When you’re burned out, drawing a comic – already an exhausting task – about a character being burned out is nowhere near as therapeutic as you might think. It ends up being a constant reminder that you’re burned out, and can make it all so much worse. So of course I’ve been hesitant to resume the “Just Five More Minutes” story, after being away from it for a few months.
Realistically, I could have left the story as it was, and just started a new chapter. But I have some fun bits planned that won’t fit anywhere else, as well as some character cameos. To make things easier, I’m breaking it all into chunks. Most will only be 2-3 pages. One, however, currently clocks in at 7 pages, which I may just cut because I doubt I’ll have the time or the energy to draw it, once I get there.
Recently Tumblr has been become unreliable, with many artists having their NSFW art and/or blogs deleted. Many artists are migrating to other sites, like Newgrounds and Pixiv, and while I have made a Newgrounds page, I figure this was also a good excuse to start getting more use out of my site!
First and foremost, I’m slowly moving all of my old art to my new gallery here. It’s a slow process, which might go faster if some files didn’t appear to be missing, or if Windows permissions weren’t such a pain when sharing hard drives between computers…
I’ve also added a Behind the Scenes section, for more in-depth posts about my characters and projects.
Finally, my recent hiatus – I’ve been busy with back-to-back contracts for most of the year, leaving little time for art or other personal projects. Over the past couple of months, I have been drawing a new comic chapter – one that at this point I’ve put off for more than a year – and while several pages are already drawn & assembled, unfortunately it may still be at least a couple of months before I can ink, color, and post them. Please be patient!
The next comic chapter will be delayed for a little longer – over the past month I’ve been working on my 3D Daisy model, to get her ready for animation. She’s still not there yet, so I’m going to continue working on her through March. I don’t have any grand plans for her once she is finished, though – for a long time I wanted to make a short film, but that’s not a very realistic goal. Mainly she’ll be something for me to animate when I’m between contracts, so I can stay sharp.
So I’d planned on taking a break from comics back in December, mainly because December is always too hectic. Only instead of that, I ended up doing a 3-page comic. And then after that was finished, I added another page to it. So now almost two months after I’d originally planned on taking a break, I’m definitely taking a break! Kinda, sort, maybe.
My plan for February – at the moment, anyway – is to work on my 3D Daisy model. I’ll also still be drawing pinups and commissions for my patrons.
After finally getting some new comic pages done – and in color, no less – in October and November, I’ll be taking a break from the comic at least until January. More or less. I am planning a comic that I may work on this month, but it’s an ad for my Patreon campaign, rather than a actual chapter.
In the meantime, I’ll also be drawing more pinups, which will be available to my patrons first!
The comic’s finally been updated, and with only one more page to go, I just might be able to finish the chapter sometime this decade! After this I’ve got a couple simpler ones planned, about 1-2 pages each. For future chapters, I won’t start posting pages until the entire chapter is fully scripted and thumbnailed, to avoid the problems I had with the current chapter. Of course, even then it’s dependent on my work schedule.
The current comic chapter continues to live up with its name, and may for a little while longer. A number of things have robbed me of my motivation over the past several months, the most recent being a bout with depression.
Depending on my work schedule, my hope is to have the remaining two pages complete in January, and then I can finally move on. Afterwards there may be an intentional delay – I don’t want to start posting the next chapter, until a good portion of the pages are already done.
Today’s been a bit of a “head” day – I’ve spent most of the day thinking about how best to move forward an animation I’ve posted on my Patreon, Tumblr, and DeviantArt pages. If you don’t follow me on those sites, I have two words for you – animated Daisy! I won’t link to it here, because it’s not exactly work- or kid-safe.
I don’t know how long it might take for me to finish that Daisy animation, either rough or full color, but I do have an idea of what it would take to do so in 3D. I’d estimated that it would take at least a month of full-time work for me to model and rig Daisy for this sort of motion. But that’s not the model I currently have in the works – the current model will be waitress-only. Nude/bikini Daisy would be a whole separate character, from a production standpoint, and since that model would be mostly for fan-service, it’d have to be a lower priority than my other characters. Unless, of course, I knew for certain that producing and animating that version of her would draw in a massive amount of new patrons… That’s a lot of work for a “maybe”, though.
One of my goals now is to have waitress Daisy modeled and textured by November – if not October – and her unicorn speech animated by Christmas. We’ll see if my schedule actually allows me to pull that off. I may continue to refine this 2D animation on the side, but it may be too much to hope to have it finished by Christmas as well. That might be a hell of a gift, though!
The current comic is taking forever for me to finish, for a couple of reasons. For starters, I spent much of the past month out of town visiting family and friends. I took my gear with me so that I could work, but found it difficult to do anything more than finish pieces I’d started before I left. But that’s not the real reason the comic is running late.
The real reason the comic is late, is poor planning. I had a rough idea for this chapter – the second page would be mostly tightly-framed close-ups, so that the difference in height between Daisy & Rose on the third/final page might be a surprise. One problem with this idea, is that most of my audience already knows that Rose is roughly twice Daisy’s height. The other problem was that that plan for page 2 was uninteresting. To fix this, I’m basically rewriting everything after the first page.
At first I thought I would only be doing a visual rewrite, but the dialogue needed some punching-up as well. Where the original plan called for three, maybe four pages, now it may be at least six.
So when well the next page be finished? As soon as I have the remaining pages clearly mapped out.
The current comic’s title is getting more and more appropriate… ideally, the second page would have been posted no later than a week ago. I’ve been out of town for most of the month, though, and won’t get home until the end of next week. I did bring my gear with me so that I could get some work done, but the amount of activity in this house – particularly from my youngest niece – makes it difficult to work on anything.
Here’s one image I completed earlier this month, of Daisy and her sister Rose as kids –
Little Daisy and Rose by JKLind on deviantART
I’ve also recently finished a pinup of Daisy’s aunt Mercy, for my Patreon page. I may post it on my DeviantArt and Tumblr pages later, but the more revealing alternates will be patron-exclusive. For now, here’s a preview –
If you only follow me on this site and thus have no idea who Mercy is, she’ll be featured in the next comic or two after “Late Again” is finished.
On a different note, I’ve been giving some thought lately to accepting 3D commissions. I used to think they were out of the question, because 3D is so much more time-consuming than drawing, and thus more expensive. Now I’m looking at it like, I already work freelance, so anyone who wants a 3D commission would simply be a new client. That is, if they can afford it.
Thinking more ambitiously, and maybe daydreaming a bit, this could be a rare opportunity. For years I’d look at the variety of artwork drawn by independent artists and posted online, and wish that these characters and stories could be animated. Now, the right combination of elements could allow that to happen. I’m willing to model and even rig characters for those who can afford it. Those who sadly can’t afford it could turn to either Kickstarter or IndiGoGo for funding. These models could even be prepped for Source FilmMaker, if the client chooses, allowing them to animate them!
