So I'm redrawing some Red Muscle chapters... (Patreon)

Hey guys, I wanted to start off this month with a bit of a heads up about The Red Muscle. Now that Weekend With Yuka is done, I wanted to get back into gear with Red Muscle chapters but I've been bumping my head pretty often with regards to what I've set up for myself with these characters. I've talked about before that this was my experimental comic where I was learning and practicing a lot of my drawing and narrative skills and the earliest chapters have some inconsistent character acting and motivations that are feeling maybe too hard to work around. I have a better sense of what these characters are and what I want out of them and it hit me recently that it would be in my best interest to make changes to a few early chapters that I never really felt very proud or satisfied with. It's kind of the perfect time too since I've only printed the first chapter and I can make some fixes before committing them to print.

To be realistic, I only feel like I HAVE to make changes to chapters 2 and 3. As much as it pains me to see my drawings of chapter 4, I can survive with those (or maybe I'll change Scarlet's hair and nose, we will see but it's very minimal.) I know they say that you shouldn't go back and redraw your old work or you'll get stuck in a loop but I think I've proven my work ethic to myself to justify my decision, and also no one's paying me either way so I can do whatever I want with my work! haha

There's some moments I'm trying to add to flesh out both Scarlet and Edgar's dynamic as well as fixing some fight choreography and panel layouts and composition. Just all around the same stuff that made me redraw chapter 1 a while ago, I know it can be a stronger and more cohesive work after these changes.

I'm not going to try to keep the changes secret, so here's a few WIP previews:

This is a new page getting inserted as the new page 2, Scarlet and Edgar bond over anime and it's not something Scarlet gets from her other relationships! With the way she talks about her favorite show, you can maybe see where her insecurities have formed. I'm mostly trying to reinforce their connection which I think will set up better for future romance that will come soon.

I've also changed Scarlet's first interaction with Ula and the general flow of the conversation/fight. She says some stuff on previous pages so it kind of looks like they don't talk at all, but there's some more character setup for Scarlet that further crystalizes that shes an anime-loving nerd that took some boxing classes and thinks she can do heroic things.

That's all I have to show so far but I'm genuinely really excited for what this chapter will end up like and hopefully it enriches your reading of this story! I'm hoping to get this completed and printed for Anime Expo so I can sell my last stock of ch1 and this new chapter too. I'll talk more about chapter 3 when I can get to it.

I'll post this update as a public thing but as I redraw pages I'll post them for $5 patrons until the full chapter is redrawn. Hope you're as excited as I am, thanks for reading and see you in another update soon with some fun Scarlet doodles I've been collecting!