Archive for February, 2014»
Rarity Generosity
Rarity Generosity by the-gneech on deviantART
Rarity says her credo. ;)
I stumbled across this quote the other day and of course it made me instantly think of the lovely fashionista pony, so I had to draw this.
Whenever I draw ponies, there’s a constant struggle between “But it doesn’t look like the show!” and “If I was just gonna ape the show, why not just take screenshots?” I think I struck a pretty good balance between my style and the show style here.
Ah Rares, such a lovely pony. :)
-The Gneech
SJ Auction Cameo, Update!
All of the payments and character info have been received for the Stan Sakai support auction, and I’ll be sending those funds by the end of this week (except in the case of those folks who donated directly already). Thanks again, everyone!
The cameo page will appear on the web in May; the signed issues will be mailed off to everyone as soon as I have my grubby paws on ’em, hopefully sometime in early April.
Suburban Jungle fans rule. Just sayin’.
-The Gneech
#GneCoDraMo Status Report
Well somehow we’re well into February already, not sure how that happened, so that means that January must be finished and, in theory, Gneech Comics Drawing Month (GneCoDraMo) with it.
The comic has been created; the characters are starting to gel, and I like where things are going. Sometime today or tomorrow I will probably finish pencilling Issue #1. However, if I am to get it to print in time for FurTheMore, I need to ink, color, and shade 11 pages between now and February 14. It’s not impossible– but at this stage it is very unlikely.
For the last few weeks, that had me incredibly stressed. Somewhere along the way I sorta forgot what my real goals were and started fixating on the due date, working long hours, neglecting other things that also needed attention, and generally making myself crazy to meet an arbitrary standard I had created.
Yesterday, I realized I was being an idiot, and decided to take a breath and reassess where things stood. Here’s what I figured out:
- As an experiment in learning what my limits are, #GneCoDraMo has been a complete success. My long-term production goal, of 8 pages/month with breathing room to do other things around them, appears to be quite feasible. Any more than that, over the long term, is not. I now know what my “mental bandwidth budget” for creating comics really is.
- As a crash course in writing, pacing, and developing a comic, #GneCoDraMo has again been a complete success. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on what a single page can reasonably hold, as well as for the ebb and flow of what a comic’s pacing should be like. You can’t have every page crammed full of stuff, it would become exhausting to the reader– but you have to have at least a certain amount of things happening or it feels like you’re not going anywhere. A single comic page probably carries about as much story progression as two individual comic strips, and if possible (for this project, anyway) should have at least two jokes.
- As an exercise in progressing my art technique and learning to use Manga Studio: complete success. I love, love, loooooooooooove Manga Studio. Where was it in 1998???
So, yeah– on all of the actual goals of #GneCoDraMo, it was an unqualified success. The bonus item (i.e., having a new comic in time for FurTheMore) is still to be determined, and I would still like to get there, but I’m not going to kill myself and burn myself out on the new comic before it’s even launched to get there. I have a fallback in place already– essentially the first 8 pages as an “Issue 0” promotional comic– and even if the full issue doesn’t get to print in time, the Issue 0 will be at FurTheMore and the comic will be launched in March.
Life’s good. :)
-The Gneech
Roxie Development Sketches
Roxie Development Sketches by the-gneech on deviantART
Rapidly becoming one of my favorite characters of the new comic, we have Roxie Fox! I normally hate doing development as part of the production images, but I had a fairly good idea of where I wanted to go with her, and I am getting really crunched against the deadline, so I had to develop on-the-fly this time.
-The Gneech
Redliox Groundhog Day Commission
Redliox Groundhog Day Commission by the-gneech on deviantART
Commission for RedLiox, featuring his pal BlueEyedWolf paying an unexpected visit to the Watering Hole-In-the-Wall.
If he’d managed to get his muzzle another inch in through the wall, I suspect Ramses would have broken it!
-The Gneech
Bidding is closed! Thank you very much to everyone who participated! You are all made of awesome! :)
The final results:
- KarmaKat ($200)
- LionKingCMSL ($150)
- Kiara ($125)
- ANON–“Rocker” ($100)
- Kitana ($100)
- MaxFuchsCajote ($100)
- Kyyanno ($100)
- Dewhitton ($100)
- Exatron ($75)
- ANON–“Flower Pony” ($75)
Total: $1,125 Awwww, yeah!
I will contact you all privately to get details of your character. You may make your payment via Paypal; I also accept credit cards via Square if you’d like to e-mail me (thegneech@gmail.com) and we’ll take care of the transaction that way. I will need your mailing address to send you your signed issue! Please make your payment and send me your character info by February 7th at the latest or your cameo will not make it into the comic.
If you’d prefer to donate to the Stan Sakai fundraiser directly, you can do that here. Please forward me a copy of your payment acknowledgement so I can note it in my records.
Those who did not get in are under no obligation, but if you would like to contribute to helping Stan, you’re more than welcome to go ahead and send your bid anyway! Everyone bid at least $20, so you’re all eligible to get a signed #1.
THANK YOU! :)
-The Gneech
DISCLOSURE: I will deduct the cost of printing/shipping the comic and withhold a bit for taxes from your donation before I forward it on. The amount deducted will be no greater than $10 per donation, and less if I can swing it.