Whoo... been a long time...

Suffice to say, this spring got pretty busy. I think the lack of updates was a pretty big hint.

The Troglobyte team and I finished four games (space shooter Neon Trigger, real time strategy Illgresi, first person shooter Illumina, and beat-'em-up Cadence). They were all pirated, Cadence within less than 24 hours, which we're quite proud of. Since they're free games it just means that more people play them. Additionally, we found that there were actual honest to god reviews for them, 2-300 words long even! We were super proud. However, there was also a portfolio that had to be done, applying for internship, volunteering at the Nordic Game Conference, etc. There never seemed to be enough time for much of anything, truth be told.
I've signed the necessary papers for my internship now, and I'll be moving "back home". That is to say, to the north of Sweden where I was born. When I was a child, my cousin and I were most upset that we had to move to the south of Sweden and both wanted to stay. So, we started the club "we who are going to move back to the snow when we've grown up" and were very cranky. A little over two decades later, we still live in the south. I'm of half a mind to suggest he moves up with me now that I'm moving.
I just need to find an apartment now...

The pigs, finished!

Amanda and I held our The Good, the Bad, the Babbler presentation, about character creation, development and representation at Kodachi-Con. The second time we did that lecture, first being at I Seriernas Värld 2013. Got some nice responses and feedback, which we are definitely going to use to update and improve the presentation.

In other news, Champions and Heroes turned three, it is running steadily on tumblr now as well. We've decided to give Project Wonderful a go, and see what happens. Touch wood and all of that.
The plan is to make multiple fanzines for next year's SPX/SIS, together and with Think Ink. Since I have to move for my internship things involving any kind of printing and conventions are a little bit uncertain, but the comic is definitely going to keep going.

I also finished Aquae Sulis for Think Ink's 9th fanzine Mysterious Tales, and lived in a dazed state of confusion when I had spare time after handing it in. I think I spent November to April with practically no time to myself due to the comic, my studies and the portoflio, and absolutely none that was guilt free. On the plus side, I still kinda like the comic, despite having worked on it for so long.

Additionally, SF-bokhandeln is turning 30, and they're hosting a ball in Stockholm in late August. The plan is to go as an imperial officer, but that's provided I find the time to make the outfit. Otherwise I suppose it's going to be one of the old cosplays.
Aaaaand there's going to be some camp NaNoWriMo this month too. I've already started, fallen behind, and caught up. One of my main characters finally decided on a plan, so now I know where she's at least going to try to go (hooray!) but there's a lot of incoherent rambling going on (boo!), but that's NaNo I guess.

2 month update

Okay... long time no update, again. I've been crazy busy, to the point where I've gotten sick because of it, but it's been calming down now that the work for the Think Ink anthology is done. Now I've actually got spare time when I'm done with the school work (for what feels like the first time in six months). Not that that has stopped me from getting a cold, but hey...

This is page 1 of Forest born, the skogsrå comic I've been working on for what seems like forever. Finally done! :D It will be part of Think Ink's The Art of Fika anthology, which will be released at SPX/SIS this year, and four out of five Think Inkers will be there, yours truly included :)

As far as school goes we've started our third game - a shoot 'em up - and we're at the same time doing a course about concept art. First time doing photobashes, and I have to admit that I find it a bit difficult, though I can certainly tell that it speeds things up considerably.

We were supposed to do a form of mechanical transport or vehicle of some kind. I chose to do some kind of steampunky roman chariot with built in horse thing, though I ran out of time and didn't have time to fix the wheels and the legs which are off . Still, it was fun.

And then we did some landscape depth practice. I've tried this before, with the Shmil picture, and I quite like it, but I chickened out and went with a cave rather than buildings. Still, I got to try to draw saiga - possibly the world's ugliest antelope. So ugly they're cute XD
We're working on character designs for the Grimm brother's story The Skillful Huntsman at the moment, and I made 87 thumbnails before I realized that maybe it was time to stop and go on to the next step. Ahem. It's great fun though :D

Other than that, Champions and Heroes is turning 2 years at the end of the month. Amanda and I are both sick, but planning on a joint little birthday comic to celebrate.

Dragon Age fanzine

Got home at ten past ten... having spent the entire day printing this:

Half color, half greyscale, all Dragon Age. It's some 40 pages, and has a younger sibling that we sorted out at the same time. They'll be ready for SPX at the end of the month :D

And now... I am going to tend to my headache, drink some tea, watch some Supernatural, maybe read some fanfic and generally take it easy for the rest of the night. Back to work tomorrow.

Hooray!

I just finished and sent the art for The Long Haul, written by Ollie Masters who taught me a thing or two :)

I'm really happy that I went with the original plan and did the grey tones with copics. Not only did it go faster than it would have if I had done it digitally, but it got a bit of texture for free. A really rewarding experience and I'm excited to see how the anthology turns out too :D

SPX is quickly approaching as well! And the Absolutely Scandalous Stories fanzine is already finished. For once, with time to spare! If you're going, keep an eye out for us :D

And back to work...

So after a month of being... fairly occupied with other things, I return to the real world.
The little escape into the world of Thedas was not entirely uninspired, far from it in fact. My fellow Think Inker Amanda and I have started up a twice a week updated Dragon Age webcomic and I have been practically spewing out art... which is sitting prettily on my computer and released to the world on Thursdays. It's been a great opportunity to do less than serious stuff with my copics, and I find that I've been learning a lot... the most important lesson have been "relax" XD


The final bits and pieces of Think Ink's new fanzine Absolutely Scandalous Stories are being put together at the moment, and will be heading for the printers next week barring any unseen events. It will debute at SPX, as will Swedish Comic Sin 2 and Nekronasses citatbok, which I have also participated in. Hooray!

March... month of fun?

On Friday I will disappear from the face of the world for a couple of days. The long awaited Dragon Age 2 will then be minemineminemine. But while waiting for the game's release I am still working. Mainly catching up on my concept art course, but there are a few other bits and pieces that are getting dealt with while I am procrastinating.

Corrections on Substitute have been made, I've finished the sketch for Think Ink's Absolutely Scandalous Stories cover, the sketch for our talented guest artist Teru has also been completed. Additionally, I've finally sat down and fixed the text in Ilta Dalharuk and as of the 13th of March it will update every Sunday.
The Red Planet's prelude Myths of Mars has been updating three times a month for a little while now, and I've completed four of the five first pages of The Red Planet itself. The fifth needs rescanning...

The zombie anthology is giving me a rather accusing look from the other side of my desk, and I think I'll be working on that next to get away from my studies. At least all procrastination isn't wasting time?

Think Ink #4, SPX and more...

The Swedish Comic Sin has been sent to the printers and everyone involved are excited and nervous and hopeful. It will be for sale at SPX (Small Press Expo, which takes place April 23-25 in Stockholm, Sweden) and we will have a release party at Debaser.


4 out of 5 Think Ink members will be present at SPX and we are currently putting our fourth fanzine together. I will contribute with a seven page preview of The Red Planet, and possibly my Grumg'nesh strips.

I finished coloring the Sverok illustration a while back, and I have officially broken up with Photoshop's smudge tool. On the other hand, my tablet and I have made friends and we are getting along wonderfully. I'm currently working on finishing Myths of Mars, something which I will probably be working on at least 12 hours a day for the next week...
During all of this I'm supposed to squeeze out something for the fourth class fanzine as well, but I'm a little bit skeptical at this point. Myths of Mars is more important, but at the same time I have an old comic which would fit the theme and I do sort of like it still (just not the raster...) We shall see, I suppose.

Facebook

Just lost my facebook virginity...

It has been concluded that March is a horrible, horrible month with far too many deadlines. I think I will stay at home and work tomorrow so not to waste two hours on the bus, especially as there won't be any classes.
Because really... I need to get that Malmö Fria thing done by Friday X(
On the other hand... the two comic pages I plan on using will be added to Think Ink's new fanzine, and it's Red Planet related so I know that once I get started I'll enjoy it. I just don't like having the deadline just around the corner.

The dryad story now has a good and proper name - Dryspell. Enough double entendre to amuse me, but not silly enough to ruin the mood. There has also been progress (thankfully). I've finished 7 out of 11 pages and gotten some serious work done on the others. Hopefully I'll manage to finish the rest this week so that I can ink and greyscale in peace next week.
Friends (and myself for that matter) have concluded that it is far too easy to make bad jokes and silly omakes for this story. I think I could make a small fanzine with the ideas offered so far.

December...

This teeny weeny thing? Not so tiny in real life.It took two A3 papers to get all 14 of the Airbitch crew and the 2 Very Important Women in one single picture. Still not entirely satisfied with the coloring but I'm going to let it be for a while as the deadlines keep clustering.

We did the 24 hour comic exercise last week, and though I didn't finish I did a whole lot better than I've ever done before - 20 complete pages, out of which I am pretty satisfied with 14. It's a small Space 1889 thing, semi-related to the actual project but only in the sense that the captain appears in it (at the age of 8-10). I like it though, and hopefully I'll be able to finish it by Christmas.

And the deadline for the third class fanzine is steadily approaching while I'm slaving away at horrible, horrible backgrounds. Victorian houses are not my friend, that's for sure. At least NaNoWriMo is over and completed so I don't have to stress out over that too, just... Christmas now, I guess.

Holy shit...

All three comics are done, not a single deadline missed. A whole 7 minutes before midnight I finished the two year old Naruto doujinshi.

The vast majority of the art is old, but when I found it again after two years and didn't hate it and it was almost completed it felt wrong not to sit down and finish it now that I have the time. Sort of. Perhaps "now that I'm supposed to be drawing comics" is a better way to put it.

It will be coming along with me to Jpopcon this weekend where hopefully I'll sell enough to feel that the hard work was worth it.

NaNoWriMo

And so begins NaNoWriMo 2009 (which stands for National Novel Writing Month), my 8th NaNo total. 50 000 words or more shall be written during November, no matter how many cheap tricks I have to pull. Random dares? Flash backs? Cookie recipes? Excessive ramblings? Not leaving the house for a full week to make up for lost time? All is fair in the battle for those 50 000 words.


In more comic related news Think Ink's Mangazine is now available, and in it is Royal Games, finally completed.

All the inking on the doujinshi is done, so I'm left with the coloring of the cover and back and adding the greyscale... which I sincerely hope will not take too long because I have a bad novel to write. And a cosplay to sew.

I've also cheated a bit and started sketching on Space 1889... and to my horror realized that one page every three days will not be enough, because somehow I underestimated how many pages I need for every chapter. I'm fantastic like that. Three of the pages will definitely be done for December, as the class fanzine group decided that 'snusk' ('filth/smut') should be the theme and that really doesn't work with the vampire story. It does, however, work fabulously for my pirate captain and his beloved girlfriend when they meet at the Captain's Bounty, an inn/brothel in Karkarham where she works.

The strips for Sydsvenskan are also underway. I have eleven strip ideas with Grumg'nesh the one toothed orc, out of which I like five. But I do love the way that deadline is smack in the middle of the second week of November, which is about the last days when the writing is easy. Why oh why can't the world just stay on hold for November so I and the rest of the rabid authors in NaNo land can write in peace?

One down...

... two to go.
Sat up until 2 am in order to finish the grey scales on the class fanzine comic, which is the same as my long vampire comic which is still lacking a titel. Insurrection has been suggested so I guess I'll have to see if it sticks.

Hopefully I'll be able to flirt a bit with the fanzine group in order to get the theme for the next fanzine (due in December) to be something which allows me to continue the comic. I'll probably mainly work on the Space 1889 fanzine in November though, so if it's not for the class fanzine the continuation for this comic will have to wait for a while.

Doooooone~

I've been working on the coloring on and off since July, but the monster is finally done. Just because I say that, I'm sure I'll discover several mistakes in just a few days...

It will with all probability be the cover of a Space 1889 fanzine... which I can start working on more seriously in November...

Comics online

After hesitating for a long while I've gotten started on Smack Jeeves, and have started to publish The Queen and the Soldier, which appeared in the Think Ink fanzine Welcome to Wonderland.

The second class fanzine is on its way, which of course means that I'm suddenly working on six projects rather than five. Three of which practically have the same deadline. Oh well... I've inked the first eight pages as well as the back and cover on one, and can see the end approaching in the distance as far as sketching goes on the other one, so I'm sure it's possible. It's mainly a lack of ideas to the class fanzine which irks me. "Party" isn't really a theme that inspires, but I'm sure it will work out...

...

Busy preparing for the book fair - first book fair for me so it's nervosity mixed with curiosity. The class (the first year of Malmö's Comic Art school) has done a fanzine, after some ups and downs and troubles with the printer. No theme so I chose to do the first three pages on a vampire story I'm planning on doing.

Furthermore, I'm continuing to work on a couple of comics - an old, old doujinshi and Kungaspel/Royal Games which wasn't finished in time for Mangatalangen 2009 (which didn't happen anyway). Kungaspel will be printed in Think Ink's 'Mangazine' this autumn instead, together with our other Mangatalangen contributions. However, what I really want to do is a proper Space 1889 fanzine with Jerker and his crew. Oh well... in time, I guess...