TST: Volume 1 E-book Details and The Work Behind It
Yesterday I teased at the upcoming e-book for volume 1 of Tora Steals Things (out Dec 1!), and today I want to talk more about what’s going into that as well as give you a look at the work I’ve done to make this happen.
So what’s going to be in Volume 1?
The e-book, titled “Swift & Steady”, is going to cover the first 145 pages of the comic -that’s from “Cooking” to “Golem Hearts” story-wise. It’ll also include official artwork I made alongside the comic on the @griffinblogsgw2 tumblr over the first two years, totalling to 16 extra pages.
Volume 1 is going to be released in two editions: Standard and Deluxe. Both versions will have this same base content (145 comics, 16 official art pieces). Deluxe Edition will of course have some extra goodies but I’ll talk more on that next time.
Today I really want to get into the nitty gritty over the work that went into this e-book.
Some of you may not know this, but the first 145 comics were drawn and inked traditionally. I didn’t go full digital until the start of “The Warden and The Thief.” What you’re seeing in this picture is the collection of those comics, and the sketchbook that many of the earliest comics came from (you can even see a cute drawing of Bandit from Neko Atsume that Sohe gave me! I taped it to the cover of my sketchbook years ago).
Unfortunately, none of these comics were saved at their original size, making them far too small for an e-book release.
This meant I had to re-scan every single one of the traditionally done comics at their original size at 300dpi; redo cleaning them up; and even re-shade them where appropriate. All this just to make sure they were the right quality for an e-book release.
I’m not gonna lie, this was a lot of work and took me nearly a whole year to do!
In most cases, as a reader, you likely won’t notice the difference from what was posted online but in some cases I practically remastered the page…
What a difference, right?? I won’t say the e-book is a remaster because I really did try my hardest to recreate the shading and color work I did for the comic originally but there are definitely some spots like this where a complete redo over trying to recreate what I’d done in the past was the only way forward.
Like I said, this was a lot of work, like a LOT of work, but I’m pretty thrilled with the results. To me this honestly isn’t just a collection of the first 145 comics. At their full size in 300dpi with redone shading, the e-book is the best looking version of those comics.
And I hope y'all are as excited for it as I am!
Next Time: We’ll be talking more on the Deluxe Edition and designing volume 1’s cover!
dededos
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