Mary-Anne took me a while to figure out… All of my other characters’ personalities came together fairly quickly, but Mary’s eluded me for years. She had started out as a chainsaw-wielding maniac, but there’s only so many directions that could be taken in. After that she was more “ambiguously crazy”, then accident-prone and a lumberjack’s daughter, then a handygirl… by trying to make her fit in with the rest of my characters, I’d ended up making her extremely boring.
Now I’ve taken her back to her roots, more or less. She’s back to being ambiguously crazy, and with her talk of staking vampires, she may get to use her chainsaw in the future… even if it’s just in her head.
And with that, this slightly-non-canon comic is done! Daisy will be back to normal in the next one, although if I’m being honest, I could live with making her breast-reduction permanent… but then I might miss out on some good boob jokes!
It took me a while, but I’ve finally drawn a comic that I’d planned several months ago! This one’s only two pages, and #2 is ready for inking and coloring, so it shouldn’t take me forever to finish.
The inspiration for this comic was an image I’d drawn back in January. Along with one other change, I’d changed Daisy’s hair from blonde to red, just to see how well it fit. It actually didn’t work that well, but being a redhead would make sense, since her mother also has red hair. Still, the idea for this comic was too fun to ignore, so I’ll just treat this one as non-canon, and return her to normal when it’s done.
One thing that IS canon, though, is Mary-Anne – of all my characters, she’s taken me the longest to figure out, but now I have a much clearer sense of who she is. Consider this story her official introduction.
Something I’m not sure of, is whether future comics will also be in color. In this case it was necessary, and surprisingly it didn’t take much longer than black & white, but I consider myself color-illiterate.
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!
The other day I did my first livestream, and today I’ve posted a condensed version of the first part on Youtube –
Nothing too special, just me scribbling thumbnail sketches, answering questions, and giving a little insight into my characters, plus some teases of things coming up. It was fun enough that I might have to do these on a regular basis! 🙂
My Patreon campaign is live, and now I’ve uploaded my first patron-supported pair of images! Here’s a preview of the primary image on DeviantArt, along with a tease of its exclusive alternate version –
Posting this pinup also cleared up a lot about how Patreon works… and helped me to determine that a per-image campaign was a bit too confusing, for both me and for potential patrons. To simplify things, I’ve switched it to a monthly campaign, and have rearranged my reward tiers a little –
$1 per month gets you access to the Patron-only feed
$5 per month includes NSFW artwork, such as the occasional nude variant for otherwise normal images. Patrons in this tier can also offer suggestions for future images. If an idea is fun enough – or inspires a fun scenario – then I’ll make it happen!
$10 per month includes high-resolution images, as well as a “supported by” credit on the first page of each upcoming chapter to Daisy’s Diner.
I’m even debating a $20 and possibly even $40 tier, which would offer single- and two-character sketch commissions as their reward, respectively. The only reason I hesitate to add these options, is because I never know what my freelance schedule will be like from one month to the next. I’d hate to have work force me into a situation where un-drawn commissions just keep piling up for months on end. I’ve seen it happen to other artists, and while their fans have typically been forgiving and understanding, that didn’t make it any less stressful…
