| I am bad at code | March 29, 2006 Purple Moon Anime went up early this morning. I don't yet know enough to modify my main page, and so this doesn't have a link to it from there at the moment, but I'm creating this anyway to be read later and I'm going to lay out my plans so readers know what to expect. This is a graphic novel, and as such it is probably not the most ideal thing for it to be read one page at a time, but that doesn't mean I don't want people to read it that way if they feel like it. Also, I don't want to have a time crisis or lack of updates in the middle of an exciting scene or another really bad place in a story arc. So this is my plan for updating: I won't start putting a chapter up until I have all of the pictures drawn and many of the pages put together. That way the comic can be updated every day until the end of the chapter with no interruptions, and cliffhangers will only take place where I intend them to happen. My policy on when chapter uploads begin is make no promises and you will break none. I want nothing but work I am happy with here. I don't know what pace I'll be able to work at, but it seems to me that a week between chapters should usually be more than sufficient. (They're short.) The site should gain more complexity as I learn about the tools I'm using. Basically the extent of my knowledge of code has been limited to things like /italics/. Computers and I have a rapport, but I haven't learned to talk to them. I've made several attempts to start webcomics, but I always knew that first I had to have some material built up and a real interest in continuing the story. I really like this one, and I hope you will too. April 2, 2006 Things are coming along nicely. Although I have only the most rudimentary knowledge of HTML, hey, look! This page is up and running! Now it should even be big enough to make the hyperlinks remotely useful. In my experience, most people put their rants on the main page with their comic. It works for Megatokyo because it's not directly under or directly criticizing the comic (usually). I think that would be distracting. What I want people to see is my comic. (Besides, the code for this is so simple. I may change it later.)People who want to read the rants can find them easily enough. Hi, Melanie! Yay! I mentioned you online! I'm definitely feeling that little pull that is urging me to write *Look!! Looklooklook!!! I have a webcomic!* all over my main page but I firmly believe that this is the place for it. Now here is how things are going with the creative process, for those interested. I'm finishing up one last picture I decided to put in Chapter 1, and the page layouts are done all the way up to the middle of Chapter 4. After that the plot is a bit fuzzy, but whatever I decide it will be cool. (You may be less impressed with this when you see how short chapters are.) I'm still working out my techniques with drawing. I've decided on ballpoint as my main drawing medium. Parts of Chapter Three were done before anything else, and they have pencil in them. I had to fiddle with them a lot after I scanned them to get them to look good, but at this point I don't think I'll have to redo anything. I think around Chapter 7 is when we find out why it's called Purple Moon Anime. I'm not going to tell you yet. You have to wait and read it. This is my strategy. Be intrigued, my public! 'Til next time.... April 4, 2006 I've been reading too much How Not to Run A Comic, and now I have to rewrite Chapter Two. It shouldn't take much longer to finish; I haven't drawn any pictures for the part that needs changing yet. I'd done all the word bubbles, but at the advice of my boyfriend I'm switching to typed lettering anyway. All of Chapter One is uploaded now, so I'll be switching at the break. All right, Ive decided that this is the rant where you get to hear about my major artistic influences. I've pretty much always been more interested in books than comics, up until recently, so I'll start with my writing influences. I love C. S. Lewis, first and foremost. Has anyone else read his poetry? It's the only poetry I've found I can just sit down and read. I've always liked British authors. Arthur Conan Doyle, Terry Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones, J. K. Rowling, Agatha Christie. At the moment my favorite American authors that I can recall are Stephen Brust and Isaac Asimov. There are plenty more in both of these categories. Also, for those interested, some of my basic beliefs about how magic works and doesn't work (and how life does and doesn't) come from the work of Emanuel Swedenborg. I'll probably talk a little more about this when the comic gets into it. I wasn't really interested in comics until my now-boyfriend introduced me to Megatokyo in college. Since then I've watched lots of Anime, my personal favorites being Cowboy Bebop, Child's Toy and Naruto. Also Beck and Full Metal Alchemist. My favorite manga is Rurouni Kenshin, but possibly because it's the only one I've read most of because my little sister started collecting it when I stopped. It is probably the biggest influence on my drawing style since I got it to copy pictures out of. I recently started reading American graphic novels also: Sandman and Batman: Hush. I heard Sandman was good and I knew Neil Gaiman was good since I read Good Omens, which he wrote with Terry Pratchett, hooray! Then I wanted a counterpoint to that, a more traditional comic style, and I've always been rather fond of Batman on screen. Well, got to go off to work. This took longer than I thought it would. April 6, 2006 I know I made no promises about when the next chapter would start updating, but I would really like the comic to run continuously, especially at the beginning, so I've been panicking, because tomorrow is the last page of Chap. 1, so I need all the pictures done by tomorrow at 1:00 am or I won't be able to start putting up Chap. 2. I suppose I could put up the cover; problem is, that's one of the ones that isn't done. I'll probably do that one tonight. Gotta go; just wanted to let hypothetical people know what's going on. April 14, 2006 There will be a break between chapters two and three. I violated my rules already, and the last two pages of chapter two are having to be rushed because the updates are catching up with the drawing. I just couldn't get that picture for the second to last page right. So I'm not starting the uploads for Three until Every Picture Is Drawn. Continued April 17 This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. Tomorrow's comic is all right, but if I had time to think about it it would be different. It's necessary that it come out tomorrow, though, because the things need to be said for the chapter to end. I was so excited about beginning the chapter, but in the future I will stick to my policy. Maybe I'll go back and fix this page later. After all, most people who read these sections will be going through archives. I probably only have a handful of followers now. But the update has to come out for them. I've been working on some fun things for later chapters - Cosplay segments. I couldn't help drawing some of the pictures for them. But since my characters will be dressing up as other people's characters, I don't know whether I want them to be in the main archives or in a gallery section or something. In any case they require enough context that I can't put them up for quite a while. After all you have only met half of the main characters. And you have to get to know my characters before it can be funny to see them dress up as other people. I can't believe I forgot to mention Haibane Renmei as on of my favorite Anime. It probably is my favorite. That's one of the ones I'm thinking of doing a segment with. April 22, 2006 I've got lots of news since last rant. I'm not going to apologize for not writing to tell all of it because I was busy getting it done and that's better for the comic. Let's see...I downloaded The Gimp, so I can actually color stuff on the screen (I've been doing most of my editing in MS Paint). I redid the last page of Chap. 2 slightly, using The Gimp, to create a new picture/background so it's not so visually boring. I have a pog now - Siteadmin says it's approved but I haven't seen it on the site yet. And, perhaps most important to current readers, only three more pictures have to be drawn for Chap. 3. I'm starting a page for archives by chapter - extremely simple just like the rest of my site, but useful now that there is more than one complete chapter. Next will be a Gallery page. Then, after Chap. 3 is finished and happily updating itself, I'm going to request a forum, so I can finally hear all the things that bug people about my comic and take them into consideration. I've come a long way in a short time, and in just a few more days I feel my comic will be ready to bear comments from not just my friends, but total strangers as well. I hope to see my view stats jump to many times their current size. And after all, chapters 1 and 2 are really only a prologue. The real story begins now. April 26, 2006 The cover of Chapter Three is now up. Five pages are fully constructed and ready to follow the cover, and all of the pictures are indeed done. There is one I may want to replace, but the goodness of its page does not depend on it. Still, if I have time, another version could be more fun. I've got a couple of absolutely brilliant pictures done for chapter 4. Not only is my drawing improving, but also my sense of movement and angle. This project is my real-life classroom and when I'm done I'm going to be so much better at these things. I submitted a Genchan but my skills aren't up to par in the computer manipulation and website design areas. When I make my gallery I'm still going to put it up, along with (hopefully) a later one that will make the grade. I'm tired so I'm going to wrap this up. I just wanted to mention that I love the sculpture of Auguste Rodin and I'm going to buy a book of photos of them and sketch from that as one way of getting better at drawing anatomy and movement. May 3, 2006 I just uploaded the last of Chapter Three. So If I get the pictures for 4 done in the next week, the comic can continue without a break. That's going to be my goal; I would love to begin Chapter Four as soon as possible because it's definitely the best yet. I've already got the first two pages finished and ready to upload and it's very exciting. May 23, 2006 I aten't dead either...and am pleased to know that Dom enjoys Terry Pratchett. I'm going to start up Chapter Four tomorrow. I've only got a background or two left to draw. Sorry about the delay, but my sanity took priority. May 28, 2006 I was so out of it there I put a page up without putting in its text! Fortunately it is one that is pretty self explanatory, but I'm putting up a fixed version, both for future readers and those who are curious and/or confused. I am feeling better now that it is the weekend and I actually got to hang out with a real life friend and watch Anime for hours. Yay! Also I went to the bookstore. I didn't find the Rodin book I was looking for but of course I bought an art book and a fantasy novel anyway. My page layouts need work, I know, and my new book helps, but experience is really the only thing that will do. I've been exhausted and dispirited about the quality of my work, not in terms of drawing, but in terms of telling a story that works well in the medium and pulling it all together. But things are looking up. As you can see I've been doing a few minor modifications to the layout and soon I hope the site will be up to the level where I feel it can withstand criticism and benefit fully from publicity. I haven't really looked into the whole link exchanging thing. But I will once Chapter Four is all ready and waiting to update and I am satisfied with the basic design of the site. May 30, 2006 I'm thinking I'm going to switch back to hand lettering, but lower case this time. This is all experimental and I'm feeling my way through and I wanted to try type and while there are some cool things about it I'm thinking it's not for this comic. It's really a cool experience fumbling my way through. I may even buy some real pens at some point but learning to ink the right way is not the area I'm focusing on right now. It is beginning to interest me, though. There are only three more pages left in chapter four. They've been sneaking up on me. I've actually been finishing them the night before! So bad! Hopefully with some of the ideas I've been having recently I can get Chapter Five done with a minimum of pain on my part and before I go on vacation in a bit more than a week. Four is intriguing, is it not? Here the main plot begins to spring from the prologuish bit from the first two chapters. May 31, 2006 Well, tomorrow's comic will be late. Sigh. It's approaching bedtime and I've been feeling rather ill but I was going to throw the page together and put it up when I realized the pictures as they stand play merry havoc with the sequence of events. In pictures which come before appear events which obviously come later. I'm going to bed, I'll sort it out tomorrow. June 1, 2006 Well, today's page went up a few hours late, but that's all. Instead of 1 a.m. it was about 9 a.m. Not bad for my first delay, unless you count the beginning of chapter four. I'm done now, really done, everything ready to go, but that only gives me one day of grace. The day after tomorrow is the last page of Four. I believe that Five should go more smoothly, but there I am only sure of technique. A lot of it I don't actually know what happens yet. But then a lot of it I have the pages designed. Six or seven of them. There may be a lot. The plot is getting interesting, eh? I think so. It's getting into the real meat of the story. This is the first really big arc; there are a couple of major characters yet to meet, so in a way I feel like the story can't really start without them. But the thing is I don't really know what happens after they come. Okay, I have some idea, but it feels wierd to not know what happens in what seems like the bulk of the story. But then I'd get bored if I was drawing stuff I'd planned out long ago. Well, here begins my official week of work on the next chapter (I am beginning early on account of vacation). I will also continue to tweak the site design. See yall next week. July 5, 2006 Well, I'm sort of keeping up with the comic, but definitely not with the rants. I had to work nine days in a row and then I had a traumatic experience involving a drunk teenage boy trying to steal my bed and then I got a stomach flu. But take heart, I am still alive and slowly the comic progresses. I'm thinking I should put up the next chapter's cover as soon as I finish it because, realistically, most people who visit my site for the first time encounter the last page of a chapter. It might be better if they saw cover art. Perhaps I will start drawing the cover of the next chapter as if it is the last page of the chapter I'm working on and it must go up the day after. But I'm also thinking that it might be good to have a regular schedule like three days a week rather than the way it is now. Not that I could maintain a schedule like that if my life continues in this chaos; even though it would be slower, it's still a commitment to regular deadlines. I'm sad to say I have no idea when the next chapter will be ready. I just got a huge revelation into one of the characters in a book I'm writing with my friend Will and I have to write it down and think over the stuff I've written already involving her. I usually don't write in order so this whole comic thing makes my brain itch. What if I want to go back and change stuff? Give a man a fish, and he'll die of starvation. Teach a man to fish, and he'll die of mercury poisoning. |
