So I was doing a little bit of a cleanup around my desk and although I was aware that there was a dusty old Post-it lying there for an ABSOLUTE AGE I kept moving it to one side, clean, and put it back without actually looking at it.
Well, today I actually looked at it and it was a reminder for something that I had to put in to issue #15! Which I hadn’t!
Man, I hate doing tiny food shops at the store. I usually end up buying extra things to pad it out and make it look ‘normal’ (or buy tins of ravioli for when I want to regress to being a kid again having tinned ravioli on toast. And hey, them tins totally take the focus away from the rest of the shop, right?)
Always plan ahead people!
The long post that has an equally long title!
So I mentioned last time that while updating issue #13 I’d gone and made a few changes like adding scars to Commander Ghorunt. Yeah, Commander Ghorunt, the… head bad guy in this issue…? Yeah?
So okay, here’s the thing. Long time readers might remember back to when issue #13 came out the first time and how the commander not only lacked a scar but also didn’t even have a name!
I did the same mistake way back in issue #1 where I didn’t give the commander a name and that guy was super important! Now (and this is a slight spoiler) when I started planning the book out (and there is a plan!) I knew how many (important) Shoal I needed and how each one of them would look distinctive. And even though I planned out where the story was going I realised that a character needed to be in a certain place at a certain time but was not going to be there as they were somewhere very far away!
A big part of this issue is that I never planned out how many books I was going to publish. At time has gone on I realised I really want to get to that finish line and so I’ve gone and trimmed down a number of ‘filler’ issues. So with a cut down in stories, and therefore time passing, I now had a character in the wrong place!
So what to do? Easy! I use another character! But this then causes the problem of creating another distinctive look (and I’ve already used Emperor and cyborg)! So yes, we’re going to have a few new Shoal designs on the way!
I seriously wish I had done different shades of Shoal like I did with the Burians. If nothing else, why is it that the majority of alien races ALL have the same skin colour – and why did I make the same mistake (although only half a mistake as I got the Burians right!)
As for not naming my characters? Yeah, that’s totally my fault. Especially with Vulgreth back in issue #1! Geez! Some other characters throughout the stories I didn’t think I had to name as you wouldn’t see them again (and what if I really liked the name I created and wanted to use if for someone else later on?) but I realise that ALL CHARACTERS SHOULD GET A NAME! Forgetting that I might need to use them again it’s just polite innit?
Going back to Ghorunt and his scars I originally did a shaded colour scheme that matches his hands and face tentacle things (I have biological reasons) but it just didn’t look right. It was while lying in bed at something stupid like 4am and not being able to sleep that I came up with the grey scar line work. 
I had actually had this idea earlier in my planning but had thought of doing a black outline but it just looked to heavy.
But yeah, really happy with the grey outline scabby markings!
And so going forward, I pledge to name EVERY character I introduce, I now know the right font style for when I say ‘I’ (as discussed in my last post) and I will USE that knowledge, and I really need to super plan things that bit more because from issue #15 onwards which will be all new books I’m not going to do any more do-overs! NO MORE I SAY!!!
More soon! Bear hugs!
PS. I started typing this up last week but then saved it as a draft and didn’t return to it as I totally forgot! It’s been my plan to post every week on here so kinda messed up on that one! Sorry!!!
So I’ve finished updating the lettering in issue #13 – including going through it again having learned the importance of using Serif Font on the letter ‘I’ when a character refers to themselves – and I’m now at the colouring stage (as well as updating/correcting the odd panel here and there)
I’ve just finished my second page which is oddly the opening page of the book (as I’m not doing this in order) and it took a stupid long time as over time I’ve done little changes to many of the things shown on this page in previous issues so I had to ensure it all tied up! Especially as I’ll be using this as reference for following pages!
Look! Lloyd has hands! The commander has a name (and a scar)! Explosions are in different places now! Okay, you get the idea….
It’s an interesting book to work on as not every page needs updating – or at least not a lot of updates – and at the same time I’m finding I’m having to concentrate on each page at a time whereas when putting a book together I would usuaully colour several pages at the same time if I’m using the same colour palette.
Hopefully I’ll be able to speed up a bit and zip through this as I get a hang of doing individual pages and get this and the next issue updated pretty quickly as I really want to get working on issue #16 as well as colouring issue #15!
(It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has seen my parody prints that I do like updating my work from time to time!)
Okay, back to work! More soon!
Bear hugs!
So while out walking today and enjoying the good weather here in London I, along with my better half, stopped by Temple of Seitan for some lunch. Now unlike said better half – who is a card carrying vegan (no, not really a thing) – this was my first time at this eatery and hey, they had Mac & Cheese! And my personal rule goes, if I see Mac & Cheese on the menu I’M GOING TO TRY IT!
