Comic Report #127 - Plot & Scheme (Patreon)

So it's been a busy month for me, but I didn't want to keep making posts about things I can't really talk about all the time, so I tried to find some time to start blocking in the next page. I've decided instead of crushing myself trying to hit my month-line mark, I'm gonna split working on this page across June and July, so I have time to balance it with the other time-sensitive things that I need to work on. This works out for a pretty neat reason which I'll get to in a moment, but the sad news is I can't reasonably get things done when I'd like to. The good news is I'm in a healthy state and I've got a bunch of stuff that you'll get to see in the second half of this year! Like, a lot of different kinds of stuff, including big things in the comic! I think things are gonna be alright.

A quick note on some other things: this week I put a lot of work into Kitsune Tails's art, and I think I got all my major tasks complete. I did a full day's playthrough bugtesting and documenting items to address, even knowing the game inside and out it took a fair amount of time to roll credits, so I think people are gonna have a lot to chew on with the game. Did some second pass cleanup stuff, carried my weight so I don't block anyone else's work, and I think things are in a really good spot moving towards the end of the month. We've also got a new feature for Titan Garden planned, it's one we've had planned for a little while but the stars are aligning to get it implemented, and it should be a new thing to check in on the site for. I'll save the details for that one for later, but I just wanted to mention that it's in the works.

Now, about the comic. I kinda blocked in some parts of the page but I got the most important part of it framed in, so I feel like it's worth sharing it today. Building off the previous two pages, where Monday and Lizzie both make their cases for acting on Pat's revealing what the Gravekeepers' intentions are, the rest of the room shares their own contributions. The first parts of this scene were about group discussion, Monday and Lizzie provided a kind of focus and then this page ties everyone together into their common purpose, and sets up the next scene, which I'd been planning for a pretty long time. Because of the delays from working on Kitsune Tails, if this page ends up going up on or around August 1st, that means the scene to follow could get a lot more of my attention so I can knock the pages out more frequently than the one-month schedule, which would help the flow of a good action scene.

Opening the page, I have the camera pulling over to Randy chiming in that he wanted to help out how he can. He's the weapons guy, and he mentions that he has some iron he'd been working on back at his shop, if it'd help them with the Gravekeepers he could show them how it works. Stacy would chime in after mentioning how she could call her deputies out to the other end of Tombstone and tangle them up in something for a little while, buying the crew time to do what they gotta do. Pat is volunteered to sit this one out, he's helped enough and it might be safer for him to keep his head down until the dust settles. The top couple panels is just tying up some ends before the long wide panel has Monday bringing the team together to go over his big plan.

The last panel on this page is the shot I want to get right. It's the capstone to the whole big-group organizing scene and it's a big medley of characters from different arcs and different moments in the comic all working together for their collective well-being. I want to have the perspective looking up from a low angle, with some of the table trappings in the foreground. I'd been tracking where everyone was in the 3D space of this living room for the past few pages so when this panel came along and everyone got up from their spots and leeeeeeaned their heads in together it'd make a nice mixed medley from different groups, so they all feel like they're one unified team. This was the main panel I wanted to get done for today.

So that's where I'm at this week. I think? I should have more time this week to keep making progress on the page, but I am aiming to have this completed around the end of July, I'm kinda just taking June to be necessary focus month for Kitsune Tails. End of July on through, I want to say on through Halloween should be a fun time for sharing things I've been building up or working on, we just gotta get through the next thirty-eight days in one piece. Thanks for sticking around. Until next time, stay cool out there if you're out in the heat!