Laserwing

A webcomic about crimefighting magicians in space. Updates very sporadically when I have the time.

[laserwing]

That's it, that's chapter 6 finally done. So much has happened since I started it, but every single thing that's delayed me is either stupid or frustrating in ways I won't rehash. It's time to start drafting chapter 7! I don't know exactly how long it's going to take. I have a lot of chapter 7 layouts hashed out...in my head. Nothing's down on paper yet. The characters are all well-developed but their outfits aren't finalized. And there's a lot of setting design that I need to solidify, because there's going to be a lot more alien locations and tech to show off.

Concept art and draft pages will be posted to the Patreon as they are made. You can also find the high-res versions of finished pages there. In theory I have monthly commissions as tier bonuses but I'm also currently not great at keeping up with those, and am just very lucky nobody's called theirs in lately. I also keep forgetting that Patreon has its own DM system so if you ever send me something there it's a toss-up on whether or not I see it. I've considered reworking the tiers, or just removing them all and saying '$1 lets you look at drafts and concept work' and nothing else. But I haven't made those decisions yet. Regardless, if you're interested in supporting the comic that's a way you can consider!

I also of course have many past years of concepts and notes on my main blog, spread across various tags but mostly in the Laserwing tag. The further back you go, the less finalized the information is, so even those spoilers might turn out to not happen in the end! Every character has had changes in personality since the beginning, sometimes when I look back at the old old stuff I'm surprised at how different they've become. And now that chapter 6 is done I'll post some of the previously-patreon-only concept art there, so you'll be able to look at those.

Let's see what the future brings! I want to get the next chapters out at a faster pace but we'll seeeeeee!

[laserwing]

Returning to the cafeteria was such a bad idea. Since the camera angles and the random backgrounders are different from the last time we were here, it was like inventing a new background from scratch, almost. Ignore the single door in panel 2 that turns into a double door in panel 5. I realized it WAY too late into the coloring process to go back and fix.

You know what I did fix, though? A single coloring error from two pages ago.

[laserwing]

So I've continued to be stuck at home during surgery recovery. For the record I feel mostly fine, but I'm not allowed to lift 20 pounds or climb ladders, so my job doesn't want me back yet. I figure if I have this sudden free time, I should do something useful. So we got another page. There's two more pages in the chapter, then I have to start drafting and doing the concept work for chapter 7. Not sure how long that will take, and of course I'm constantly juggling side projects.

[laserwing]

I originally felt that there wasn't a lot of actual progress in this page- no big plot reveals, nothing visually interesting- but actually, any time you can see characters through the 'aura vision' of one of the Scythes, there's a huge amount of information I could give about what you see. But that's spoilers, so I'm not saying it. Last time we saw these was in chapter 3 (oh god, in 2015? I am so sorry for my update schedule), and the only part of Josh you saw was his hand.

In other news, everything bad happens to me in April. I got appendicitis! I'm okay now, though.

EDIT 8/17/2024: I corrected an error in panel 6, Marjolaine's single stripey thing was uncolored.

[laserwing]

When I inked this, I scolded myself, "why did you plan a page with TWO crowd shots?" When I colored this, I berated myself again, "why did you design a character with four giant light sources coming off of her?" Every time I draw Pauline's rotting ice-cream-colored 80s mall mcmansion, I plead with myself, "why do even the chairs have to have fancy little stars on them? Why is every detail so complicated?" But I know why. I thought it looked cool.

EDIT: OH BY THE WAY there is now a discord server for the Hundera Channel, which is me and the bf's youtube/twitch LPs and streams. I just stuck a Laserwing chat in there because I feel like this comic isn't big enough to need a separate server. Go ahead and hop in!

[laserwing]

I tried something different in those last two panels, with little 'jumpy' lines on Josh to indicate he's startled. They were a lot easier to see in the uncolored lineart. When I was working on that, I tried to find maybe some references or tutorials on how other artists do that kind of linework, and I realized I don't know what that's called. 'Jump scare lines' doesn't get me any search results. I asked around and someone suggested 'jolt lines' and there's no results for that either. I just don't know. They probably have some obscure name in Japanese or some animation industry term, but I don't know what it is.

It's a mystery!

edit 11/6/2023: I forgot Warmi's glasses!

[laserwing]

It sure is a relief that there seems to be nobody on this street to witness these flying teens, even though we're two blocks away from a high school that just let out 15 minutes ago. Can you imagine if anyone was here to watch Tony go in and out of his winged mode? So much for secret identities.

EDIT: I realized that I didn't have Tony's shirt graphic drawn in, and also the foreground shading was turned off. It's fixed now.

[laserwing]

In chapter 3, Josh did mention that it might be his job to kill Tony. If the two weren't friends, would Josh have done what Marjolaine's doing now? I would love to fit a conversation in somewhere about how often they actually have to take human lives. I'm not sure there's ever a good, organic moment for them to talk about it but currently their collective head count is zero. After all, Josh has only been in the business for about six months, and Marjolaine must be pretty new to the job if they haven't even been 'introduced' to each other as coworkers in the same district. How many soul-related aberrations do you normally see in the average six months? Probably not many and some might just be, like, cockroaches that didn't die when they were crushed. Y'know, little things like that.

My wrists are doing okay lately but my left shoulder hurts and I don't know why? I guess I've been ctrl+Z-ing too hard.

[laserwing]

My productivity streak isn't completely gone yet. It helps that this page's backgrounds are mostly covered and distant enough that I can go low detail.

As if it wasn't obvious, our current adversary is the one new character that's gotten a full introduction this chapter. Sorry if it looked like we were getting a full fight. Any amount of actual combat would have led to the same result; a bewildered Josh recognizing his completely undisguised girlfriend and pausing the fight to demand an explanation.

Hmmm, do I want to spend ten dollars to blaze this? I'll decide tomorrow.

[laserwing]

Hi!!! Doesn't it feel like I JUST put a page up? Weird! I can't really explain why I got this one done so fast, maybe it's just easier angles for the backgrounds, or maybe I'm just riding a weird productivity high. But it's done! And I'm happy to be on this page.

This page specifically is a direct parallel to the first chapter, where an unconscious Tony gets whisked away by Mistaire. But this time, Matt and Josh are working together with no distractions, and Tony's able to participate in his own rescue. The boys have come so far. If they had been this prepared the first time, they probably could have beaten Mistaire in a fight. This isn't Mistaire though, so who knows how it's going to play out?

I think I'm going to blaze this post. I feel like this is a good one to push onto hapless tumblr users.

[laserwing]

I had this page inked and shaded but uncolored for about a month and a half, but put it on hold because we completely redid my workspace. I have a new desk, and a new tablet! This one has a screen, which is apparently cheap and common these days. I remember getting my Intuos 3, I forget how much it cost at the time, but it was pretty new when I got it. Cintiqs existed, and those have screens, but they cost like $3000 back then. I'm now using a Wacom One and it was like $300. I needed a new desk for it because my previous setup just didn't have enough table space for a big tablet, I used to just plop the Intuos down on my mousepad when I needed to use it and shoved it behind my monitor when I was done. The new desk has a keyboard tray so I essentially have all my tools right in front of me all the time. Additionally I switched to a vertical mouse, which is helping with my wrist. AND I've been good about sleeping with my wrist brace on, most of the time (it's uncomfortable).

All these things combined have made it much, much easier to work on art, although I still took that month and a half to get accustomed to the new tablet. It's got a different texture and pressure sensitivity, so I wanted to practice with it and get comfortable. I feel like it's also making my lines smoother and my handwriting better, although you can't tell on this page. All the inking and lettering was done before the switch.

All the credit goes to my wonderful boyfriend Josh for buying the tablet AND building the desk! And moving a bunch of furniture around, and driving me to and from work, and cooking dinner last night. He's the best.

[laserwing]

I actually finished this page about two weeks ago!  Right in the middle of that vacation I was having.  I set it aside for a day so that I could come back to it the next morning with a fresh brain and check for errors.  Then that next morning I got a call and found out my grandma died.  So that, uh, kind of distracted me and I lost momentum.  Well I’m posting it now.

My vacation’s over and I definitely feel like I didn’t get the most productivity out of my time.  I’ll try not to drop off entirely though.

[laserwing]

It has been ten months since the last Laserwing update and I’m really sorry.  I mentioned two pages ago that I was dealing with issues with my job and my health, and those have been continuing.

I took a long detour out of webcomicking to work on my personal Pokemon gijinka OCs.  It’s a pure self-indulgent project full of cringe and devoid of value.  But it’s also been easier on my hands than Laserwing is.  I love Laserwing, it’s what I want to be my defining work, but that also means I put a ludicrous amount of time and effort into each page.  It’s hard to keep up when I’m experience numbness and/or pain in my drawing hand.  Dumber projects get quicker, lower-effort art, so I poured more time into those.  Speaking of dumber projects, I started up Popkas daily posts for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and those are almost complete (for now).

I’m currently on my yearly paid vacation from work (one of the reasons I haven’t quit yet) and that means I’ve had some time to rest my hand.  So I got back to work.  Let’s see how far I can take this momentum before I burn out or my hands fall off!

[laserwing]

We’re finally going to leave the cafeteria!  Next page I can stop drawing cafeteria tables!  ...And then I have to draw a street with stores and houses!  Well, I have a concept sketch for one side of the road, I still need to draw house designs for the other side...

[laserwing]

Funny how the cafeteria has gotten emptier as I got sick of drawing people in it.

An update to my personal life:

My boyfriend almost died like four days after I posted the previous page.  He’s mostly okay right now.  I wrote about this in more detail on my personal blog.

In the meanwhile I have also been discussing my numbness issues with doctors.  We’re still pinpointing the cause (right now the theory is neck stuff, nerve damage, AND carpal tunnel), but I’m also trying out a medication.  I also just finished a two week vacation from work, which gave me time to rest.  About one week into the vacation, I could suddenly draw without numbness again.  I finished this page on the final day before going back to work.  It happened like this last year too, I had stopped experiencing numbness on vacation but it came back after about a week of work.  Maybe the meds will do something?  Maybe not?

Quite frankly I was already pretty done with this job.  It’s incredibly stable, it’s a union job with good health insurance, and it pays enough to make rent with a little occasional spending money.  But I’ve already been pretty emotionally worn out over the last few years, and now I’m apparently physically worn out too.  If I could quit to work on art full time, I would.  But I’m well aware that I don’t have a big enough audience to ask for a living wage through webcomics.  I'll see if I can come up with a miracle solution for monetizing my art.

[laserwing]

This chapter has been structured to primarily function as an introduction to Marjolaine, but in the time it’s taken me to develop it I forgot that Marjolaine is kind of insufferable.  It’s by design, the elitist goth vs emo stuff is meant to be funny, but I think I’m going to spend the next 5,000 years chapter saying “no really I swear she’s a good character.”

I haven’t been giving the full explanation for Laserwing’s abysmal update speed, but I do occasionally talk about it on my personal blog.  I’m in the process of fixing the issues, I hope, so I’ll give a little more information.

I’ve been experiencing periodic numbness in my arms that occasionally makes it painful to hold my tablet pen.  Or even a mouse, sometimes.  It comes and goes, so I haven’t stopped drawing completely, but it’s slowed me down a lot.  Last week I had an MRI done, and I’m waiting to talk to a doctor about what to do next, but now I know the issue stems from my spinal canal, in a specifc spot in my neck.  On top of this, my day job has been taxing lately.  I haven’t taken a sick day in years, I worked through the entire pandemic, and my department has been understaffed for the last year.  I had definitely noticed that the numbness gets worse after a particularly hard work day.  Hopefully with a doctor I’ll be able to work out a definitive plan for fixing the issue.  Until then, Laserwing pages will probably continue to be slow.

I might see if a new tablet helps!  I’ve been using the same Wacom Intuos 3 for about 15 years now.  Tablets with screens on them are supposed to be easier on your hand and wrist, maybe it’ll help me avoid the numb.

Sorry for the diary post!

[laserwing]

Aaah, she’s finally here.  Half the point of this chapter was to introduce Marjolaine and it took her this long to show up.  She’s not even a focus character most of the time she’s just a catalyst for some lore once and a while.

Totally unrelated, here are two webcomics I have to catch up on: Miss Melee and Raccoon Girl.