some changes ahead 🦌🌻 (Patreon)

hey everyone 💙 

new year, new decade.... and a lot of new things I want to try and want to make better for myself and also for my readers. I apologize in advance but this will have quite some text! I want to talk about some changes I'm currently working on and planning for the comic!!

First thing: I already mentioned a bit ago that I need to find a way to improve my coloring, which will then allow me to do all coloration steps (flats + shading + effects) on my own without problems.

I used a simplified coloration technique for the pages in scene 41 (part 2, in case you missed it)!! The changes are not drastic in look, which is what I wanted. It's basically just a simpler way of how I used to do it.

The style looks a bit softer now, I think! My lines have improved a lot in the past year and I felt the need to balance it out with a simple coloration anyway. And I'm so happy how it turned out to be honest ;; and I will use it for future scenes from now on!

Second thing~ Ghost Lights will switch from horizontal reading (regular comic page layout) to vertical reading (webtoon scroll format) for public updates on tapas and webtoon! That means bigger panels appear on mobile and readers will be able to spot details much better. So instead of seeing one whole page (which can sometimes contain up to 7 panels) on screen... you will see one or two panels on screen. that's a huge difference in size hahah

I know I could've tried this sooner, but I was hesitating for the longest time to do this, because I'm very fond of my layout. My layout indicates things like the time of the day, the mood, their feelings.... The layout interacts a lot with the panels, too, there are overlapping elements like hair and smoke and leaves and flowers everywhere... and so I didn't really know how to manage it until now ;; and to be honest the thought of doing it overwhelmed me a bit. 

But something clicked inside my head recently... and with the new year, it's like I can leave some things behind. Doubts and thoughts like "I'm not sure if I can do this" and now I feel ready to try new things.

So my side mission last week was to test everything and I found a way to separate the panels from the layout in a pretty easy way! Ahhh!! Now I can just rearrange each panel. I have to set up a new layout for the panels to "swim" in and have to recreate the mood and I also have to rearrange the overlapping elements a bit, but so far it is not as difficult as I thought and it looks good.

I'm actually very excited about this, because for a long time I was a bit sad that people could not see my panels properly on mobile ;; It's a frustrating thought for me, not just because I put a lot of thoughts into the panels but also because I know it's not the ideal reading experience on mobile. And the realization of this hit hard when people told me they mostly use mobile a few months ago... and I was like "but can they even see everything I put in there?" 

It's just a development that happened in the past few years with webcomics in general. I'm so thankful I have an invested reader base and I want to make it as easy as possible for you to read and enjoy the story. And I can rest easy knowing you will be able to see what details I put there. BUT I also want to hold the comic in my hands when I'm done with a volume. So I will draw and finish the comic pages like I always do! regular comic pages I can give into print and also can share with you on patreon <3

In case you don't like vertical scroll format - I will still post the regular comic pages here!! Also, the $5 tier will get bigger versions of the pages now (instead of 800px you'll get 1080px!) and my $10+ patrons will still get the pages in high res versions (2425px)! 

I also have a small surprise for those two tiers, because a few days ago was the 3rd anniversary of Ghost Lights 😭💕. I'll post a sketch and drawing collection for $5 + $10 patrons, maybe in two or more parts, containing a lot of unseen sketches and drafts! I have collected a ton of sketches that have never seen the light of day before because most of them are a bit spoiler-y, but I still want to share them with you. It's going to be without context, so I think it's okay to share, but they will show a bit more of the darker direction the story will go, too! And there will be some lovey dovey scenes, storyboard sketches, Robin's human mom, Mother design tests... and so on!

💙