Development Diary - Mar 2019 (Patreon)

Déjà vu 

I was watching, "Initial D: The Movie Legend 1", just the other day and thought to myself, "yeah, that's kinda what my life feels like right now..." Figuratively speaking, I'm on a beat-up vehicle meant for delivering tofu, racing against younger, faster, better qualified peers at work. My main hand is on the steering wheel - that's the day job that I gotta maintain. Weekend's I'm shifting gear ever so quickly to attack those bends and corners just to get back on track with my passion projects. Letting go of the steering wheel at this point would be unthinkable, unless I don't mind being stranded and dead on a mountain range. Losing control would simply send me careening off the mountain itself. Eurobeat intensifies.

Hustle

The original notion I had was to wait till 2023 - after the completion and handing over of my home - that I would go on another indefinite hiatus and get back into comics. Realistically speaking, there's no guarantee in life that things will always pan out the way we plan it. So much can happen between now and then.

Turns out that the past 3-4 years working on my Patreon projects, has trained me for this precise situation. Comics ARE FUCKING TOUGH - let alone having to produce them with a full-time job. And I've reworked my lifestyle and schedule to make this work even with my weekday commitments. All those production processes I've developed and streamlined for myself? It's all meant to attack these crazy corners, just like delivering tofu downhill on a Trueno.

Production Schedule 2019

This is my production schedule from now till May 2020.  The goal is to have one comic page released every month starting June 2019, and have that run through a year. My weekends are now committed to this endeavor. It will no doubt put my discipline, focus, willpower and time-management skills to the test.

• 1 comic page per weekend
• 6-pages 6-weeks challenge
• 3-month turnaround time
• story arcs in multiples of 3
• 12 monthly pages for a year
• 24 pages to compile into a book

Whether or not  this is attainable, we've yet to find out. But if I want to see my characters grow, I want to be with them. I have to hustle while I can.

Values and Principles

I started Meatier Showers more than 10 years ago. Since then, my world views and understanding of relationships have drastically changed. With Meatier Showers 2019 (Season 9),  I want to see how the characters have grown during the hiatus.

I want to introduce more diverse body types in my work, and also feature a broader range of relationship models. The stories I want to tell are about characters trying to find mutual solutions that works for them, rather than trying to conform to established frameworks.

All this done in a manner that is entertaining and not with a didactic preachy tone. It is not my place to be instructing readers how to live their lives, but merely start conversations and laughter.

Work In Progress

This is page 3 which is slated for release online in August. This page isn't ready since I was struggling with the layout initially. It later dawned upon me that 1-on-1 interactions required a wider, horizontal layout. Once I altered my panels, things started to flow and read better. The last few panels are still in thumbnail phase and lack the obvious details since I have to work within my allocated weekend timings. Hopefully I'll have enough time this weekend to finish up the remaining panels.

If you like what you see, and are curious to find out more about my projects, please do consider supporting me on Patreon. I hope to continue making these development diaries a regular thing, so as to keep track of myself and just let folks know I'm actively producing content. Page 1 should be released end of this month once I've lettered the panels. 

Stay buff.

Snares,
Mar 2019