#mudwiper

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I counted four pages left in chapter 5, so we’re heading into peaceful denouement country. Here’s the most important bit of that denouement, lest you miss it when it’s shrunk into a full page tomorrow

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In honour of the start of chapter 5 here’s a preview of the next page and a bit of news from behind the scenes: I’ve upgraded my drawing hardware from an ancient Wacom Bamboo tablet to a second-hand Surface Pro!

While this was, as far as I can see, a good decision, it came with a slight catch: not being able to install Clip Studio Paint, my first choice of software for drawing Mudskipper, on the new machine. I’ll have to wait for the next time that program goes on sale, but in the mean time I ran to my second choice: good ol’ Photoshop (which isn’t as nice to ink in as Clip Studio but nonetheless served me well during my 3 years of inking the comic on university Cintiqs, especially with help from Kyle T. Webster’s brush sampler set)... only to be greeted by a rather cavalier attitude to pen pressure. It does technically work, but it requires incredibly slow, intentional strokes - not a good fit for my style or a page-a-week schedule. Drawing without pen pressure is possible (if not ideal) for penciling - but inking, which was a big reason I wanted the ability to draw directly onto a screen and therefore bought this thing in the first place? Not so much.

So I was left to pencil and ink in my third choice of software, Paint Tool SAI, which miraculously had no problem with pen pressure - and, funnily enough, was what I used to pencil and tone the comic at the very beginning, when I was still inking it traditionally!!! How fitting that I completed that cycle around the third anniversary. Admittedly I’m still getting used to the new hardware and software after being so used to penciling in Clip Studio and sometimes Photoshop, but I remembered something that stopped me feeling discouraged: an anecdote shared on the Dirty Old Ladies podcast about how it’s normal for professional artists to improve, then plateau, then (if they’re really serious about their craft) try something new that makes their art slightly worse for a while, then better than ever once they’re used to the new thing.

I greatly look forward to my “better than ever” stage - but in the mean time, I’ll relish the way SAI’s pressure sensitivity always gives Katsuko ridiculously long eyelashes

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Today I officially reinstated my pre-graduation film policy of working on Mudskipper for at least 30 minutes a day (a policy shamelessly nicked from Kevin Cross’s 100 Days of Making Comics series, but hey, what works works)!

I thumbnailed the first quarter or so of chapter 5 while visiting family last month, but before I dive into the rest of the thumbs I thought I’d re-acclimatize myself to working in Clip Studio by doing rough pencils/blocking for the pages I've already thumbnailed - the nice thing about working in stages is that this early stage isn't a big investment of time or energy, so if I need to change something later I can save that work for the tight pencil stage. I'm looking forward to incorporating the slightly-revised character designs I have planned for this chapter, though I'm wondering if this look (with the tiny nose) is too much or if I'll end up liking it... ah well, finding out is half the fun of this stuff.

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This Monday at Bring Your Own Animation, I said that “if all goes to plan, the last page of chapter 4 will be up this Thursday...” and, surprising absolutely no-one, all did NOT go to plan. I’m doing an experiment I do with approximately one page per chapter, where I time myself to gauge how much my pencilling, inking and background-ing speed has increased, which meant I couldn’t rush chapter 4 page 54 like I’ve been doing with... a sadly large number of recent pages (the fact that I didn’t even have time to do an April Fool’s page is proof of how intense animation is getting!).

As a compromise, this week’s page will go up on Saturday (the 8th of April) instead. Trust me, I hate stumbling so close to the finish line, too - at least this didn’t happen right before the climax of the chapter! In the mean time, enjoy this panel of Katsuko finally reconciling her two “families.”

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tfw you’re so proud of almost finishing four chapters you just have to happystim

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In an effort to make up for the lack of update this week (essays are never fun), here’s a couple of WIPs of Jull and Ikki’s firefighter disguises from upcoming pages!

Zo and Jull have assumed middle-aged or elderly forms before, but this is the first time we’ve seen any of the aliens as 20something humans. Not to brag or anything, but when you develop a crush on your own character design, you know you’re doing something right

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A little behind-the-scenes tidbit on today’s page: originally Macco’s hands were visible in panel 3 and I was really happy with them, but after inking the page I realised I drew him waaaay taller than Katsuko when he’s supposed to be only slightly taller. It was easily fixable by moving him down, but bye-bye perfect hands. At least now I get to post them here!