I honestly couldn't tell you where the time went. There are a number of factors that are now limiting the amount of time I have to draw, but I was also just being really lazy about it. And when I did draw, it wasn't for the comic. I can owe that to a lack of direction in where I want to take the plot, which is what sank the past dozen or so attempts, but I think I have a good idea now. Thing is, I'm gonna have to redo page six, because I'm playing Richter way too straight, and he's sucking the fun out of the atmosphere. That's a trap I've been falling into ever since Newtrul.
So I'm gonna get right on that. In the meantime, I've been making a few other things.
The situation in page six reminded me of something similar that had come up in one of the Doujinshi Attacks I had done. I like this style of coloring, but it's not gonna stick. It's a total pain to work with, grays don't look very convincing, and worst of all, it jacks up the file size something awful while I'm still working on it. And that ends up making Photoshop lag like crazy while I'm trying to draw. So screw it.
I was planning on making these into character portraits once the site is done (now there are MORE technical problems!) but since I now know which direction I'm moving in, I'm gonna have to go with something different. But here you go, in order of how radically changed the designs are.
I'm getting a little less paranoid about using cross-hatching and stuff, but I'm still afraid of putting it on human figures. The problem is, it looks like a texture to me. Because of this, the robot head actually looks better than Ace. Never thought that'd happen.
Didn't mean to make this so cheesecake. In the original sketch, Meta was wearing those cotton tights that extend to the calves. I don't know what they're actually called. But while I was coloring, I couldn't come up with a color that didn't look stupid. I messed around with the Replace Color menu for a while, and flesh-tone was the best-looking thing to show up. On a side-note, this could have easily been Millia Rage fanart.
I don't really like how this image turned out, but the design's still relevant. Believe it or not, this used to be Kinji. I've been wanting to make him a "harder" magician; less Final Fantasy, more occult-ish and metaphysical. But I knew I couldn't do that without totally cannibalizing the existing character. After that warm-up comic, I figured it was time to get my balls together and just go for it.
He'll be the subject for the next chapter, so we'll have to wait and see whether or not it actually works. Oh, and I've always had a problem with his name. It was an unfortunate product of my weeaboo days. His name is now Corino de Moura. It sounded a bit unfitting at first, but it's grown on me. Perhaps it will do the same for you.
As you can see, I've tweaked Machete's design a little bit. He'd always bugged me, all the way back to his first appearance. He and Keefe were originally very thinly-veiled cameos from Adam Elbahtimy's characters. When I later decided use Ace, Keefe, and Machete for their own storyline, Keefe was easy enough to alter (though it wouldn't really happen until /Newtrul), but I had never really found a niche for Machete. I remember the first time I tried to change his look a bit, Adam told me he looked like a whore. But I think by now, he's at least a character. Maybe not a great one, but he's at least a functional device for the story.
