Manga Studio EX 4.0

Well, it finally arrived, and one thing is for sure: it's going to take quite a bit of poking around to figure everything out! Oh, sure, the basic set-up's the same, and all the regular tools seem to be in place, if not under the same icons, but there are a few key differences, like in how the stories are set up and a few of the finer points of the tools.

And there are quite a few new features for me to play with. I'm particularly excited about the color feature. Not that I'm expecting anything to rival Photoshop, but who knows? I might be pleasantly surprised. It should be interesting, at the very least.

The next page of Strawberry Syrup may still be done on the old laptop, though, if not the rest of Chapter 4. It depends on if MS 4 has problems with the story set-up of MS 3. We'll see how the poking around goes.

Postal Delays

No comic this week. Alas, my upgraded Windows 7-compatible version of Manga Studio hasn't arrived yet. Sure, I could do it on my old laptop, but there's a whole hassle with transferring and all that fun stuff, so I'd rather just wait. This is what I get for ordering a hard copy.

I did, however, finish up Mariposa with an easy background, so she kinda looks like a trading card or something. You can see the finished version over at my deviantArt gallery. I think she turned out pretty well. ^_^

It is going to be so nice to get that upgrade. I want to do some sketching.

Character Design: Mariposa

Alright, so sometimes in the course of my chat!RPs, the question comes up of what the kid of two characters would look like. I, of course, love it when this happens. It's like a special treat for the character designer in me: try to create a character that incorporates traits of two others in some way. Hello, playland!

This hasn't happened in awhile, alas - I think the last time was with Bridget back in 2008 - but one of my frequent RPmates brought up a potential kid the other night, and of course, I had to give it a shot. For now, I'm calling her Mariposa:



Mariposa here does not have a chance of existing short of the magical equivalent of the mother of all drunken one-night stands, but man if she wasn't fun to figure out. Pretty much the only things the other RPer suggested were that the kid be stunning and dark featured, so I got to play a lot with her.

Plus, I had an excuse to do something more in my usual style on the new laptop. Granted, since I don't currently have a working copy of MangaStudio that exports, I had to do it ALL in Photoshop, including the sketch and the line art. Normally, I do all that in MangaStudio because the MangaStudio pencil tool rocks for sketching, and the pen tool in beautifully easy to use. Outlining in Photoshop in comparison is SO incredibly tedious.

Anyways, I'll probably figure out a simple background once I know more about Mariposa here and then throw her up on dA. Good times.

Pressure Sensitivity Problems Solved!

Sorta. Turns out Manga Studio 3.0 is nooooot quite compatible with Vista or Windows 7: the pressure sensitivity just does not work. After spending some time checking out help forums and whatnot, my brother finally suggested we try the demo for Manga Studio 4 to see if it was still a problem them... and lo and behold, pressure sensitivity was fine.

Fortunately, it's just an upgrade, so it cost me $130-something instead of $300. Oi.

Anyways, I opted for a physical copy this time (my last copy was a download), so I've got a little time before it arrives. Alas, I found out AFTER that that the demo doesn't allow you to export. In the mean time, I decided to make sure Photoshop wasn't having any problems and did a quick little experiment in a different style than usual:



Not my best work. I was trying for something. Didn't quite get it. But I'm actually happy with the lips for once, so that earns him a posting somewhere. Basically, I wanted to do something where I could use a few different brushes, do some smudging and blending, and not spend a WHOLE lot of time on it. Character's name is Erich, btw... older brother of one of my RP characters, hence the unusual hair color. I dunno, I've just never liked drawing completely random characters. Gotta have some sort of story there.

75% Good, Maybe 25% Eh

Well, I've had a few days to play around with the new laptop, and so far I'm pretty happy! It's lightweight, only needs an extra fan when its playing WoW, runs WoW beautifully, and can even function with other programs running at the same time. I'm adapting well to Office, and I'm starting to get used to the different screen proportions - this one's longer and squatter than my former Toshiba, so that takes a little time to acclimate there. And Windows 7 seems to be working pretty well for me.

Things I'm not so fond of: the control panel that keeps trying to pull out every time my cursor wanders too close to the left side of the screen, some of the Win7 navigation, and the fact that I can't figure out how to set up my tablet. Seriously. I know it's not the laptop's fault, but I can't find my pressure sensitivity, and that's kiiiiinda important for the whole art thing.

I'll probably have to draft my brother to figure out that last one...

But overall, yeah, so far way more good than bad. I'm happy.

New Laptop!

Yes, I know, I move at the pace of molasses, but when a purchase is going to cost me more than $500, I like to take my time.

And if I'd been able to find a piece of machinery that could actually handle what I want it to, I would have been ecstatic. Between the laptop itself, the service package (which, we learned after my father's famous "Don't worry, we'll get that LATER! :D," is best purchased at the same time as the laptop), Office, and all that fun stuff, I ended up dropping close to $1500. Oy.

Anyways, I opted for a lovely Toshiba Satellite A505, which is the upgrade to my current model... which I am still using for the time being. The new one is currently going through the lengthy - and I do mean lengthy - WoW install. Hopefully, everything will be transferred over by the end of tonight, and I'll actually be able to use it.

The Comic Process, Part I: The Thumbnail

Alright, so by now you're well aware that I have a weekly (heh, supposedly) webcomic, Strawberry Syrup. Here's how I come up with each page.

First up: the Thumbnail.

A thumbnail is basically a very quick sketch meant to help me figure out what elements I want on the page and where to put them. By 'very quick,' I mean no time spent on detail. Here's the thumbnail for Page 20 of Chapter 4:

As you can see, very quick, very sketchy, and not exactly an architectural blueprint here. There are three key things I need out of my thumbnails. 1) Where are the panels going? 2) Who's in each panel and what position are they in? 3) Where are the speech bubbles going? It doesn't take a whole lot of detail for me to tell any of those things, especially when most characters have some identifying characteristic. Dwayne's got his big ol' wizard's hat, Sammy's got glasses, Ferdy's got his cape... Not real hard to tell them apart.

Now, here's the important part: the thumbnail can change. They're not set in stone, and I'm allowed to change them, as you will see in Part II. By sketching it out nice and fast, I can see how it does or doesn't work, how another panel arrangement might work better, and what content might work better in each panel. If I weren't lazy or on a weekly schedule, I'd probably sketch out those variations, too, and pick which one looks best.

As it is, I thumbnail once, then wing it. Do not follow Kit's example there, kids. Ideally, you'll have each chapter thumbnailed well in advance. Trust me, it's easier that way.

'90s Nostalgia

Lately, my family has been spending Saturday nights reliving the joys of one of our favorite series from the nineties: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, courtesy of Netflix. Sure, it's corny, and silly, and the costumes make no sense (the hats... what were they thinking with the hats?), but it's fun, and that's what we've always loved about it.

Of course, back in '94, the special effects didn't look QUITE as ridiculous, but hey, you can still get that same stunning quality in certain SyFy movies.

In any case, it's got me all nostalgic for the great series of my tween-to-teen years. I mean, there were some fantastic shows then. A few of my other favorites, in no particular order, were:

• Quantum Leap


• The X-Files


• Highlander


• SeaQuest DSV


• Are You Afraid of the Dark?


• Buffy: The Vampire Slayer


• Farscape


• Pretender


• Sliders


• Forever Knight


• Mystery Science Theater 3000

Yeah, you can tell where my interests lie. XD Those are the ones I'm pretty sure I'd still enjoy now (and thanks to SyFy, I do still get to enjoy Highlander and X-Files on a near nightly basis) and not counting the slew of kids shows on Nick that I used to watch on a regular basis. I just don't know if I'd enjoy Clarissa Explains It All, Hey Dude, and Welcome Freshman now as much as I did as a kid. Are You Afraid of the Dark, on the other hand, I'm fairly confidant I'd still enjoy at least a few episodes of.

Hm... I should look into hunting a few of these down... Anyone out there have any favorite shows from the '90s?

Strawberry Syrup is Go!

And there's a good start on #2 of last post's To Do List: page 20 of Chapter 4 of Strawberry Syrup did, indeed, get done! On time, even. Well, okay, so about 1am instead of my preferred midnight on the dot, but there it was, all set to go...

Which is about when I remembered that whole conversation with my brother/webmaster a few weeks about about having tweaked the site and me needing to get the new files. Cue the recollection of never having gotten those file and, being technologically impaired, having no idea how to get those files without terminally screwing something up. You may think I'm exaggerating, but technology and I have a rocky history. We're talking demon-possessed printers, premature New TV death, and the generation of enough static electricity in winter to put Pikachu to shame. Never mind my habit of killing websites if I don't know exactly what I'm doing.

So, rather than have the site go down or spontaneously combust and destroy all of my brother's hard work, I decided to wait. Wednesday afternoon, I explained the problem to the great webmaster and ended up emailing the update to him. So, all the little Strawberry Syrup fans (those who haven't lost interest by now with all the unplanned stops, anyway) had a brand new page for the first time in over a month. Hurray!

And now I'm going back to writing.

Hello, March!

Well, the Olympics are over, snow is still on the ground, and it is officially the start of a new month. Time for this month's To Do List! In no particular order, here are my goals for March:

• Finish 2009's NaNo.


• Get Strawberry Syrup back on track.


• Get my hands on a copy of Rachel Caine's Midnight Alley. *shakes a fist at the local bookstores*


• Sit my butt down and actually update my Squidoo lenses.


• Add more stuff to my Zazzle shop.


• Get stuff sent out.


• Keep up with my writing routine.

I'm keeping it simple. Got a few minor goals to round out the major ones, and then a few "if Kit works really hard and the stars align" goals to aim for. I've already made a good start on that first one today. Why yes, there is a reason I spent a good chunk of the afternoon researching common town names, last names meanings, the native tree life of Michigan, and topics for high school essays on Hamlet.

More seriously, I have finally, finally cleared out the debris from that roadblock and moved into the actual writing phase again. Kinda sucks that I'm going to have to quit sometime tonight to get that next page of Strawberry Syrup started... I don't even want to think about how much my drawing skills have deteriorated after not using them for a month.