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Art Logo The Weekend Artist

This is a weblog of one person's multi-year quest to write, draw, and publish a graphic novel. This is my story: my trials, tribulations, successes and failures. -- Robert Stradley, Weekend Artist


January 2014

Completed panels 003-006, introduction and first cafe scene.  Enter Buck and Ampére. Started drawing, inking, scanning, and coloring in earnest.  And earnestly, inking and coloring are not as easy as one would assume.  As with anything worth doing, there is a learning curve to doing it right.  The first one takes 10 times as long as it should, and there are 3 things that need to be learned to do the first one you want to do.

I am struggling between making all the drawings on a single sheet versus making individual pictures and compositing them on the computer.  I am also struggling between coloring individual drawings versus coloring the whole panel at once.  On the other hand, where is it written in stone that I can’t do both? 

February

As I drew the embarrassment sequence, it was tight and complete with all the action occurring off panel.  The lack of action nagged me into changing the script to include the insertion of Dr. Logarithm. I drew the story and then added the script to break it into standard comic panels.

Completed panels 007-011.  It seems with this schedule that I can complete about 1 panel per week.  Every time it looks like I can jump ahead, I have another round of learning and drawing to do. This month it was Dr Logarithm's evil scientist lair.

March

Completed PPCC panels 012-014.  Finally got to insert the "I need some air" joke -- one of the original 3 comics written.

Completed panels 013-016, detailing Buck's café.  Had to make some other drawings of Buck or I would have ended up using the same 4 over and over again.  It is always something.

April

Updated the WebPages and loaded them onto the net for testing.  The original set includes the cover and Magniloquence comics 001 and 002.

Completed panels 017-019 with the “Bun Jar Ya’ll” sequence in Buck’s Café. 

April 21, 2014. After ten years and 3 months of work, I finally have a web comic on-line.  By the end of 2016, there should be enough written and drawn to publish a full book's worth of comics.  With that knowledge and experience under my belt, I should be able to re-tackle my graphic novel project -- Amberleigh Chronicles.

May

Introduced Monaie and completed panels 020-026.  Woot, woot.  Seven panels.  I’m almost up to speed.  I am proud of Monaie as a villaine -- exotic and beautiful and a bit tragic all at the same time. 

Due to slow-as-molasses-in-a-Texas-snow-storm download speeds, Madame the Editor beat on the codemonkeys and then offered them an extra ration of Cactus Brothers BBQ Pretzels if they would figger out a way to increase the panel loading speed. The codemonkeys responded by beating on their chests, ripping open the bags of pretzels, and happily tapping away at their keyboards. Walla, walla, boom-de-ay and they came up with a compression technique that halved the download time with only slightly smaller pix. Therefore, new and improved.

June

Finished Monaie's sequence with panels 027-028.  Had to design Priscilla's Church and draw a confessional. Also drew Fr. Vinca, the parish priest. Volume 1 Number 1 is now completed. 

Started Volume 1 Number 2 with the cover.  Then I jumped ahead to panel 040. Aimée gets to answer a PPCC question, and I had to do additional design on Aimée and her apartment. I actually designed a chaise lounge. Aimée's drawings and AOOA are some of my best to date.

July

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this webcomic will be updated once per week on Mondays.

July - finished Volume 1 number 1 with comic 028. When we get around to publishing print versions, this first 28 pages will become comic 1.

For the next few weeks, we will be publishing Interlude panels.

August

Restarted main storyline with Volume 1 Number 2. Continued with Café scenes. Designed Ampére in her summer super suit and also drew her actually doing something in comics 029-033.

Had so much response to Furious Fuschia and her hero support Basic Black that I had to draw them.

September

Drew comics 034-037 with Ampére in her summer costume. Got to show Priscilla in a red spangle dress and a blue velvet dress. It is time consuming to do anything but flats in color, but fun.

October

Finished comics 038-042, the remainder of summer costumes for this year. [Summer comes to a close in Texas about this time also.]

Sleazy's bar took some time to develop. Outside it appears to be an old one room prison left over from 1800's. Inside is downstairs in the expanded area. It is vaulted with two flat ends like a quonset hut style underground tornado shelter. I'm not sure where it came from, but I had just watched Bell, Book, and Candle and the downstairs feel is reminiscent of the Zodiac nightclub.

November

Finished comics 043-046. The ATM sequence was fun; it was also something that I have wanted to do for a long time, having had my share of ATM caused distress.

Started the bar fight sequence in 050. Ended up adding half the bar making out because that would embarrass Magniloquence no end. Got in a lot of practice on kissing and fighting.

December

Finished comics 047-050. The idiot bar rat appears to be a recurring character. I seem to be doing more close ups, allowing more sophisticated expressions. My style seems to be developing some higher education.

I wanted to do some holiday pictures, ergo the Xmas holiday scenes. The church seen was so complex, [and good] that I rewrote the one comic to feature the picture. I got some favorable feedback on Priscilla's Christmas Carols, so I made another one. They will probably become a standard feature every Christmas.

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Quill  News-2014

Health has suffered a bit over the last several months, and I have retired for the second time -- The Weekend Artist is now Energy Engineer, ret. and Professor of Engineering, ret. That means I am able to devote what time I have available to this webcomic [okay I am also behind on 25 years of household honeydo's and a quilt making enterprise but that is another story.]

First quarter 2014

We will start publishing when we get 2-4 months ahead ~ 16 panels. These 16 panels were completed by March so web coding will be done in April.

Second quarter 2014

Coded and uploaded web pages for testing. Beta Testing completed.

Monday April 21, 2014. Webcomic is now on-line and ready for viewing.

Changed to a new compression scheme to speed up the loading.

Third quarter 2014

Webcomic will be updated once per week on Mondays.

Finished publishing Vol 1 No 1.

Fourth quarter 2014

Continued uploading comics for Volume 1 number 2.

 


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