dupe

idletry: end of april update

i definitely did NOT finish the script by the end of april, lol. the problem that's been plaguing me for years is that the part of my brain that usually writes (and has ideas for the most part) will just disappear for sometimes months at a time, broken up by bursts of activity that generally last ~2-3 weeks. it's what the FaD strip "stay" was about! some people (like many a psychiatrist) may vi...

catharsis, page 28

originally the karen was supposed to disintegrate, but the chat was not a fan of the concept when i pitched it like a month in advance to test the waters about less realistic slapstick gags.

i think i'm gonna keep running with it for catharsis, though -- even fresh meat had some unrealistic funny moments which were admittedly much subtler (like kim stretching out way longer than she shoul...

catharsis, page 27

[pinching my brow] this could have been one page. if they weren't so small this karen would have only taken 1 page... these comic sizes are rough sometimes. the shortstack kind of page is great for print, and that's fine because the pages are right there, just a flip away. it only takes seconds to read them. but on the web... it's just different. even if you read it after it's all finished, the...

FaD strip: heart-to-art, part 2 (+ full comic)

i'm tired, so i can't write up a huge commentary for the second part. this took forever, but it was a breath of fresh air to return to drake and xyr One Wish after working with the protagonist of idletry, who is like, the polar fucking opposite of xem.

a couple little factoids...
1) when pinning drake, dupe mentions that they knew xe would be averse to this prying, because if the emoti...

print comics and workflow

hi. context: i thought of a new comic from combining two old ideas i'd been kicking around in my head for a while called idletry last week. since bringing it up again and combining the ideas, work on the script has really poured out of me like liquid from a pitcher. i've stayed up until 5 or 6 am typing more ideas about this story on my phone for at least half of the days out of this week.
...

catharsis, page 26

oh man. somebody remind me to put a moving background character in there at some point... sorry, i can't really do substantial commentary this time. i haven't gotten a good amount of sleep in 2 days and my head is so, so empty right now... ;_;

will finish the DYSTAI page tomorrow, hopefully.

catharsis, page 25

this page was ROUGH. have some scrapped sketches:

lots of awkward shots, i think. the next page will get to where it's obvious why the scene is even in the story.
...

time lapse: folie a dupe "stay"

so, i tooled around with making "speedpaints" of some VODs. it's kind of a pain, but fairly mindless. mostly, it's waiting for things to download and upload and process.

the biggest PitA about figuring this out was actually the beat over the video. there's no simple way to tell a program to loop something over and over for x minutes.
all of it was significantly more annoying because th...

FaD strip: stay

i really, really wanted to draw this and pushed it out on my day off (some of it the two days beforehand). the smear effects seemed like they would be really fun to draw, and the section where the lineart just drags across the screen behind dupe is the primary motivator for drawing the comic.
i think maybe the sentiment that you can't always take control of your life, even if you try really ...

next 3 months of comics schedule

hi again. aaaaalmost forgot to make this poll.
i can either keep updating catharsis once per week and do you still think about it once per week, or i can move to trying to update catharsis twice a week again.
poll with dictate the workflow through june.

catharsis, page 24

initially, the last 2 panels weren't in this page. this scene's transitional dialogue is a little weird.
i asked the stream for their opinion on comedy which clearly defied the laws of physics or comedy that's unrealistic, and they didn't like it very much, so i had to alter the script, which features one of the fryers having a nuclear meltdown in this scene.
it is a necessary scene to mo...

catharsis, page 23

well! the good thing about running out of my buffer is that i can actually remember the commentary i had about pages.

you can see this entire scene will be a nightmare because of the level of detail required in practically every shot... here are the background characters:

from the script:

2023-03-22 04:24:20 +0000 UTC View Post

music: music box 1, cheater's box

made this a while ago. a lot of this came out really awkward - all of the parts sound completely fine on their own, but they just don't harmonize well. it looked like it would based on the shape of the tracks and their relationships, but i couldn't quantize them lest they create this ear-piercing chord by striking 3 notes at once.

started out as an experiment to mess with a youtuber's "c...

FaD strip: self-expression

here's the thing i worked on yesterday instead of what i was supposed to because it was my birthday!
i've been reading a lot of old folie a dupe strips while contemplating heart-to-art's content and this felt like a lighthearted one i could draw in just a day. even then i thought it would be half the length it is, lmao. on top of it i scrapped dupe's first reaction to "get angy" which was th...

music: "crystals and pianos"

hi. as i've been working on learning new skills for this project, i've started learning cursory knowledge about music - things like "what a pad is" or "how to use a DAW." i'll be up-front and say i also had a separate introduction to how to play music with my dad, who plays the guitar. he found the guitar intuitive and couldn't explain things, so i gave up on it pretty early in; now that my han...

catharsis, page 22

sorry for the late upload today -- last night i had a stomachache which for reasons beyond my comprehension evolved into a magnitude 8 headache, which i couldn't really get to subside until like 1 AM, so i ended up not typing out the commentary. my body is making sure my entry into the age of 29 sucks as much as possible, i guess.

so, it was really important in this scene to me for inner ...

FaD strip: heart-to-art [part 1/2]

this folie a dupe strip is a bit less conventional than usual.
on some level, i wish that i'd not done the effects to the edges of the panels; the comic would have been completely finished by now if not for them. every panel is brushed around the edges by hand with multiple digital brushes in clip studio paint. i'll post the entire comic without the border effect in the second part.

th...

catharsis, page 21

page 23 has been taking centuries because it is VERY detailed, and i've also been distracted by an intense desire to work on a folie a dupe strip (currently all the way drawn, needs special coloring effect) and a video game (not even close to finished, has 2 animations sketched, and am working out the issues with a wall climbing system) plus real life... whew.
but this isn't page 23.

m...

catharsis, page 20

once again, i can't type much since some nerve in my shoulder is flipping out... i have a doctor's appointment to get a physical therapy referral and xray referral again on the 3rd, but for now... -_-;

it's time for some comic relief. in this. comic. saga didn't get a huge appearance, but i wanted the latter half of this scene to have only felix present internally, because it affects thei...

catharsis, page 19

EDIT: as suggested, swapped the palettes, so the alt palette is now the "official" palette :)

okay so, i've been dealing with a lot of health issues with my dog, so the commentary on this page isn't going to be impeccable. today was the day where i finally could not keep it together and started crying inside the vet clinic so i think it might be impossible to not be at least a little pre...

catharsis, page 18

okay, cool, all the little building blocks are set up - there's still some stuff, but i think the end of this scene provides the most basic foundation of the story. we've introduced the core characters, we've introduced some themes, we've introduced the subject of the conflict, we've set up some oddities to elicit intrigue, we've thrown down some color motifs. a lot of priming for the audience ...

catharsis, page 17

here we go - some important stuff about charlotte and a big ol' lie from felix to impress her. the cracks in the Smile Panel were a little challenging to do, but the folie a dupe strip i drew a while ago prepped me for it.

unfortunately, i think this is another page where i just don't have much to say because the comic is obviously setting up, and what the page does offer is very apparent...

catharsis, page 16

finally!!!!!! we finally get something substantial about charlotte that isn't a sounding board for felix!!! we did it girls!!!

we have another eyes-only glance from her here, this time a once-over. it was really hard to think of how i should execute that, and i feel like it didn't come out well. a shot with just her eyes, or at least something showing less of her body, would help the corr...

catharsis, page 15

i really struggled with that last panel, particularly because the page was thumbnailed, and pushing the eyes and mouth wasn't as easy on a larger scale, with eye whites surrounding the pupils...

...............................

probably...

catharsis, page 14

i think this is the page where i definitively started using thumbnails pretty consistently - they seemed like a good way to remove some of the mental burden while sketching. unfortunately, i don't know if that was entirely true, since i end up liking the expressions of many thumbnails more than the actual expressions.
the structure of the faces is fundamentally different, with the eyes takin...

january 2023

i'm gonna mostly let this comic do the work for me here.
mostly, my art went in a direction i really didn't like in 2022, And in 2024 i'm gonna be turning 30, so i will be having my regularly scheduled identity crisis. maybe i will make some stuff that isn't comics! maybe i will just not fulfill any of my aspirations for another year and it'll all be completely normal! not sure yet. i don't ...

catharsis, page 13

i promise you, the sketch is virtually identical to the lines for this page, lmao. all i have for you is this tiny pair of thumbnails to figure out the perspective i wanted in the last panel.

anyway, like i said, you can see felix glance in the direction that charlotte did on the last page. i think maybe he didn't ...

work schedule until march 2023

hey everybody, i've obviously not been able to keep up with my schedule or drawing for update images, but i'm still around, working on stuff. i mentioned before that the two-updates-per-week schedule was not just for my sake, being able to pull back when i need to, but also so that i could work on side comics and a main comic at the same time if patrons wanted me to.
i haven't forgotten that...

catharsis, page 12

okay. my hand hurts less, but i'd like to still not push it. it doesn't hurt after an hour of drawing, but it can feel very tense after like. four. which is not ideal. just assume the rest of december will be only wednesday updates.

onto this page - first panel. it became much more obvious to me, a wildly "doesn't think about attraction as a thing that exists" aroace person, that it comes...

catharsis, page 11

okay, this week is still getting only one update - my hand still hurts so much that i can only draw for a few hours most days, and my sister's dog just had emergency surgery a few days ago... even though my mom is tasked with watching her for the most part, i have to go down there to feed her and make sure she's had her meds regularly, because i'm the only one who remembers, usually. i want to ...