters were.

After doing test pages, I went huh I HATE DRAWING BACKGROUNDS. So I decided I was going to 3D model the entire setting (which took prep work even longer.) I don't regret it at all, because it means I save a lot of art and hassle. I actually documented me learning 3D modelling and making the backgrounds1 here

Here's me messing up the freaking blanket physics on my instagram: (little did I know this would crash the program like a minute later)

tbh I documented a ton of my prep work, and I was surprised to see how many people actually kept up with my instagram stories about me yelling about 3D modelling a toilet wrong. I still keep my old art and work on my instagram highlights1 cos I like looking through them :coffee_love:

I think that's about it. Just a ton of prep work haha. Also have this.

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    Jun '22
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I like video games and punk rock. I have an idea for a one-shot comic called game punks where there are punks playing games.
-Proceeds to google the name Game Punks-
What do you mean its taken by a line of NFTs? NFTs are literally the OPPOSITE of what punk rock even stands for! Soulless corporate 'products' that are designed to move money and literally NOTHING else, okay now I need to fight back.

Lo and behold, Game Punks now exist, and I'm throwing everything I've got at it. In absolute SPITE of the NFTs, I'm even working on getting the name trademarked.

Some of my older OCs started out as parody characters but over time evolved into their own thing. I have been trying to add enough changes so it’s less obvious because it has confused some people who thought my series were parodies.

For story planning, a lot of brainstorming, writing down random notes, and sketches.

I spent about 3 years in the preproduction stage of my series before creating the first page in mid 2019. I look back on those first 3 years fondly; coming up with ideas, having the story play out in my head, building up my artistic skills to draw my characters, and writing out those stories once I settled on a iteration I liked after the first year. There were hurdles off course where I struggled to translate ideas onto paper but it was moments like those that taught me how difficult it was to create a story, as well as helping me with creative thinking and such. Its because of that that I don't regret making this series in the first place because I feel it's made me a better person, outside the artistic skills of course.

I know 3 years might seem like a long time to let an idea sit as it could potentially grow stale by the time I want to make it but that wasn't the case here I feel. My reasons for pushing off drawing my series was because around time Crescent Blue would've been 'fresh', there was a massive gap between the detailed depiction in my head and my crap drawing ability. I wanted on holding off drawing my series until I could narrow that gap. And I honestly feel that was a good move in hindsight because I was able to refine my ideas and turn them into something great. Initially, what would become Crescent Blue was nothing more than a mishmash of things I took a liking to at the time. Two that stood out were Dragon Ball and oddly enough Lady and the Tramp. I never drew the characters around that time (couldn't draw dogs) but to say characters and story were nothing more than bargain bin clones on of their disney/anime counterparts wouldn't be off the mark. As time would go on, this would shift and the story would slowly morph into what it is now. Becoming something I feel that could stand on its own whilst still retaining its good qualities from its early days. I was also writing out the chapter drafts within those 3 years so I wasn't letting it sit in my head occupying brain space.

Now onto the artistic side of things. Like I alluded to in my last paragraph, my artistic skills were not that great. I mean compared to my peers, I was good but not by much. Around the time I came up with the idea for series, characters, etc, I was mostly making reference drawings from screenshots from the Dragon Ball franchise. Not as a way to become a great artist but mostly for fun and something to do when I wasn't watching youtube, hulu, netflix, playing games on my computer and ps4, or going outside because it was the summer. But once Crescent Blue came along, I had a lot more of a drive to improve my skills just so I could draw my characters. I spent about a year or so grinding; drawing eyes in my notes from different art styles, drawing way more dragon ball than I did in my life time and begrudgingly, to my precious 14 year old ego, drew from the lady and the tramp films (which I did feel some embarrassment for reasons too stupid to explain here without going off topic). Now I had no idea if my handwork would actually pay off, but I didn't pay too much attention to things not working out to not distract myself from my single minded goal. And after a couple of months, that grinding payed as I could begin to draw stuff directly from my mind semi well. I would continue to build up and improve on my skills onto May 2019 when I finally felt I was ready to draw Crescent Blue after 3 years of pre production and planning.

Of course that's not where the story ends. Just drawing out the first Chapter is a whole story in itself (dont write out chapters like 24 minute tv show episodes and please for the love of God, do not write out your comic's first chapter like a 45 minute piolet unless you want it to be close to being 200 comic pages long and want to be working on it for more than 2 years) but that's a story for another day. I would include some pictures but it would take me a while to scroll though google docs to find the earliest story drafts and rummage through my old drawings pilled up in boxes somewhere just to take pictures. I only recently began putting myself out there online about 3 years ago in 2019 and nothing before that. Which Im greatful for because I'd be a lot worse off with my teenage fuck ups being immortalized on the internet for all to see :cry_swag:

It started in 2016 at High School (I was like 16 :v) where I found a book and I was like "I think I'm gonna make a webcomic". All of my ideas were trash, but this one that I got... okay-ish feedback... was a particular comic. I dunno why, but I've decided to stick with it and it sorta became this MASSIVE project.

I answer the rest in this Q&A panel:



As for the story and the lore, I took the lore from my 2016 story (which I'm STILL writing lmao) and I threw it in That Stick Figure Isekai just to give me and Andie a quick boost.

Comic started out short, but then I realized I could ADD MY CHARACTER FROM 2016 IN THAT STICK FIGURE ISEKAI.

I then decided to add more Isekaiers and then my brain just came up with all these possibilities and scenarios. I wrote them all down and all that.

Eventually That Stick Figure Isekai became a comic I wanted to WRITE for rather than this gag comic.

Long story short... I flew by the seat of my pants, but now I got a solid foundation of where I want to go.

1 month later

closed Jul 12, '22

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