Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Hair Pulling

I got back from my trip on Sunday. Before I left, however, I sat down and wrote a script for the first several pages of chapter 13. I had been stuck before, but I think this is a good starting point. It required, however, that I redo page 1 which had to be completely scrapped. Since getting back, I’ve completed pages up through page 3 (including the redo). It’s been a real headache, because of the number of characters in the scene. Poser keeps crapping out on me and it’s been very frustrating. This morning I created a duplicate of the set with a lot of things removed (out of frame) so hopefully I can render more quickly.

FYI: I’ll be out of town once again next week, although for a shorter time. Since this is the climatic chapter of the story, I want to take my time, but I also don’t want to keep people waiting too long.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Chapter 13 Started

After a false start, I completed the renders for page one of chapter 13. I had originally planned on reusing the Great Room set featured in chapter 1, but I was having a lot of trouble getting renders to work properly (due to the number of models present in the scene). I decided to download a set from DAZ called the Palace Entrance. I’ve been having my eye on it for a while so I was itching to have an excuse to get it. ;-)

As I said last time, I’m going to be out of town much of this month so I’m going to be losing a lot of time for working on the comic. On the other hand, I’ll be in the car a lot so hopefully I can think about some dialogue and stuff so it won’t be a total waste of time. For whatever reason, when I’m here in the apartment, I have a lot of trouble thinking of dialogue (that doesn’t stink). When I was at work, dialogue would seem to just leap out of my head, but here at home it’s a LOT harder.

Btw, I removed the Google ads that used to run at the bottom of my webpages and replaced them with a single ad for my online store. However, like the Google ads, they don’t get clicked very often. I guess I need to find other ways to get traffic to my store. :-)

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Chapter 12 Online

I uploaded Chapter 12 on Friday, a few days ahead of schedule. Unlike the week before, I was very productive: I ended up doing six pages in six days!

Next will be the climatic chapter of the story, the last one until the epilogue. I have a strong idea of what the dialogue will be so hopefully I’ll be able to write the script relatively quickly. May will be a difficult month to get things done, however, because we’ll be going out of town at least twice.

By the way, to try and earn some money, I’ve opened a new online store through cafepress.com called Imperium Fantasy & Sci-fi Gifts. While I was finishing up chapter 12, I was also creating graphics for the store (for t-shirts, etc.). It’s fun to do, but we’ll see if I can actually make any money from it. Since quitting my previous job, I’ve been trying to stay away from going back to work in Corporate America, so I’m trying to find ways to work from home. Sadly, I’ll probably have to go back to the grind, but I’m hopefully I won’t have to for at least awhile longer.