Arduous Evening

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . actually last night is a perfect example of why working on the comic takes so long. It started off fine: I finished page two (added the dialogue and built the webpage), and the first three panels for page 3 also went well (a series of shots of a pirate ship swooping in before firing). Even creating the “blaster” effect of the pirate’s weapon went okay in Photoshop. However, starting with that special effect, I began having problems getting the “look” I wanted. I had planned to have the fourth panel show the Steppenwolf being hit by blaster fire and the shields showing the impact. Unfortunately, I spent a big chunk of the evening trying to get the shield effect and failed miserably. I ended up going to bed weary eyed and brain numb. Of course, someone with greater Photoshop skill would probably have done it, but I am only self-taught. I ended up abandoning that idea and now I’m going to do the shot differently (two panels showing the First Mate and the Captain, respectfully). On the other hand, it did give me an idea for page 4. I’m going to try and make a render from inside the cockpit of the attacking pirate ship, looking out the canopy at the Steppenwolf as it gets hit. I have some ideas about how I’m actually going to pull it off, but I will need to test that out tonight if possible. So, tonight I should get done with page 3 and at least start on page 4.