I forget, more than I care to have done.

Remember when I used to religiously update three days a week?

Neither do I.

It seems like every few days something else is kicking my ass. Take right now: I’m barely able to sit down and do this. Don’t know why. But it’s taking every fiber of my being to not just say @#$% it and walk away.

I don’t know why.

I still love doing this comic, but it seems like it’s gradually slipped to the low end of my priorities. I have no explanation for it, but it has. Simply put I’ve got three jobs right now: School, school work, and substitute teaching. Then I’ve got the comic. And the comic is basically a 20+ hour a week job.

You may not think so, but I manage the site (no small task), write (nearly done with this arc’s strips), work on background sets (seriously, I love sketch-up, but @#$% the un-user friendlyness), and I haven’t even STARTED talking about the drawing, inking, coloring, shading, lettering, and other miscellaneous crap that getting one of these pages done entails.

Throw in the fact that I haven’t been happy with my method in a LONG time I’m starting to get discouraged.

I’m not saying that I’m going to end the comic. Or that I’m even thinking about it. But I’m going to try something out.

Basically: I’m going to start updating multiple pages once a week. I’m also scaling down the number of panels, it’s hard to explain, but I’m trying to make each comic page look more like a comic and less like one big @#$%ing newspaper strip.

I’ll have visual aids on Thursday. I think. I’ll let you know.

My hope is to update every Tuesday with 2-4 pages. Which evens out to about 2-3 ‘regular’ comics a week.

I don’t know if this will work. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this. I don’t know if Tuesdays will work (maybe Fridays, maybe Mondays).

This is a total experiment.

Basically what I’m saying is:

I’m one man doing six jobs. I’d love to be able to hire someone to take over the art duties for me but I make less than minimum wage and The PKF just isn’t popular enough to financially support me let alone an artist.

But the second I win the loto I’m going to pay someone to draw for me.

But I digress.

I’m going to start updating once a week but with a larger, more ‘issue’ oriented page count. Basically I’m going to have 2-4 pages with a panel count of 1-2 pages (9-12 panels, give or take).

This is an experiment, if it doesn’t please you, let me know, I want to hear about it.

Thanks for sticking with me, once I start to get into a groove, life will be sweet. Until then, hold on to your socks.

-Peace

So my two week vacation became a month. Sorry. But life got…odd

Yes, I have cancer. It’s some kind of melanoma (that’s the kind that sucks, fyi). But I won’t know more until Wednesday when I see a dermatologist. I know I should me more freaked out than I am, but I’m not. I can’t explain it. But I’m really not.

I’ll be fine. I’ll live. So help me god I’ll live. This is just one more story to tell people when I get old (so this one time I had cancer…*insert punchline I haven’t thought of here*). I’ve got many more good years of comickery in me yet, ladies and gentlemen.

Don’t you worry.

But if I go on Chemo expect sporadic updates, just a fair warning.

———————-

The Comic!!

This is easily, the worst of my pre-arc buffer. I promise. I’ve had this joke in my head in some way since Book One and I had to get it out. So here it is.

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I’m a better artist that I give myself credit for…trust me, when you see next Monday’s comic, you’ll understand. I don’t want to start going into too much detail, but I feel like I need to spend more time on each comic (no, that’s not code for ‘here come’s one day a week updates’, don’t worry). I haven’t decided how best to handle this revelation yet, but I’m debating. I’d like to continue on my way with twice a week, but I’m debating a ‘twice a week whenever it’s finished’ mentality. I don’t know. I have a buffer at the moment (small, but hopefully growing), so that should be a while off, but I need to do this comic right.

And right now I don’t feel like I have been. There are too many pages I look back at and go ‘Jesus…I could have done that better’. So I’m debating what that means…I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

———————-

Also, fair warning, if I don’t get a concrete design for next chapter’s villain soon there might be another delay. Right now I’ve got the face (more than half the battle) but I can’t figure out how I want his body to look. Nor do I have his weapon totally figured out.

This arc is too important to mess with. I need everything as perfect as I can get it otherwise It’ll just fall flat on it’s face.

I can’t let that happen. This is a precursor to the end of this book, and that HAS to be perfect because that’s a precursor to everything that happens in The PKF after this. I can’t keep stumbling into arcs like I have been. They need to be more concrete before I even draw the first page.

Ok. I’ve rambled. I’m going. But I’m back. Don’t worry.

I’m back.

-Peace

]]> http://thepkf.com/2010/01/i-havent-decided-how-im-handling-this-yet/feed/ 0 http://thepkf.com/2009/12/a-day-of-relaxation-well-a-week/ http://thepkf.com/2009/12/a-day-of-relaxation-well-a-week/#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:45:04 +0000 Paokens Keeper http://peacekeepersforce.com/?p=2550

Read More...]]> First of all, to anyone who actually muddled through those wrecks that were my short stories, I’m sorry. I am truly and utterly sorry. After taking that creative writing course last semester I discovered how truly and utterly horrific I managed to make them. They were good stories, don’t get me wrong, but dear god they were so poorly laid out it was ridiculous. Not to mention the huge number of spelling and syntax errors that I should know better. Stupid shit that I have no excuse other than ‘I was lazy’. I’m sorry. I really, really am.

But they’re all fixed. Really. They’re cleaned up and proof-read to Hell and back. I know that they’re still not perfect, but without an editor (I’ve enlisted both my mother and grandmother) they’re as good as they’re going to get. So, if you read them already, you don’t have to go back and read them again, they’re not that different. But if you were one of those people who took one look at them and left, give them another try. I promise that they’re better.

Check them out. If you care to.

* * *

Second. I’ve finally changed hosts, yet again. I wont tell you who (I want to actually give them a few weeks before I say they’re good or not), but they have a good rating and they’re even cheaper than that massive pile that was Dreamhost. Never, EVER use Dreamhost. EVER.

But these new guys promise to be much better. And is it my imagination, or is the site moving faster? I think it’s moving faster. But I also removed some stuff that might have been bogging us down. But I’m happier. Much happier.

I’m saving something like $80 a year.

@#$% Dreamhost.

* * *

This also leads me into my next point: The site is done. I’m not @#$%ing with it anymore. After ComicPress 2.9 comes out (which I’m running a beta one) and I make the switch I’m done. I’m done until Book Three.

I spend entirely too much time messing with shit here and I need to stop.

So I’m done with the site unless something explodes. But that what I’m hoping this new host helps me with. That way I’m not coming and checking on the site ever two hours wondering ‘is it dead?’ and my buddy isn’t texting me every few days saying ‘hey, your site’s down’.

Seriously, @#$% Dreamhost and the @#$%ing horse they rode in on.

* * *

Now for the stuff that doesn’t really pertain to the site, but you might find enlightening (IE: I’m bitching, walk away now).

Oh, thank god this arc is over. I actually really enjoyed it but I think that I jumped into it too quickly after the massive beast that was Book Two, Chapter Four. I needed a longer break and I didn’t give myself one. That and I really need to start taking the week of Christmas off. If it wasn’t one thing it was the other.

That and I had orientation for my new job the day that my Grandmother flew in and I had to drive to the other end of town.

So that sucked.

I won’t bore you with the smelly details of my life, I try not to, despite the fact that this is a blog. But basically I’ve been busy and feeling a little stressed. So I’m taking this week off totally (I’m only doing comic related stuff if I feel like it) then next week I’ll get to work on building a good and proper buffer, then we’ll see where I go from there.

But I’m actually feeling much better already (I send of a slightly frazzled Email to my friend yesterday, and if you’re reading this I’m feeling much better, haha). I’ve rearranged my room, so I have a little more space (though my drawing table is closer to my computer than I’d have liked…) and I also picked up some aroma therapy smelly things (the first one who laughs dies. Eventually. At their convince. Of old age more than likely) and I’m doing some stretches (again, first to laugh dies at their earliest convenience).

I also tried a new way of working on the comic that seemed to work quite smoothly. Basically I start to feel rushed when presented with a totally blank canvas, and I get bored of doing the same thing for too long (inking, coloring, shading, etc…) so I tried to do something I haven’t done in a long while, I did each panel individually, then combined them on the page.

It only took me an two hours and felt quite natural.

So I’m going to try that for a while and see if it sticks.

Anyhow, enjoy your New Years and I hope your holidays kicked ass.

-Peace

HTML is like an addiction, kids, don’t get hooked. Or else you’ll find yourself in the libary between classes pecking away at the keys like some sort of @#$%ing meth addict. Blagh…

But the new functions might just justify the change:

1. Those damned red-xs are back for IE, I’m working on it, but I promise you’re not missing anything. They’re just a pain in my ass. EDIT: Never attempt to code tired, boys and girls. My ass missed the whole ‘add this here’ instructions…Durp.

2.The menu bar now looks like a proper menu bar. It’s the default though, which I intend to change when I can be bothered to sit down and @#$% with this some more. But when you hover it’ll display the child pages to the main ones. Which I like, but went without because it was too much of a hassle to do it proper. But now I’m going to sit down and figure it out. EDIT: It’s looking good. I found a good way of simply adjusting the colors on the thing rather than doing it again.

3. GRAPHICAL NAVIGATION IS BACK!! This is something I hated being without, but I’ll have to give it my own flare, it’s all ‘default’ now. But that’s next on my list of shit to bork with. I’m trying to keep the design lightweight so it loads ok, let me know if you have any problems. EDIT: We have navigation. I liked the default, but not the colors, all credit goes to the awesome folks who did ComicPress.

4. I HAVE MOODS!! I’m fully intending to make a bunch of these for myself out of Paoken, but right now I’m happy with the default. I was never happy with those ‘avatar’ things, I don’t know why, they weren’t bad, but maybe because I only had…like four of them…So here we are. Defaults until I find a spare moment to make more. EDIT: Maybe I won’t be making new images…they don’t look quite right…Ah, well. EDIT EDIT: Wow, never mind. I decided to screw with it and I got some good moods. Heh.

5. I’m thinking of joining twitter and replacing the shout box with that…No one ever uses that thing and I’d rather have a twitter or something there since (for the odd occasion) there’s the comments for communication. That, and shout box is constantly @#$%ing up my loads and I can’t even edit the posts on there anymore. I don’t know why. But it’s busted. So screw it. EDIT: I’m on twitter now (bellow the shout box) but I’m leaving the shoutbox up for the interim until I decide if I give a crap or not.

And, before you ask: No, this isn’t why there wasn’t any update Wednesday. I was busy before then, and I started this yesterday when I couldn’t work on a comic because I was in school.

If you find anything broken, or anything you just don’t like. Let me know, I’m back on the wagon, I might as well get some work done.

-Peace

Hunter WILL return though. As soon as I get a little buffer going of The PKF, Hunter will return, with a PROPER schedule.

Anyhow, now that the depressing stuff’s out of the way! SUMMER FUN! Well..END OF SUMMER FUN!!

Either way, I’m AMAZINGLY happy with this picture. It’s just so damned good.

You can find the High-Res of the picture in my Deviant Art Page. AND for the first time EVER (for a Summer Fun pic, anyhow) you can get it in Wall-Paper size to adorn your computer! Check it out HERE with the rest of the Wall Papers.

The previous pictures can be found in Deviant Art Page: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005.

I’d appologize for it being so late, but honestly I never really set a date for the picture to be done…But as long as it’s before the end of August I’m in good shape. Which today is the last day of! So I’m clear! I was actually done last week sometime, but I decided that I needed the filler today, so I held off on posting it.

Which brings me to my next bit of ‘bad’ news. Wednesday’s comic might be a little late, Or there could even be some kind of filler.

Short version of the troubles: I’ve basically got until Friday to finish all the stuff I have to do to become a Substitute teacher and if I don’t do it I’ll have to start the WHOLE process over again. That’s not happening, so I might need to put the comic on the back burner this week.

But, to be quite honest, last week was rather nuts with me trying to get this all done AND handle what I thought was going to be a devastating semester at school (It’s not going to be, I’ve got a handle on it now and it might be my lightest yet). But I NEED to get these papers into the CCSD’s office BY FRIDAY. So It’s a mad rush to the finish line.

Wish me luck, and enjoy the wallpaper.

-Peace

It’s damned good, isn’t it?

I spent most of Monday working on it and I spent most of Tuesday morning finishing it. And it shows. I also shrunk it by another 100px, which isn’t a lot, but I kind of like it. I’ll let you all know what I decide later about size.

My resolution to you guys is this: I’m going to do my best to do justice to this comic. I’m going to spend as much time and effort on each page as is necessary to give you the finest story and images as possible.

And God knows I’ll try.

Anyhow, COMICCON!

Met all my favorite Web-Comic folks. And they were all really, really nice people. Not an ass-hole in the group. The Zap! pair were awesome and were two of the nicest people I’ve met. I picked up the second book and gave them my fan-comic, which, like I said, they seemed legitimately happy to have. Pascalle (the artist) said they’d put it up on their site, so I don’t want to post it just yet. But if it’s not up in a week or two I’ll stick it up here. I’m not going to bug them about it, I was just happy to meet them.

I also went to the AppleGeeks’ meet and greet. It was cool meeting Hawk and Ananth, they were interesting to talk to. And a few people mauled Hawk for sketches, I didn’t bug him as he signed and sketched in my AG book the day before. But he could draw stuff in all of two seconds. Some one even had him draw a little Hawk on their Mac-Laptop…

From there I met Chris Daily and Aeire from Punch an’ Pie, I picked up their book and Chris did a fantastic drawing in it, I also picked up a ‘read’ poster…Which amuses me. And Randy Milholland from Something Positive was, despite what he’ll have you believe, an extremely cool guy. I picked up Super Stupor one and two, which he personalized.

Honestly, it was really, really cool to meet the people I’ve been following for five years. And once I got past my initial ‘oh dear god, I know these people’s work’ I’d like to think I didn’t make a total dick of my self.

Seriously, Zap’s Chris Layfield and Pascalle were the first people I met and I nearly fan-boyed on myself. It was quite embarrassing when the only thing you can think of is “I love your comic”. Which is a good place to start…but the ten seconds of awkward silence that follows isn’t exactly a winner. Haha. But I recovered damn it!

I also went to the Neil Gaiman panel on Coraline (I’ve been pronouncing his name wrong for years, apparently. It’s ‘Gay-man’ not ‘Guy-man’…oops.) and it was quite awesome listening to him speak. He’s a funny dude, I’ve gotta say.

I didn’t get a chance to shake his hand, but it was cool listening to his stories…Also, he’d like to see an American Gods Movie made. Which frightens me…But if they do it as well as Coraline, I’d be cool with it.

I also went to the ‘how to layout a page with panels’ panel with Jeff Smith…Who as you all know, is my favorite comic book guy ever. Seriously, I’ve re-read Bone more than I care to think about.

It was really inspiring to see how amazing he really was at drawing. He free-handed shit like you wouldn’t believe.

He drew and inked a whole comic in all of ten minuets. Holy @#$%.

I also saw the panel on ‘Batman, Arkham Asilum’ which honestly looks pretty awesome. But it’s still on my ‘rent’ list. Still I did see Batman and Joker…Well, their voices anyhow, which I grew up with:

So that was pretty cool. They were actually really funny, Hamil kept hitting on this one woman dressed as Harley Quinn…But slightly more…Slutty than the cartoon version. Haha

And the Watchman Panel was interesting…I didn’t stick around for the movie though. The trolleys stopped at 1am and the movie was shaping up to go until 2…Ah well. It was good enough to see the pre-show stuff.

There were two guys dressed as Rorschach who asked questions, they ended up dueling voices with the actor…Which was hilarious. The whole thing was quite awesome.

I’ve never been to a convention before, so this was a hell of a place to start. I had fun…I don’t know if I’ll be doing it again next year…But who knows.

Maybe I’ll have a booth an you guys can come visit me.

Well…I can dream, can’t I?

-Peace

(HOLY SHIT this was a long post. Sorry…But I figure a con-report has to be a little long.)

HE’S AWESOME!

Just a bit of randomness to announce that I’m alive and my friend and I made it to California in one piece…Though given the fact that we’ve been here for two days, maybe…well, it’s belated anyhow.

It’s been interesting. I met the much to nice folks from Zap! who seemed genuinely happy to have my fan-comic. I got the second book and I got Stacy the Stickle sketched in the cover, Haha…Plus I stopped by the Apple Geeks Booth and said hello. We’ll be bugging them again at the meet and greet on Sunday, but I’ve picked up a book and they both signed it and I got a little sketch of comic Hawk in it.

Full report on Monday…Or Wednesday. Whenever I get around to it.

-Peace

I wish I could say that there was going to be another Hunter comic on Friday…But sadly this is the only one that I got done. And honestly, I should have had it done last Friday. Hunter will update on Friday with this comic but ‘uncut’…Basically @#$% will be uncensored.

I need nudity in this thing or something, otherwise what the hell is the point of calling it NSFW? Swearing ain’t that bad.

Ah well.

It works.

Remember, I’m out of town for the rest of this week. If I get some good ComiCon pics I’ll post them from my hotel, but otherwise I should be kind of dead to the world.

I’ve decided what the Filler on Monday will be, however. I’ll be doing a completely pencil drawing and I’ll be scanning it in Sunday night (or Monday early morning). I don’t know what it’ll be, but It’ll be totally pencil.

Don’t know what I’m doing this, but it seems like good practice.

Enjoy your weekend.

-Peace

I’m not trying to be purposely vague, but when you read though the entire archives of a comic in two sittings time get blurred.

Also, remember the Cybers from Book One? Look at their eyes in this comic. See? They’re kinda like cheap ass television sets on the blink? All static-like? Yeah, dumb, right? Check out their later appearance right here. See? All red and glowy. Much more menacing.

That’s almost exclusively because of Zap and it’s artist Lepas. A few months after I started to read it they posted The Glow Swatches on their DA page.

From there I started to screw with all sorts of blurry, glowy, awesome.

So, if you don’t like it, blame them…

No, really, don’t. It’s not their fault I’m not as competent. Heh.

Anyhow, enjoy the sneak peek of Gunner in my little fan comic.

-Peace

(PS: Remember, I’m leaving on Wednesday, so I’m away from my comp. I’ll hopefully have something on Wednesday for you all, but I make no promises. There’ll also be filler upon my return on Monday, probably something PKF oriented. Your regularly scheduled updates will resume Wednesday July 29th, Gods permitting.)

It’s a short story. But a story non-the-less.

I started reading webcomics around 2003/2004 (Give or take a few months). The first comic I found was MacHall, done by the very talented Ian McConville & Matt Boydan. I thundered though the archives but found myself looking for more…Then I found AppleGeeks. Mohammad F. Haque and Ananth Panagariya are probably two of my favorite webcomickeryers (what? it’s a word, look it up…Ok, fine, it’s not a word.) and I’m not saying that to kiss their asses.

I mean it.

MacHall changed my life and AppleGeeks continued the shift inexorably to the creation of my own comic.

To my then sixteen year old mind the idea of placing my comics and art anywhere but the back of my dresser’s draw was unfathomable. It honestly never occurred to me that the Internet was for anything other than gaming cheats and porn artistically rendered photos of women men…people.

They showed me otherwise.

Since then my Webcomic reading grew and grew. But it was actually El Goonish Shive that convinced me to start my comic finally…Because, let’s be honest here: when Dan Shive started that comic he wasn’t very good. It gave me hope that I didn’t have to be a college student studying art to do a webcomic.

There it is. That’s why I do a webcomic…AppleGeeks was the progenitor of my love for this little hobby, and I’m finally feel like I’m good enough to give them a little payback. The final picture will probably be one of the best I’ve done, I spent most of the last two days working on it, and will likely spend the next day doing the background…And trying desperately to fix eve’s @#$%ing FACE.  Hawk? Awesome. Eve? Awesome…’cept the FACE?!

@#$% me.

Lol…

Well that’s my story. I’m going to be working on a few other Fanarts this week (Something Positive and Zap!).

I’ve been meaning to show my love for these people for a long time…But this is the perfect excuse to do so. So look for little snippets of fanart the next week or so. And maybe I’ll even fit in some PKF goodness along the way.

-Peace

PS. Maybe on Monday I’ll explain why these guys aren’t linked when my respect for them is so @#$%ing massive. Or not. Either way.