Lunarbistro.com is the
art, comics and sketch blog
of indigo kelleigh.
I don't really have much to say about it that I haven't already said, or that I won't say at some point soon, but I'd be remiss in not mentioning that Ellie Connelly has officially begun! Go, check it out, and don't forget to come back on friday when I post the second episode! whee!
The launch is getting closer, and I just finally finished this 'hero' image of Henry for the Cast page. Look at him, he's clearly ready for a very serious adventure, possibly involving some sort of spelunking.
It's official, Ellie Connelly launches next monday, July 21st! My update plan is to put up a new strip (1/4 of a page) every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when I have new content. some of the strips will be double-height half-pages, which will have to count as two updates, so I'd be skipping an update. I'll make mention of it in the blog when that happens, so hopefully it won't be a disappointment.
Now, at the moment I have seven pages completely ready to go, which gives me a buffer that should last until the middle of September, so I can promise at least a couple months of regular updates right off the bat. When those pages are finished running, I'll start posting the work I'm doing in the meantime, and hopefully I can maintain some sort of buffer. That being said, though, I expect to get to a point where I'll need to take a break from updating so I can get ahead again.
Until then, though, I hope you'll all follow along with the comic and join me on the adventure! And help spread the word!
Whipped these cards up this evening, as something to hand out at San Diego to promote the webcomic. I was pretty pleased with myself over these, believe it or not. Sadly, now my fictional character has better calling cards than I do. Not sure what to make of that...
Hey, happy 4th, all you American friends!
I'm spending a quiet night at home, listening to some Coast to Coast AM, coloring another page of Ellie.
Added a couple things to my to-do list this week, including designing the proposed Ellie Connelly forums, creating a small information site for the anthology I'm planning on curating over the next year, getting some things ready for San Diego Comicon later this month (it's coming up way more quickly than I think!)...
Haven't been finding as much time to do self-promotional illustrations as I'd hoped. Nor the Tarot cards, sadly. I'm going to try to get on those and crank out a few more in the next couple weeks.
Did some more work on Ellie this week, finished coloring page 5. On one hand it feels like incredibly slow progress - i'm averaging about a page a week thus far in the coloring, and this doesn't even count writing/laying out/drawing the page. On the other hand, I am getting pages done, and building a decent buffer for when I'm ready to continue. My current completion levels, then, are:
Pages laid out: 11
Pages Inked: 8
Pages colored: 5
My plan is, again, to start publicly posting the comic once I'm 8 colored pages ahead, and to work in 8 page sections through to the completion of the book. Each page will yield about a little more than a week's worth of updates, so that gives me about 10 weeks to finish the next 8 pages. I'm looking to start posting the comic in mid-July, right before I leave for San Diego Comicon. I'll keep you all posted on updates until then, and will also let you know when I'm ready to open up the Ellieconnelly.com site, which will probably happen a few days before I start posting the comics.
I know, I've been singing this same song for a long time now, but it's still true. Each week that goes by brings me closer to being able to start posting Ellie Connelly to the web. The latest round of progress includes working on some finishing touches to the site, and coloring more of the first 8-page section I'll be posting. I don't yet know how long it'll be before I can start posting the comics, but I'm hoping before I leave for San Diego, so I can spend some time there promoting the site.
I'm excited to say that I just finished inking page 8 of Ellie Connelly, which is a milestone of sorts. In the greater scheme of the overall book, it seems like a very small amount of progress - 8 pages completed of 128 total = only 120 pages to go! woot! - but this first 8 pages is a more-or-less self-contained bit of action that serves as a simple introduction to the characters and their style of adventure. My plan was to finish these first 8 pages, color the first two (at least) and then start talking to publishers. Which means, I'm almost ready to begin Phase 2, which has me more than a little excited, let me tell you. The last couple things I need to do now are to draw a couple Hero shots for some of the other main characters (who have so far only really existed in my notebooks), and color those two pages. I also need to start thinking of a cover design or two...
Secondary to this plan, i'm going to continue coloring the first 8 pages, and then when finished with that I'll start posting the comic for all to read, starting with the entire first page as one big inaugural update! Don't worry, I'll be trumpeting to every corner of the intertubes when that happens.
So, as I've been struggling with myself to continue working on Ellie Connelly, so I can actually start putting up some comics on the site, I've been finding myself getting bogged down in historical details. This is the first time I've done a period piece, and I just can't seem to let myself slide on what I would normally consider small details.
For example, on page 8 (the current page-in-progress) there's a very brief, one-panel shot of the exterior of Ellie's home in New York City. In 1892. Wanting to keep a level of historical realism in this story, I've been finding myself researching a lot about Irish immigrants and different neighborhoods in NYC at that time. I've learned that there were a lot of Irish living in Greenwich Village in the 1890s, and I know there are a lot of good rowhouses there (since I decided to put Ellie in NY, I wanted her to live in a brownstone, or a rowhouse, or something like that). But then I started letting myself get all wrapped up in WHICH house? Like, I needed to find the street she may have lived on, and the right style of house - one with nice architectural detail, but not too much to draw.
All for one panel.
And now that I think I've found the house, I'm stuck thinking about the interior, how the house is laid out, where the doors are, that sort of thing. And it got me wondering, am I the only cartoonist I know who worries about that stuff? And, how important IS the historical realism? I mean, if it's getting in the way of me telling the story, should it really matter?
I know that a lot of filmmakers go to extensive lengths to reproduce time periods for their movies, and they have to actually MAKE the stuff, a lot of the time. Is it too much to ask that we cartoonists do the same kind of research?
And I also have to keep in mind that, though only a very small part of this book even takes place in NYC, it is hopefully only the first such story, and that subsequent adventures will show more of the city, of Ellie's home, and her neighborhood, so I think these are important things to think about, even if I'm not going to be using it all right now.
It's not much of an issue with contemporary settings - you can look at most any magazine or movie to see what people are wearing. But if you're setting a story in a particular city, how extensively do you research the city, the neighborhoods? How much photo reference do you use?
I guess I should consider myself lucky that the house I have in mind is still standing, and I could go take pictures of it if I were anywhere near NYC...
A small update to the Ellie Connelly site, adding a 'hero' image of Ellie. I can't tell you how happy I am with this image. You know how sometimes you imagine something, and you only hope you can draw it as well as you imagined it? This was one of those.
And I'm listening to Combat Rock again for the first time in like a gijillion years, and it's like taking a bath in pure distilled adolescence. But in a good way!
sort of. The domain is there now (ellieconnelly.com), and there's a 'coming soon' message and the beginnings of a site design. I'm excited to actually be making it real finally. I'll be taking my time to make sure the site is really right before I start posting real comics there, but don't worry, when I do I'll be sure to let y'all know.
I also spent some time last night polishing the plot of the story, making sure it was going to work in the 8-page chunks I've decided to use as a structure.
My friend John was asking which coloring scheme I'm going to use, and to be honest I'm not sure yet. A refresher:
L: The strict black & white tones - R: Simple flat colors
'The Best of Both Worlds' mixed style.
While I really like the look of the bottom, mixed style, there's certainly something to be said for the speed and clarity of the simple flat colors. At this point, I'm going to lean into the 'it depends' camp. My priority is to get the updates up on a regular basis once I begin, and while I have seven pages inked already, I don't have any fully colored yet, in any style. So, at a minimum I'll be posting black and white line art. If I have time, I'll add flat colors, and if I have a lot of time (or find a faster way to do it) I'll add in the black and white shading.
It's either that or lose my sanity.
Hey, my site remodel is complete!
It took me close to a month to design it, but only a couple days to make the files work. The most recent burst of enthusiasm and inspiration for the project came actually from my day-job, of all things. I was tasked last week with designing a couple blogs - one for our company, and one for our clients. Many hours were spent tinkering with css and html templates, learning the finer points of ExpressionEngine, and looking at about a bazillion other blogs for ideas and layouts. And oddly enough, when those two projects were done, I had a much better idea about what I wanted to do with my own site.
And so, here we are! The newly redesigned and redirected Lunar Bistro! One of the things that's different is that I won't be running episodic comics at the top of the blog anymore. I'll still be posting comics here and there when time allows, but they'll just be going up on the Comics page in their entirety. Any comics that are going to be posted episodically, like the current Circle Weave run, or the upcoming Ellie Connelly, will be done on their own self-styled sites. Which brings me to the next step of the redesign:
The Circle Weave needs a site update. Not a whole new style, I'm pretty happy with how it looks, actually, but I need to update the codebase, get the blog up and running again, and re-post all the comics using the new technique I've got planned. This new technique is the key to me running episodic comics in the future, actually, and was part of what was holding me up on this whole redesign.
The way it's going to work is this: each comic's blog will be set up using MovableType, with a category set aside for 'comic updates'. When I post a new episode to this category, it shows up at the top of the homepage, separate from the other regular blog posts, and also on its own separate rss feed. Since Circle Weave has already been posted, and is currently a 'dead' comic, I don't feel bad using it to experiment with this process. I want to make sure it's good and solid before I start relying on it for Ellie.
Which brings me to Ellie. I'm only 7 pages in, and none of it is fully colored. I'm not happy about my progress so far, but it's something. And when I think about it, it's close to seven weeks worth of updates, even if I just post it in black and white, or with simple colors for the time being. I can always go back later and update the colors when I have time. It's my hope that simply posting the work regularly and getting feedback on it will encourage me to continue working and pushing forward with the project.
So, I'm hoping to have the site up and running (meaning with new comics and all) in time for Stumptown in April.
So, yeah, that's my plan. This site will continue to be my general comics/art/sketch blog, and if I manage to start regularly doing stuff for Illustration Friday it'll go here as well. And there will always be updates about the comics I'm working on, or wanting to work on.
Yep, it's true! I've finally added paid ads to my site. I know, i know. Why bother putting ads there when I never have new content? Well, I decided, it doesn't cost me anything to put them there, and my site does get a small amount of traffic... Also, there are a number of things in-the-offing for the site, and I wanted paid ads to be a part of it, so I wanted to give them a test-run.
So, new things in the works!
First, I'm going to start posting comics again! Hoorah and huzzah. This site was originally intended to be my posting ground for all of my comics, but after I finished re-running Chutney Point, I found I didn't have any new comics to post. Sadly, that's still largely the case. Work continues to progress on Ellie Connelly, but it's still too slow-going to post updates regularly. In the meantime, I've decided to re-present the first four chapters of The Circle Weave, for the first time since I cancelled the series two years ago. I won't be adding any new material, not yet. But it should be something to look at, at least, as I continue on Ellie.
Speaking of Ellie, what I would like to do is to post the story in chapters as I complete them, rather than waiting until the entire book is finished. Each chapter should be roughly 8-10 pages, of about 3-4 updates apiece. My target schedule is 3 updates a week, so figure about 10 weeks per chapter, more or less. I've just finished the 7th page today, so i'd say Chapter 1 should be ready to start posting by the time the first chapter of The Circle Weave is completed again, in April.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing more activity here on the site. Woot!
Black & White shading treatment layered over a very simple color layer. Drop the colors to 50%, and voila!
Okay, so I realized that the colors I put up yesterday were not quite what I was going for - the overall tone was a little too greenish-putty-ish. And, I wanted to do the same panel in color, so here's a two-fer:
The monotint one has a cardboardy texture to it, which is closer to the original intent of the style. Compare it to the color, and tell me which one works better. Things to consider are that I want this to appeal to as wide an audience as possible.
However, the benefit of the monotint style is that, well, I don't really HAVE good color reference for most of the props and costumes I'm referencing for this book, so black and white is very appealing... Anyway...
Trying to nail down the style I want to use to color the final Ellie comic. Erika suggested a sepia-tone style coloring, and well, I'm nuts about shading, so this is what I came up with. Not surprisingly, it took a hell of a long time to do even just this one panel. I can only hope it will get faster with practice.
Anyway, this is where I'm at right now. 5 pages inked, 1 page re-lettered, and this first taste of some finished colors. Slow going, to be sure.
As part of my trip to New York next month, I'm planning to toddle around Greenwich Village and Washington Square park to get some photo reference for Ellie Connelly (part of which takes place in the predominantly Irish neighborhoods of NYC in the 1890's). I'm excited! Anybody have any recommendations for lunch and/or landmarks?
Finally, after a long year of writing, rewriting, and writing again some more, I finally feel like I'm on the right track with Ellie Connelly. The first 28 pages are laid out and scripted, and I've actually begun pencilling the first few pages as well! Check out this sketch, a closeup of a couple panels of the first page:
The next step with this page is to letter and then ink it. After that my plan is to pencil the next 6 or 7 pages, then letter and ink those as well. I tell you, I'm so incredibly excited about this, I can't wait to get it finished!
So, this is the end of Chutney Point, starting here on page 141. The story was only originally supposed to be 140 pages, but once I started scripting the second half, I realized that I needed an extra 12 pages to wrap everything up, which made Act 7 almost a double-length issue. It was kind of cool, though - sort of a bonus for people who were reading it, I suppose. Anyway, this is the start of those extra 12 pages.
So, after Chutney Point concludes, I won't have any new comics to put up in its place, unfortunately. I'd been hoping to use the time running CP to get enough material together on Ellie that I could start running those first pages immediately, but my entire year was spent writing and rewriting the script. And now I'm beginning to rewrite it again, as rough layouts. So after six drafts now, I still don't have any finished artwork from the book which I could run. I've been getting anxious to try a couple finished pages to see how they'll look, though, and might try to do up one or two this week as I continue on the roughs. I've also got 'The Night I Flew' all scanned in, ready to be cleaned up, colored, and posted, and will probably try to have that up in the meantime, until I've got enough Ellie work completed to start posting it.
I really don't want to let the 'current comic' section go blank...
So, what have I been up to?
Well, after I finished decompressing from the Comics Fest in october, I took a couple months to just kind of drift aimlessly. I find sometimes that that's the easiest way for me to find my focus. It's like being in a creativity deprivation chamber - once it's all off my mind, I can more easily feel which project is calling to me most to finish it.
I was surprised to discover that the project that was calling me most wasn't the Tarot set, or the Ellie Connelly story, or anything else that I've talked about here so far, but was actually a completely different story, or rather a series of character sketches that I've been developing in notes and sketchbooks for over a year. I didn't know where I wanted to take it before, but the overall vision is coming into view lately, so I'd really like to capitalize on that interest before I lose it again.
That's not to say that I'm going to let Ellie go, in fact I've recently been doing some structural work on the story and revisiting the plot to make it fit. I'd like to plan to have the story done by the end of 2007, but we'll see about that. It's only 128 pages, I'd like to think I can manage that. I should at least have some more art from it to show pretty soon.
And the Tarot. Well, that one's suffered the most lately, as I haven't finished any new cards in a couple months now. Death is about half-done and waiting for me to get around to it again. The sample cards I had at my table at Stumptown pretty much disappeared, and it sounded like I got a lot of positive feedback on them (I wasn't at my table most of the time, so I can't say for sure). I do want to finish them, and am also hoping to have them done by halloween 2007.
So, 2007 will, I hope, be a very productive year for me.
I've got some progress to report. Not much, though. The Comics Fest proceeds apace, it is now lsightly more than a month away, and things continue to largely fall into place. Some slight bumps along the way, but that's to be expected when wrangling a tornado this large.
The 8-Bit Tarot has again been rejected by US Games for publication, this even with a glowing recommendation on my behalf from Tarot.com. So, I'm still looking for a publisher for this set, and new card production has slowed to a crawl since finishing The Moon last month. The gallery show at Pushdot has been rescheduled, though, and will now happen in November of 2007. Plenty of time to finish the deck, I hope. Unless, of course, I need to self-publish it.
I picked up a couple books by Orson Scott Card yesterday about writing - specifically writing Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and also one about developing characters, which is always one of my weak points. I've never written anything by Card before, but he comes highly recommended, and these books make a lot of good points without being very 'this is exactly how it's done. Do it this way or fail,' which I like.
After a fairly lengthy and wholly inspiring the-work-thus-far-deconstruction with fellow graphic-novelist Chris Baldwin, I've halted the fifth draft of Ellie in midstride, and will be re-evaluating the story from a number of different angles before taking it up again. Today I'm simply writing out the overarching plot, detailing the actions of the antagonists and developing the timeline of events and motivations of every character in the book, all 20 of them. I've so far been approaching the writing of this script with the hope that it will simply 'come together', and all will be well. However, that has been proving to very much not be the case. I knew that having a second set of eyes look over the work so far would help tremendously, I only wish I'd had this help sooner. So, I don't know what to say about this right now, except that after just a couple hours of writing things out in a notebook, and I'm already feeling that it's a stronger story with more fleshed-out characters.
I'm also planning to do some promo art for the series, and to have that on display at next month's Stumptown Comics Fest, whether I'm actually at the table or not. Of course, I'll post it here, too!
After a few days of some small progress, and subsequent ripping apart, I feel I'm getting a handle on the story again. I finished scripting the second act last night, and then today found I was having a difficult time tying what I had written to the outline I had of the remainder of the story. So, some shifting of the outline was in order. I just finished that, and now I feel like the third, fourth, and fifth acts of the story are a cohesive and logical extension of the first two acts, rather than the departure they felt like before. So, I'm looking forward, again, to actually finishing this script, giving it a bit of polish, and starting on artwork. Time, time, time, see what's become of me...
Being as most of my recent entries have been about the 8-bit Tarot, and the next will be as well, I thought I should take a moment to say that, yes, I am still working on the fifth draft of the Ellie script. I'm slowly making my way through Act 2, where the big reconstruction begins. Basically, I'm taking large parts of what were the 4th draft and either throwing them out or rearranging them. Much of this current sequence is completely new, so of course it's taking longer and I'm second-guessing it the whole way. This weekend I'll be visiting my parents, and I hope to make some progress on it at their house, after everyone's gone to bed. Until then, enjoy the continued progress on the Tarot set!
Creatively, I'm fighting an uphill battle. The fourth-draft script as it stands, while being complete and finished, is also dry and a little too easy. By that I mean that the events in the book unfold around the characters, as opposed to the characters driving the events. So another rewrite is in order, and unfortunately one of the big plot devices, the titular 'Curse of the Moon's Eye', may have to be cut to serve the new plot structure I'm coming up with. I really hope I can keep it, though. We'll just have to see. I'm reorganizing the plot into five major sections, and I expect the page count to go up again, probably into the 120 range. Ugh.
So, after watching that new Treasure Hunters show, of all things, I've decided that the Ellie Connelly script as it stands has plenty of Tintin, not enough Indiana Jones. So, yes, I'm beginning to go back and rework it a bit. Trouble is I'm having a hard time making all the stuff that was fun about it before fit into this new version. Just gotta shift the tiles around until they all click into place.
And after talking to a couple local publishers, I've decided to forego the Ellie Pitch Package in time for SDCC - sounds like that con is actually a particularly bad time to try to sell something. Instead I'm going to focus on getting the script just right, and then focus on publishing it online. Once I have enough pages finished, I will have a preview available, hopefully in time for Stumptown in October.
Here's the image for the Ellie page of the Pitch package:
And, becuase I just finished it, the image of Birdsong Juno and Whitefeather, a medicine woman:
Woot! Only 10 9 pages to go!
Here's the page of Henry art for the Ellie Connelly pitch package I'm working on:
I pencilled a similar page for Ellie which I'll also post when it's inked, and then I need to finish pencilling two more pages for the other main characters. I'm going to round out the package with another two pages featuring headshots of all the minor characters, and then the first 4 pages of the book. There will also be a synopsis and contact info, of course, but it's the art that will really sell this thing.
Fresh from finishing the script, I've gone and spent the last several hours doing sketches based on the reference books I picked up this weekend. Here's Ellie & Henry:
96 pages, and it's done! I can't express how relieved I am to have the script complete. And now I can finally begin the arduous task of actually drawing all 96 pages. I'm going to be drawing larger than I'm used to, on 14x17" bristol, and will probably be constantly forcing myself to resist the urge to over-render everything (I have a tendency to use a lot of texturing in my black-and-white work).
As ever, we'll see how it goes.
but hooray!
Seems like everytime I manage a swift bout of creativity, it's followed immediately be several days of lethargy and inactivity. I'm now at page 76+ of the rewrite (the '+' refers to an extra bit I haven't numbered out yet due to a sizable gap that needs to be filled in), and I'm hoping to wrap it up this weekend. I've got nothing really to distract me for the next two days, except for a gaming session with some friends tonight, and the notion that I should rearrange my workspace so I'm not craning my neck into the corner anymore. Also, I'm finally actually looking forward to starting to draw this, as opposed to the sense of dread I've been feeling on account of my not having enough visual reference for the time period. A quick trip to Powell's and I've now got about a dozen good books filled with pictures and drawings from the day. Also, realizing that SDCC is coming up much quicker than I think it is means I need to get on the ball if I'm going to have any pages from this to show there. So, that's where I'm at today.
Oh! And, apparently, Chutney Point #2 is now finished (see the Current Comic above), so #3 starts on Monday! Whee!
So, for the 4th time, I am at page 28 in the Ellie Connelly script. It's definitely evolving in bits here and there, and overall I'm much happier with the tone of the story than I was with earlier drafts. There's a lot more character coming through, and I'm angling to develop some of the secondary characters quite a bit more than previously, which should actually help to build the mystery, if anything.
I still think I need to add a bit more DANGER! and PERIL!, so I'll work on that. Luckily tomorrow's a holiday, so I think I'll spend my day trying to get back up to page 50 or so. One thing I noticed is that I've already expanded the script by roughly 5 pages somehow. I'm curious to see how long this thing will be when it's actually finished.
I've also been continuing to develop designs for the characters, and I hope to start posting some more finished sketches of them as the script nears completion.
Progress moves slowly. I've completed a third draft for this first story, which mostly addressed problems I had with the opening sequence. It's a tough spot, because it has little to do withh the rest of the story, but is meant to serve as an introduction to Ellie and her assistant Henry. The problem I had (and continue to have) with this sequence is that I simply failed to capture who these characters are. A problem which arises, I suspect, from the fact that I myself am not sure who these characters are. But I know that the way they're currently presented in the third draft opening isn't consistent with the way they're presented in the rest of the third draft (which was really just the rest of the second draft copy/pasted into place with the pages renumbered). Also, the tone set up in the most recent opening is far more dynamic and 'pulp'-y than the rest of the older material. So, yes, I'm going back *again* to rewrite the opening. I'm only a couple pages in at this point, but I'm already far happier with the characterization I'm presenting now. And I will continue on from here, rewriting as much of the rest of the story as I have to in order to keep them consistent. But I'm not planning to let the further rewriting delay my beginning drawing the opening sequence. Once it's complete I intend to at least lay down some rough layout pencils. In the meantime, it's back to the keyboard!
Yep, Chutney Point, Act 2 starts posting today. So far it's just the cover, but hey, it's a start.
Also, I'm about 2/3 done with the King of Coins, the next card in my 8-Bit Tarot deck, after just a couple hours work. I need to get cracking on these if I'm to have the whole deck done in a year. It might sound like a long way off, but there's still 50-some-odd cards to do. And the Ellie Connelly script is finished (mostly) and taking a breather. I scripted up to the end, and it's a page shy of being a nice, even number, so I'll go back and add a bit more here and there to square it off. After that, I'm on to drawing, which is a great place to be. Check back tomorrow for the Tarot card!
The Ellie Connelly rewrite is now up to page 68, with a full ten pages of new content added in so far over the first draft. I'm anxious to finish it so I can try to get some feedback from a few people before I begin drawing pages. My plan for layout is very simple, I shouldn't even need to do extensive roughing for this story. Used to be that I'd script and rough at the same time, which took easily four to five times as long to script a page, since I was making it all up as I went. The way I'm planning this one, though, is to do each page as a series of four equally-sized strips of 2-5 panels each. I've written the script with each 'strip' broken out already, so I have a pretty good feel for how each one will look already. My hope is that this will cut down on the time it will take to finish a page. Of course, I'll still have to be drawing 8-20 panels per page, so, ugh. but, I'm getting closer, and that's what matters.
Slowed a bit over the last couple days, but I'm currently standing with my big toe dipped into one of the major revisions of the script - the reinstatement of one of the defining scenes of this story, in my mind, a sequence where Ellie goes to the moon. THE MOON! Heck, yes! Why did I cut this scene out? Damned if I know. I can't wait to actually write it...
I'm now a whopping 30 pages into the Ellie Connelly rewrite, and it's going, well, better than last week. I'm stripping out some, adding in some, keeping a lot the same, actually. It's grown in length by a few pages as I refine the flow of some of the dialog. I don't know exactly how much longer it'll be when it's done, but I'm guessing about 20 pages, considering all the stuff I know I'm going to be adding back in or expanding on. My goal is to have the rewrite done by next wednesday. At my current rate of about 10 pages a day, I'm right on target.
Tomorrow night, though, I'm hoping to check out the Laika: After Hours show at the Just Be Complex over in the Pearl district. I don't usually do the whole 'First Thursday' thing, but if there's a show I really want to see, or one I'm involved in personally, I'll try to at least do that. I'm not involved in this one, by the way, but Vera Brosgol is, and that's reason enough to check it out.
Having trouble with the second draft. Gave the first a once-over this weekend, and managed only to change a word here and there, and realized there are two fairly important scenes that were left completely unfinished in my haste to get to the end of the story. So, now I'm caught in the struggle of 'What the Story Needs'. Should there be more action here? More explanation there? A bit more character or a bit less dialogue? I really need someone else to read through it. It follows the path I'd set out for it when I set up the plot structure, and certainly I'm glad that I'm finished with it this far, but I really feel that it needs something of substance. Oh, and the title will also likely change as well - 'Curse of the Moon's Eye' is a holdover from this story's first bubbling incarnation over a decade ago, and now the Moon's Eye itself has a very small role in the book. Maybe that's the problem...
Is finished! Now to let it sit for a few days before tackling the rewrite. In the meantime I'm going to work on a few character designs, so I'll have something more interesting to post here than simple text notes like this one.
I thought I might actually be able to finish this first draft of the script tonight, and I am very very close! Based on my original plot outline, I've got a little under 7 pages left to go, but it's largely an action sequence, which can actually be pretty tough to write out. I'd say definitely by Tuesday night, and then I can start picking through and reducing the dialogue, enhancing some of the sequences to give them more kick! After I've got the script polished I'll be focusing on designing all these characters (I realized the other night that there's a good 24 or 25 characters in this book, most of them minor, but still! I'm gonna need to start a wiki to keep it all straight!)
Oh, and thanks to John for helping me sort through the wonky css here at lunarbistro. All is well now!
Scripted up to page 41-and-a-half (!), and surprisingly, I'm pretty much on-target for the plot I mapped out a couple months back. Meaning, the dialog is following along with my original plot plan for the most part, I'm about a half-page ahead of where I thought I'd be, but there's still wiggle room ahead, so I should be able to close that gap pretty easily. Two-thirds done with the script, only 22.5 pages to go.
Now I'm off to play Scrabble with some of the other regulars at Chance of Rain. whee!
Hey! Looks like the comic updated as expected, which is good to know - the first real test of my homemade auto-updating comic database scripts! If all continues to run as planned, all seven complete issues of Chutney Point should be updating every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until it's done, which should be about this time next year. In the meantime, I'll be busily working on my next comic, "Ellie Connelly and the Curse of the Moon's Eye".
Yes, that's the real title.
So, for a progress report on that book: I spent a couple hours scripting last week, and have now completed script on the first 13 pages of the book (for reference, each page has about twice as much content as a typical episode of Circle Weave had), and I'm heading out to the coffee shop to continue scripting right now. My goal is to be up to page 40 before I go to bed tonight. Also, I wanted to post a study of the main character, trying to get her face just right. enjoy!
So, I'm about 50 pages into Madame Blavatsky's Baboon, and MAN! The spritualist movement was chock full of crackpots, frauds, and hucksters. I almost don't even need to make anything up! Seriously anything I come up with will only pale in comparison to some of the stuff these people actually pulled.
stumble this
