The Benefits of Stepping Back

I finished pages 1 and 2, and I hope to get page 3 done before the weekend when I leave for a week-long vacation. I had been taking a long time completing the post-work for the last two renders on page 2 due to the complexity of the composition. Basically, Master Shakkar is talking about when the Imperium invaded his home planet and these two renders show scenes from that invasion. After finishing the second render, I decided to trash the first one. It just looked bad compared to the second one once I was done with it. However, I was able to redo the first render in only an hour by completely reworking it (ie: showing something completely different). In short, I backed away from my original vision of that render and went about it a new way, which I think looked better. Perhaps it’s ironic that I can work very hard on something over a long time and then, after stepping back from it so to speak, I can redo it completing very quickly.

Chapter 4 Started

The renders for page 1 of chapter 4 are done, as well as several renders for page 2. There are a lot of items in this first scene so each render is taking a long time to complete. On the other hand, the renders themselves look very nice, if I do say so myself. :-)

Due to a lack of interest, I have removed the Forums from the site. Since there is no forum, there is no need for the contest I had planned either. In short, both the forum and the contest were more of a distraction than anything. However, I am keeping the Store since that requires no interaction by me. It basically runs itself.

When I published chapter 3, I put an ad under Drama on the www.onlinecomics.com site. Normally I put the ad under Science Fiction, but I wanted to see what kind of response I would get with something else. Although I had expected the results to be somewhat less, I must say the traffic to the site has been much less than I envisioned. Moving forward, I will probably just stick with Sci-Fi instead.

Chapter 3 Now Online!

Chapter 3 is now online, a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. I’ve already started some preliminary setup for the next chapter, called Master Shakkar. Since I’m going on vacation the second week of May, I’d like to get started with Chapter 4 as soon as possible since I’ll be losing a week to work on it.

I’ve decided to run a contest starting on May 1^st. It’ll go for two months and will ask people to write reviews/recommendations of comics on the forums. I’m looking to see how much response I get. If I don’t get much, I may discontinue the forums altogether.

Space Opera

I’ve been getting some feedback stating that there isn’t enough action in the story. I was concerned about this as well until it dawned on me that Alexander the Prince really isn’t an action story at all; it’s more of a drama/space opera with palace intrigues, etc. Although I’ve had the same story in mind the whole time, I think it’s still evolved somewhat while I’ve been actually making it. In other words, although the plot is the same, the emphasis has moved away from my original idea of action/adventure, and shifted toward drama/intrigue instead.

Moving forward, I will try to be more succinct. To that end, I’ve changed the category that the comic is listed on www.onlinecomics.com from Action to Drama, although of course it’s also listed under Sci-Fi.

Anyway, I only have one page left for Chapter 3, so I believe I should be able to publish it by end of this weekend, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Contest?

It looks like chapter 3 will be done a lot quicker than I anticipated. After finishing pages 8 and 9 over the weekend, I’m pretty sure I can wrap things up in only one or two more pages. This would mean I could possibly have chapter 3 published by the end of this next weekend (4/23-24^th).

To help advertise the site and increase activity on the Forums, I have been thinking about having a contest. It would involve giving away a free item (one or more books perhaps) based on who writes the best review/recommendation on the forums. Basically, after a month or so, I would pick the winner based on who I felt did the best job. However, I have some legal concerns about running such a contest. I’ve done some research and it’s important that I have clear-cut rules as to criteria of what is being judged, etc. Since I don’t have any money, I really can’t afford to be sued in case someone gets mad that they didn’t get picked. Of course, we’re only talking about a free book (or whatever) so losing wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Of course, even if I run a contest, there’s no guarantee that anyone will take part either. :-)