Addicaine body armor works. Too bad they didn’t pack the helmets.

I said I’d have at least another page up on the 4th, and here it is – complete with cordite.

I ranted for a couple of paragraphs, thought about it, re-read the rant, and deleted it. To the extent that anything bothering me at the moment applies to ATC, it’s the fact that my financial issues and the lung-soaking microwaved-socks humidity are doing a real number on my energy and motivation.

This is the halfway point. At this stage I have approximately eight weeks to grind out another ten pages. That’s a page every five and a half days, give or take – and August 31st is the last deadline in the set. I hit ATC’s birthday, I hit my birthday, I hit the country’s birthday… all in relatively short order. And hopefully within the next couple of weeks my workload should be paying more than it does currently, which could take some of the pressure off and give me the time I need to get this thing done.

In theory.

Right. No time to wax, wane, blog, or whatever – the page is done, now it’s time to post it and switch gears to paying work.

Bunny: Holy shit, d’you see that fuckin’ head come apart, man?

20120701, 05:40 – Crazy couple of weeks is crazy, as usual. Finally manned the fuck up, acted like a god damned adult and traded my usual block of EVE time for comic rendering. Three panels down, one to go. If I work on this thing when I have free time it ain’t gettin’ done. I haven’t had free time since 1997 – and that shit creeped me out so hard I opted for early enrollment in artskool. I don’t have free times, I have lulls – one popped up tonight and I pounced on it, then pushed it a few hours past my usual 3am cutoff.

Assuming today doesn’t totally explode on me I should be on track to hit the halfway point on Wednesday.

Actually, it probably will – it’s 05:52, I’m sweating buckets, I’m not tired, I have a 3pm meeting… and so on and so forth.

Also, pondering revising panel four. I’ve already revised panel three – initially they’re poised to shoot and then everything happens at once, but this makes things nice and obvious.

Also also, not that you can tell, but I’ve optimized the lighting a bit. At this point I’m less concerned with technical accuracy and a whole hell of a lot more concerned with getting the damned thing done and making sure it looks decent. The lighting optimization is a step in that direction – West, Beef and the car are receiving three lights instead of nine. Technically Jason and the Addicaines are as well and I’ve been ignoring/merging six of them. That flies with a ground plane, but with the car it looked damned ugly. An ugly I’m not interested in shadow-matching.

I should probably go to bed or something.

16:08 – About the sound effect in panel three – I imagine caseless ammunition would sound something like an Estes model rocket engine. The carbine the Addicaines carry is some form of Gyrojet – and while I have no idea what an actual Gyrojet sounds like I do know what model rockets sound like.

22:23 – Rendered. Though I’m on the fence with regards to the fourth panel, and won’t know if I’ve pulled it off or not until it’s been drawn and the effects (specifically, bullet trails and gore) have been added.

20120704, 19:57 – Drawn yesterday. Cleaned up everything but Greg and Hera in panel four yesterday, finished cleanup this afternoon. Then flat colors and base positioning, then gore, then bullet effects. Four hours left on the clock – four hours to get this thing shaded. The first three panels should go relatively quickly.

22:58 – Primary shading complete. That leaves sixty whole minutes for cleanup!

Mastering notes, 2016.12.05 – Tweaked dialogue in panel two.