OK, that title is clearly a lie. I’ve completed the original versions of the first two strips, but there is more work to be done on both. Our new process is a LOT more collaborative than it ever was before. In the old days I’d pencil and ink the strip on 8×11″ bristol board, scan it in, plop it into a PhotoShop document, add dialog & titles, then send it off to Dave for color. Now that we’re both working completely digitally, there is a lot more back-and-forth throughout the entire process. I send Dave updates of the new strips for him to look at several times throughout the drawing process. This allows him to do color proofs to experiment with the mood he wants to establish with the color in the scene, and it allows me to get feedback from him.
Right now I’ve nearly completed the first two strips, but in discussions with Dave we’ve decided that I should go back to the drawing board to produce some more stuff (for lack of a less spoilery term) for the backgrounds. I really like the freedom that working in PS gives me to do this kind of thing, that I could never do easily before. I also cannot describe how awesome it is to be able to erase an inked line and do it over.
At any rate, things are obviously going slow right now. We’re both relearning the old tricks, and teaching ourselves lots of new tricks. It also does not help that we are in the worst 3 months of the year as far as game releases go. Even on my limited budget it is very hard to resist the sheer number of games coming out. In the last week alone I’ve finished Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and have picked up Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty again after letting it sit on my PS3 hard drive for a year. Once I play through that, I’ll likely grab Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Oh, and the Left 4 dead 2 demo is out today for pre-orders, and I’ve been using every last bit of my willpower to avoid purchasing Borderlands. And Lego Rock Band comes out next week with Assassin’s Creed II, Dragon Age Origins, and Modern Warfare 2 not far behind.
Holy hell.
Ahem. Things will certainly pick up as we move forward. Right now I’m looking really hard at a firm relaunch date of January 1st, 2010 with updates once a week. If we get a ridiculous number of strips done before then, and prove that we can do two a week on average, I may consider updating every Tuesday and Friday. We’ll see.
