||||The Space Between

Having some time off in the holiday season means that I can finally get this monster of a chapter finished! It should be out in the next week or so.

I’m done with the first draft of Chapter 17, and have started editing. The page count crept up again, so I’ve decided to split it into 2 chapters so that I can actually release something this year.

This has proved to be a tough chapter for a couple of reasons. First there’s quite a bit of action, and second there’s some big exchanges where the dialogue needs to be laser precise to properly justify and articulate various character actions and attitudes. This is what I have to suffer for trying to write a military drama where everyone is supposed to be a competent, rational professional. 🙂

Things are starting to come together, just a lot slower than I would have liked. There’s no art to preview yet as I don’t like putting out derpy, un-edited panels, but there will something on the next update.

Just a quick update. Most of the basic line-art for Chapter 17 is now complete and I’ve started work on colouring. This chapter is now up to 20 pages, many of which are long, and likely to keep growing in length! I’m making good progress but I’m not able to give an ETA yet.

I’ve spent a little time touching up Chapter 15, which had a higher than average amount of derp-face. The short release cycle I tried for this chapter didn’t give enough time for tweaking art or refining dialogue, so I don’t think I want to try that again.

With that out the way, I’m making good progress on the line work for Chapter 17. I’m fired up, but this chapter is going to be a lot of work! With at least 18 pages to draw it could well take another 5 months, unless I find a suitable break-point in the middle. But I hope the wait will be worth it, as lots of exciting developments are to come. I’ll try to make monthly progress updates in the meantime.

Chapter 16 is up and available here.

I think this is the longest I’ve spent on a chapter since the original release! A lot of rewrites and dialogue tweaks were required and many of the final scenes weren’t in the original script. In these situations it can feel like you’re wrestling with some unholy amalgamation between a jigsaw puzzle and a rubik’s cube. I put a lot of work in and I hope I have been at least partially successful.

Chapter 17 will be its own challenge as I have a stack of equipment to design and new locations to build. This one may take some time as well! I also want to fix up some more art on earlier chapters – Chapter 15 needs another pass and I’ve realised Chapter 3 *still* looks bad. Argh!

I’ve been a bit more relaxed with my schedule lately, but I’m still making progress as I edit Chapter 16. I don’t think I’ve ever had to make so many dialogue tweaks before, hopefully it will all pay off. I wish I could go faster but free time is limited! Thanks for your patience.

This is just a short update to let you know that I’m switching back to the full length chapter releases. Chapter 16 is proving a challenging one to put together, so I’m drawing the pages out of order. It’s going okay, but it’s a slow process. I should have something ready for release in about 3 months time.

One of the advantages of having a centralised, online location for a webcomic is the ability to go back and fix mistakes made earlier in the process. I’ve been taking time off at the end of every year to do this and in 2016 it was Chapter 4’s turn. I set myself a 2 week time limit for fixing up the art and some of the clunkier bits of dialogue.

It’s interesting to see how the art style has changed from 2013 to now. Fewer, cleaner lines, higher contrast and smoother shading. I don’t know how I was happy to release those old pages, but a changing perception of my own work is a problem that I have to fight even over the length of a single chapter, so I’m not surprised. Hopefully at some point I will plateau at an acceptable level, so I won’t need to keep repeating this cycle.

Back to moving forward!

After some reflection, I’ve decided that I need to pick up the pace of releases. To accomplish this I’ve adopted a new process which will allow me to draw a chapter in minutes rather than months. I’ve since redrawn all of Chapter 15, which can now be seen in its entirety below.

Coming tomorrow: Chapters 16 and 17.

Or maybe I’m bored and I wanted a break from redrawing the awful art in Chapter 4. One of those two things. 🙂

The final part of Chapter 15 is available here.

This chapter has had its own unique challenges. A lot of time spent on the bridge, and a lot of data overlays and technical jargon (if it seems bad now, it was worse before the cuts!)

This marks the end of the third year of publishing this comic online. For the rest of December I plan to take a break from drawing new pages, to focus on the following tasks:

• Trying to promote the comic online.
• Tidying up existing chapters.
• Script edits and prep work for Chapter 16.

I don’t know if I will run monthly updates for every chapter. They have their advantages and disadvantages. I know that I prefer frequent updates as a reader of other comics, but they do turn the process into more of a mechanical factory line.

There is going to be a gap before new content is available but I hope that readers will stick around now that the main plot is moving along. Things will only get worse from here!