#having a bit of an art backlog atm | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hard--mode · 4 years

Note

How do you find the time and energy to get the comics done? Do you power through in one long sitting or do you do it bit by bit? I'm trying to develop an Undertale comic but its completely hypothetical atm.

lmao at the fact that I haven’t been able to get anything done for this in probably a year or more now

I can’t say much for time and energy since I started this back when all I did every moment of my life was draw and lately I just barely keep up with work so I can hardly think of attempting to do stuff like this. Finding a good work/life balance and healthy sources of motivation is a personal journey that requires trial and error.

As for what advice I can give...

For me to start a comic, I usually have a direction I want to go with it first. Like I literally don’t commit to making something as big as a comic unless I have some inkling of how it will end, because I don’t wanna do it forever. The result is that I usually have enough ideas to make a script with before I get started, so step one is to make a script or at minimum a rough outline that I’ll finish as necessary

after that, I start by doing chapters as super rough little thumbnail sketches where I lay out the panels and draw stick figure poses. I do these whole chapters at a time. I think I did like the first 3 chapters of this at once in this manner. But it’s quick work if you know what you want to do already.

then things tend to slow down, because the process of making real sketches at full size takes a lot more time, and then even more so again to line and color everything. Unless I’m really on a roll, this part I mostly do tiny bit by tiny bit, because lineart or colors can get tedious sometimes, especially the more pages there are to put out. And making comics isn’t my job (doing other art is my job) so I try very hard to not overexert myself lest I hurt myself in some way, because getting burnt out or injured is the best way to kill any ability you had to make the comic in the first place!

If you’re concerned about being able to post something on a regular basis, I recommend making a bunch of pages for backlog so you’ll be working on things much later in the story by the time the first pages post, so when inevitably you fall behind schedule, you’ve still got some space. It’s also very common for people to have long posting breaks between chapters to recoup the buffer

hope that helps! :3

#not a comic #asks #baguettemilk

67 notes · View notes

inqorporeal · 3 years

Text

Tagged by @sl-walker

How many works do you have on AO3? 24, 23 if you don’t include the art

What's your total AO3 word count? 805,604

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? In terms of published stuff, just three: Star Wars, Dragon Age, and EVE Online. I have a Final Fantasy XIV comedy thing I’m toying with atm

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

For the Right Price (Star Wars) - 3438 kudos

Raising the Stakes (Star Wars) - 1205 kudos

A Trooper’s Guide to Lightsaber Maintenance (Star Wars) - 866 kudos

Door Number Three (Star Wars) - 461 kudos

Ori’vod (Star Wars) - 459 kudos

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? I try to but the recent burnout from work and... just... *waves vaguely at the state of things* has been hitting pretty hard. I have a massive backlog in my inbox

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I don’t like angsty endings

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? I don’t, although I’ve toyed with Dragon Age/Star Wars and Mass Effect/Star Wars crossovers. The settings mix well (insert joke about how Bioware really has only one property but different settings).

Have you ever received hate on a fic? Sure. It’s always been about “all the gay shit”. People need to read the tags before whining about that. Every time they complain, I add another queer character.

Do you write smut? If so what kind? Rarely, I’m not great at it

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not that I know of

What’s your all time favorite ship? I don’t have one, really. Lots of NOTPs

Whats a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? Years ago, I started an incredibly ambitious fic about the origins of the world of EVE Online. It’ll probably never get finished -- it would be MASSIVE, like several times larger than FtRP and its sequels, and probably eat my life. And honestly I don’t like EVE as much now as I did then. It’s not worth my energy.

What are your writing strengths? Worldbuilding. I love taking the little bits that already exist in official media and developing them. (Or fixing them; there’s a lot in SW that is... not great, and I refuse to work with it without cleaning it up)

What are your writing weaknesses? Smut. Also, fight scenes.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I have fun with it, I like reading it. It’s an extra facet of worldbuilding for me.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? The very first, as in the first time I ever wrote something derived from a piece of media, would probably be Star Trek, way back in the ‘90s, before I knew fanfic was even a thing.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written? I have a massive soft spot for Passion & Providence (and rewriting the stuff I dislike about the SWTOR expanded story)

Tagging: @bluemaskedkarma @norcumii @fadinglight123 @nusaran uhhhh and anyone else who wants to join in! (tag me if you do! <3)

#tag games #you're it!#fic writer questions

7 notes · View notes

abstract-apocalypse · 4 years

Text

Catch up meme!

tagged by @mojave-musing, thanks so much for the tag!!

Rules: Tag however many people who you want to know better/catch up with and then answer these questions.

THREE SHIPS:

i honestly haven’t been going super hard on the shipping lately, but Rowan/Eden and Cliff/Duke both make me do the hearteyes emoji! (both oc/oc so there are 3 people on earth who understand these, whoops)

LAST SONG(s) LISTENED TO:

i have no concept of time so here’s a few recent ones:

animal by against me!

the gun song by car seat headrest

40oz on repeat by fidlar

CURRENTLY WATCHING:

i don’t watch a lot of tv, movies are more my speed, or youtube while i’m working. technically i’m in the middle of schitt’s creek but it’s slow going. recently rewatched the witch, which was even better than i remembered. and am currently working through folding ideas’s entire backlog for probably the 16th time.

CURRENTLY READING:

my adhd means i don’t read nearly as much as i’d like. the last books i finished were carrie by stephen king, and solutions and other problems by allie brosh (both vvvv good), and i am currently partway through the science of women in horror, which is fascinating and so up my alley i feel a little targeted, and type and color: how to design and use multicolored typefaces. oh, and a very academic relative gave me duty free art: art in the age of planetary civil war, but i honestly think i may be too dumb to understand any of it.

HOW’S IT GOING:

not great frankly! i have been very depressed for months, no signs things will look up any time soon, and ran out of meds so i’m off them the last few days. but that’s okay!

i tag @sanctaphrax, @nuka-nuke, @chaosintheavenue, and anyone else who’d like to do it! apologies if i forgot to tag someone, i am a bit all over the place atm.

#not fallout #sorry this is pretty boring to read probably

3 notes · View notes

thememcry · 4 years

Text

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

My muse is: canon / oc / au / canon-divergent ( potentially ) / fandomless

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK. (apparently there are youtube comments circulating about how boring or weak aerith is. if an explanation needs be provided for how strong of a woman, character, and fighter she is in her own regard then the point of the character is missed entirely.)

Are they underrated? YES / NO.

Were they relevant to the main story? YES / NO.

Were they relevant to the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. (the big baddies know of her, the little baddies know to look for her and the heroes just learned of why she’s important).

How’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

How strictly do you follow canon?

it depends entirely on the person / character i’m writing and what verse they’re in. when someone approaches me and doesn’t specify a verse i give them main verse (ff7r) and follow canon as closely as i’d like. but most of my threads diverge from canon for exploration or other purposes. i’m not concerned with how close to canon my aerith is ------obviously i’d like people to hear her voice when i have her speak, or see her performing the actions i have her commit to but i’d also like this interpretation to be my own. so when someone reads a piece of my writing they say oh yes, that’s kay’s aerith definitely.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutual.

i could make an entire post about all of the things i love about aerith gainsborough on its own, so i’ll try not to let this be too rambly.

she is such a three-dimensional character and she always has been. people expect just to meet the damsel in distress, to rely on cloud and company to help her out at every twist and turn. square even did a good job selling her appearance: soft pinks, gentle features, and when she was given a voice actor the first few times they always went the route of someone who had a lighter lilt. to the first glance she is very much all of those things. except it’s not all she is.

aerith wears masks to cover the horrendous things that happened to her as a child: experimentation, the shocking loss of her mother after escaping it, crushing loneliness, an awareness that she was different and nobody around who understood the properties of that difference to explain it to her in a way that didn’t terrify her. she heard the planet, could tell when people passed away and rejoined the lifestream, surrounded by all of these voices yet so fucking alone. and did she let it make her bitter? did she become angry or cold, jaded or cruel? no. aerith is kind and giving without being too self-sacrificing and without making her boring. she’s not as innocent as people are made to believe.

look at her first interactions with cloud. she flirts mercilessly with him, and then you discover she did it to zack, too. she’s not afraid to express herself in any fashion and she’s unapologetic about how forward and positive she is. despite all of the shitty things that happened to her, she’s still all of these great things. she’s scrappy, she can be a brat (ask the turks!) and she blooms under the cover of oppression that she lives. sure, she’s in a beautiful house with a loving mother figure but she’s in the slums and she’s being watched constantly by some part of the company that wants to see her dissected or worse.

and she’s divine. no, literally. of course it takes her death for the realization of that divinity to really be understood by the fan base and even by her own party, but once aerith dies she becomes an actual deity. it’s sad that you don’t get her in your party any more but it’s obvious how much she affected everyone she worked with (and even those she didn’t). they spend the rest of the game avenging her, they spend the rest of the game explaining their grief over her loss, promising her death won’t be in vain. and once that’s done? there’s an entire movie where cloud deals with his grief over everything, but mainly his self-appointed guilt over her death. as if he could have changed it? i mentioned to @seraphicwiing in a conversation (an au one) about sephiroth and aerith ------he didn’t kill or break her. he gifted her divinity.

so this sweet flower girl goes from a first appearance damsel in distress to an actual conduit of the planet, watching over her friends and everyone else from the spiritual plane of it. controlling the lifestream itself to rise up and crush back meteor.

if you don’t like her by this point, it’s a lost cause. honestly, just go play pacman or something.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).

maybe strong female leads aren’t your cup of tea? perhaps you really wanted aerith to maintain her softness and have none of the bite or edge that i argue make her interesting?

some people want a strong woman to be something like paine in ffx-2, or lightning in ffxiii, or even lulu in ffx itself ... dark and perhaps a bit brooding, angry with someone or something. they can be gentle but they’re mostly a razor sharp edge threatening to slice anyone who tries to get close to them. aerith is arguably a hot take on the stronger female leads ... even compared to tifa. you don’t doubt that a woman who fights with her fists is a tough, bad bitch ... but aerith isn’t physically strong. she’s the image of a princess honestly and that’s just not what some people want to see or deal with.

arguably her personality can come off a bit strong. she’s snarky and, as i said, a tease. she can be bratty from time to time and that can absolutely be read as irritating, especially to someone whose looking for negative personality traits to focus on at a first glance.

and a lot of people just see her as a love interest to cloud. and she is, i won’t deny that. it’s been further addressed in the remake with her dream sequence that cloud absolutely has feelings for her. it dredges up the age-old argument from 1997 of: tifa or aerith. why does it have to be or? why can’t he love them both in different ways? or the same way? it’s not like aerith has a lot of time to be the love interest, anyway. we all know how disc 1 ended, by this point.

perhaps people see her end-game divinity as a deus-ex mechanic. sure, it kind of it. but the game never hid its intentions of why aerith was there. she was always special, we just didn’t know how. she always had holy, we just didn’t know what it meant at the time. but it does seem a bit convenient that right as the meteor is going to crush midgar ------here comes the lifestream, holding it back so holy can stop it! wow, amazing! darn that aerith and her connection to the planet. how awful. maybe cloud could have just braver’d it.

What inspired you to rp your muse?

i love her. it’s just that simple. she’s so complex and so different from other characters i tend to gravitate toward. she has a darkness but she’s good, genuinely. i usually go for people who are deeply seeded in some kind of trauma, or are just generally a piece of shit. and aerith certainly has her trauma, but she’s risen above it. she chooses to live her life as much as she can before the ultimate doom clock ticks to 0, you know?

i admire her beauty. not just her physical beauty (and she is), but the beauty of her as a person. i wish i could be as endlessly positive as she is, even faced against such awful odds. i wish i could be the kind of person who surrounds themselves with people who love them, despite their flaws. but i am very much the opposite of aerith.

i consider myself endlessly lucky to be a mouthpiece of some kind of version of her. this is a character i’ve had a connection to since i was like, 7 or 9 (and i’m 30 now). the very fact that i get to log in every day and express some form of this wonderful character keeps me connected to her. she has a loud voice in my head, and i think she always had. i think that remake just re-lit the flame for her.

i wrote her a long time ago, during myspace rp days. but we all know how myspace ended. so i choose to write her now because it feels right. and i really do enjoy having someone who shines so brightly in my head.

What keeps your inspiration going?

the same as everyone else, i think: music, clips of the character, art of her ... but mostly? my writing partners. i wouldn’t be anywhere without the people in this site who come to me every day with an interest in my interpretation of aerith. i never expected so many lovely humans to want to see what i can do with her. but i have people dm’ing me on discord every day with ideas or thoughts, with musings or what-if’s ... and it really just keeps this muse so alive for me.

even though i have a backlog of drafts and inbox things to answer, i can know that they will get done ... it’s just up to me as a human to write things out.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO.

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO. (i’d prefer to write out a reply to a solo drabble).

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your writing? YES / NO.

Are you a sensitive person? YES / NO.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

in the proper context. i don’t want someone coming on here and telling me i play aerith wrong because it’s not what she would do canon. that’s cool, i don’t write her strictly canon. but if i’m having doubts and i ask for the feedback, i’m open to it.

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?

always. i am 100% always accepting development questions.

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?

nope. i don’t care if you agree with my headcanons or not. i’m sure there are people who don’t like that i have a ship with a sephiroth, or a reeve, or that i’ve had her mess around with rufus or biggs. i’m sure there are people who despise the way i make her speak to people ... and that’s fine. they’re allowed to. but this is my interpretation of aerith and so far i’m loving everything that i’ve gotten to do with her. especially those things that include character building with others.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

they’re allowed to disagree. they’re also not beholden to follow me. i won’t be upset if they unfollow me. it’s their comfort, after all. and i’d rather spend time on here enjoying myself than either having someone voice their dislike of my interpretation or get vocal about how they’re uncomfortable.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?

people have really hated aerith since 1997. they’re allowed to have their silly opinions of her. and i’m allowed not to entertain them.

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?

please do. i’m human and i make mistakes. i’d love to fix them.

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?

yes, but i’ve had people mention that i seem a little unapproachable. please approach me. if you want to write with me let me know. if you want to chat ooc with me talk to me. i promise i’m an absolute dimwit on my side of the screen. i’m spacy but i try to be as nice and welcoming as possible. somehow i’ve conned a few friends out of this rpc already with my idiocy, so please please please come chat with me.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

#❀ ﹙ about ﹚ « poetry bleeds from ivory bones like sweet syrup »#❀ ﹙ ooc ﹚ « what did you say? »#❀ ﹙ mun ﹚ « aaaaaaaaaaaa »

6 notes · View notes

comicteaparty · 4 years

Text

April 11th-April 17th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from April 11th, 2020 to April 17th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What sort of analytics/stats do you track for your comic/story and why?

Deo101 [Millennium]

I prefer to track trends instead of stats, and for views mostly. I like to make mental notes the differences certain things make. I don't really like to think of comments and likes as stats, even though they might count. I prefer just to look to views for trends, and honestly I check kind of rarely because otherwise I get a bit invested in them. If I'm only looking at views once a month it's a simple transaction of time and effort versus something I might delude myself into thinking I have control over.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I use the Jetpack plugin for Wordpress stats. Nice graphs and basic data -- how many hits, where readers are coming from, what pages get the most traffic. But it has limits...like, here's the graph of hits over the last month, there's clearly a big jump in the past week, and I have no idea why?

There aren't any referral links that are generating a ton of new visitors -- unless it's a link from somewhere the plugin can't track. I don't know if it's a bunch of new readers arriving and reading bits at a time, or a small number of readers going through the entire archive very quickly. Or maybe a bunch of existing readers felt like it was time to re-binge the backlog? Maybe it's from people in lockdown who are all going through their "comics to read" bookmarks at the same time? Could be basically anything.

I also keep an eye on php script executions, because my hosting company limits those the way other places limit bandwidth. There's some "running automatically without doing anything essential" Wordpress scripts that I've found and disabled to keep the stats down, that I wouldn't even know existed if I didn't have to pay attention to it.

Oh, and ads -- I try to keep coming up with new banners for comicad.net, and then watch their stats and retire the ones that get the lowest click-through rate.

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

I‘m currently not tracking anything yet, because right now it would only serve to make me nerveous. It‘ll change as soon as I get around to advertising, I think.

Deo101 [Millennium]

It might be good to track a bit before adverising as well, though, so you can see how much a difference advertising makes for you? I get it being nerve wracking though

chalcara [Nyx+Nyssa]

You‘re right, of course, but before I stopped tracking the majority of visits to my side are my own for testing purposes, and that‘s just de-motivating. I started at basically zero, because I have no pre-build social media presence.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ahhhh yeah. It's never easy to see your stats before they've gotten where you want them

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I also use Jetpack, but I don't track things too heavily. But I do like seeing how site views spike when I share something on social media. I've been meaning to get a proper subscription service set up on my site - haven't made one yet. Tracking subscribers will be something concrete I can also do. As long as I see an upward trend while I'm not on hiatus, I'm happy.

AntiBunny

I haven't even bothered installing analytics since I moved my comic.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I don't really track anything except Twitter posts, I'm not very good at computer

kayotics

I track through google analytics. It’s used by the marketing agency I work for and easy to install, so I trust it. It’s a bit complicated to look at if you’re not sure what it’s saying, but it’s very robust. I usually just see if there’s an uptick in new users at all, and if there is, I try to see where they’re coming from. Google analytics is great for identifying where people are being referred from

Then in combination with that, I check page views to just see if they’re new users who have never read before, so there’s a big jump in page views if they are.

Phin (Heirs of the Veil)

I use jetpack and google analystics but I really try to not look at analytics TOO much

Eilidh (Lady Changeling)

I upload to ComicFury, which has built in analytics, but I don't really use them for anything too much. I try not to check them honestly, it gets me obsessive otherwise

Capitania do Azar

I use the jetpack ones and it's nice to see spikes when someone is going through the archive @Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn) you have a lot more pages than I do, so maybe it's hard to check and especially if you're getting a lot of views per day, but usually I can tell if someone is doing an archive binge when I see many individual pages in the hits, but each one has only 1 or 2 views

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I just recently figured out how to look at my website analytics

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

How is the best way to look at your site analytics? I usually see viewer and subs on the main Webtoon or Tapas. I've been considering getting a personal site

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

My site hosting has a page for it in the control panel

varethane

I put google analytics on my personal site, so I can see that data

I dont check it much though lol

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

With Wordpress/Jetpack, it looks like the "top viewed posts" list only displays the top 500 -- so yeah, if someone does a whole archive binge, they'd hit hundreds of pages more than can fit in the pageview stats.

Erin Ptah (BICP | Leif & Thorn)

I did just check and see that a lot of pages from the Volume 1 storylines got 5-7 views apiece in the past week! Hopefully some of those are new readers who'll stick around through the rest of it

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I'm trying to find a method of scripting and I found one that works for me atm. I'm drawing scenes and writing outline as I draw. So that they match in sync with each other. My brain tend to go in different directions if I focus only on writing. I hope I can finally aline my mind story with my art scripting.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

1 note · View note