Final stretch of the first arc

Well, who do I think I am? Staggering back in here, like I’ve never been gone?
Sorry for the long absence, but I’ve had a few roadblocks since chapter nine of Raiden Legacy.
Artist block hit me pretty hard, wanting to get the next chapter finished early so I could ensure a consistent schedule for once, I’m working on buying an apartment,
also I caught COVID.
It knocked me off my feet pretty hard. I thought I could use my recovery days to get some work done, but it’s pretty hard to draw with a fever.
That said, I appreciate the irony that my last chapter left off with a character bed ridden with feverish symptoms, while I myself was stuck in bed and sweating out a virus.
I honestly didn’t plan it to go that way.
The Universe is just kinda sick like that.

So in the spirit of transparency, I’ve been re-evaluating my work structure and how I plan to do everything I want to do; from marketing myself to making sure I don’t burn out on the same project for two years going on twenty.
Here’s the plan!
Chapter ten is out today on all platforms where I post, with tapas going for a staggered pattern, which I was advised to do to help make my work more visible. Chapter eleven and twelve are on track for the first of April and May respectively which will round off the first story arc, and ending on Raiden Legacy’s Birthday no less.
I’m looking to finish both this month or a little bit into the next, which will wrap up Volume four.

Once those are done and dusted I’ll finally finish publishing Volume three. I know it’s been a while since I put out the second one, but I’ve been having a lot of problems publishing the third due to Amazon’s restrictions regarding the page margins, it’s a whole thing that I distanced myself from before I went insane.
Can’t give a concrete date yet, but once the comic itself is wrapped I’ll be trowing myself at the problem until it’s fixed. So Volume three and four will be published around the same time, and after that I’ll be rolling into e-books of the first four volumes.
I’m still new to self-publishing so I’m still learning as I go but hopefully this will smooth out and make publishing future volumes much easier.

Once chapter twelve is wrapped I’ll be taking a step back to finish writing the series script, right up to the ending. Yeah, I’ve planned all this so don’t worry about a Game of Thrones finale where I just kinda wing it to make everything fit. I have been planning this out for years and working on getting everything just right, it’s just the in-between scenes, panel structure and the specifics of the dialogue I need to iron out..
Then I’ll be doing some other stuff I wanted to do for a while, and finally getting back to drawing the next story arc after that.
Basically I’m structuring my work load into chunks to help keep me motivated and focused.
So that’s about everything.
Chapter ten out today at 4PM in whatever time zone works with which platform, mercs will be bi-daily across all posted sites (except Tapas where the previous strips will be posted daily until caught up) and this will continue until the end of May when the first four volumes and the opening story arc will finally be wrapped.
Sorry it’s taken a year long than I wanted, but I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer.

Take care now, bye bye then.

Book trouble, Raiden Legacy face lift and how self isolation is helping me out.

A few months ago I printed test copies of my first book, but there were a lot of issues with the margins.
Since then I’ve been struggling to get round to fixing them so I have a physical copy to sell.

Now that choice has been made for me, but it’s been harder than I thought.
A lot of it comes down to how I drew my pages, confined to a box.
It’s great for webcomics; defined borders, look nice and organized, but for a printed version it’s a lot different.
I’d need to redo a lot of the artwork from scratch, covering over 300 pages of work.
Basically I made life way harder for myself than I needed to.

I’m doing some test prints now to make sure that I get my calculations right; I printed a small book with pages touching different margins and lengths to see where the cut off is for my borders, so when that comes back I can finally move onto the final draft (fingers crossed).

In the meanwhile, I’m stuck at home after my family showed signs of the Coronavirus. I’m fine for now, but it’s got me a couple of days off work, so I’m pretty much forced to work on Raiden. Or get the achievements in the latest Overwatch event. Bit of both really. So that’s on track for release sooner than later.
If you’re stuck inside too, maybe I can help keep you entertained while we wait for the all-clear.

And finally, Raiden Legacy is going through changes going into chapter 7.
The minor change is that I’ll be changing the distance of text from the border, which is minor in the long run.
More major is that I’ll be adding shadow to the artwork, rather than using line shading. I found a way that won’t take forever to do and might be faster and cleaner than the old way.

I always told myself that chapter 1 would look the worst, not because I didn’t try, but because I want to constantly improve.

New Site, New Me

I don’t use this update blog much, which I need to get into the habit of.
So if you’re returning, you’ll notice changes to the site; compiling old reviews and videos, while preparing for new ones.

To cut a long story short, I’ve been in a creative slump. I couldn’t bring myself to draw anything and just kinda drifted. I gave myself a break at first but found it hard to get back into the grove.

Recently my creative juices have been flowing, from scripts to concept art to the new site layout. I have a lot of ideas and with the current Coronavirus situation, I have plenty of excuses to stay inside and make something.

Truth be told, it’s the first time in a while that I’ve felt genuinely happy.

Like, content.

It’s refreshing. 2019 has been like a year-long therapy session after I burnt myself out way back around 2014, and for the first time in forever, I feel like myself again.

Nobody has been asking me if I’m back.

But yeah, I’m thinking I’m back.

Chapter 3 delay

So, no chapter this month; I couldn't meet the deadline.

I'm sorry for failing, but I'd rather hold off than release something half assed.

It's all ass or nothing with me!

(Don't take that out of context)

This chapter is definitely a change in tone from last time, and was a lot of fun to draw. I also started experimenting with screen tones and took away the hair lines in the final version; I couldn't decide if they made my characters look more detailed, or like crap, and I ultimately settled on crap.

I'll be uploading Raiden Mercs again to bridge the gap,

but the positive is that I thought I would have to skip next months release to catch up, but now I only skip this month!

The moral of the story is,

meet your deadlines!

First time in forever

Wow! The last update was in 2016?
Well, I wish I had a proper excuse, but it’s down to poor time management and pushing myself too hard.
So my work has fallen behind as usual, and as a result chapter 4 of Raiden Legacy will be delayed by a month. It will be ready for Patreon, then on the site the month after. The Mercs strips I’ve been doing will fill in the time between those releases.
I won’t be making a habit of this; I just need the breathing room or I’ll just be playing catch up and the work will suffer as a result. I’d rather take a while like Nintendo and release it when it’s done, than pushing it out like EA and fixing it later.
I’ve also taken the time to update the site layout and graphics; I want to hopefully land a better day job off the back of this other work, and having a presentable site feels like a step in the right direction.

The reviews will be starting up again as well, and will be posted on the site and Facebook too.
I have a backlog to get through of old videos, which I’ll be filtering in daily unless I’m covering something new, or a prequel to something new, like the Toy Story movies.
Starting with a video on Amazing Spider-Man 2, which I’ve needed to get out there for a while, just to have some closure with the movie and my feelings on it.

So to quickly summerise; new site layout, Raiden is taking a month off after Chapter 3, reviews are starting up.
Better get to it!
Thanks for reading.

Christmas plans!

I've been posting videos about it not being Christmas yet, but it's here!

December is such a cold month; the year coming to an end, the nights are long, so it helps to brighten the world both physically and figuratively.

And I'm sending this year out with a bang!

Raiden Legacy is on track, with chapters 8 and 9 coming out on time with any luck, though by supporting me on Patreon you can get the next chapter early.

I'll be making a Christmas special for the 19th however, so chapter 10 will only be viewable to Patrons until January 2nd since I'll be taking the last week of December off for the Holiday.

My current goal is to have Volume 01 out by the end of the year, complete with a Volume Exclusive chapter.

Thanks to Doug Walker's #disneycember (http://channelawesome.com/tag/disneycember,dreamworks-uary/page/16/), I'm putting Disney films into my list of things to watch this month.

Along with that, I want to resurrect the Disney Assassins (Disney Princess' in the style of Assassins Creed) thing I did last year, but with a more action orientated style, since the old ones were more static to show the overall design.

It's something I've had on the docket for ages, but I've finally got inspiration to focus on them.

I have some other Christmas related things in the works,

so this month will be fun.

This Year has sucked, so let's send it out with a bang!

Other projects - November 21st Update

Another week with no Raiden Legacy, but for a good reason.

For a while I've been trying to launch a Patreon; the lowest reward being receiving chapters a week early.
In launching the series before both chapters are ready, I've been playing catch up since September.
To solve this I'm skipping a week, with Chapter 07 coming out as a Patreon exclusive until Chapter 08 is ready, which should be next week (fingers crossed).

Once I've squared that away I can get back to the other projects I've had planned.

The first is How 2 Fail; the lets Play series I made with Mike "Amish" Clarke last year.
Unfortunately with Amish's insane work schedule I'm the only one working on this for the time being. And mainly getting Raiden Legacy up to speed is what's keeping that from coming out.
The series will be daily 10 minute episodes, with a different game each day.
The older stuff will stay on Battle Misfit for now, but will be linked to on the new channel, though we're looking into migrating everything over at some point.
The exceptions being Evo, Metal Gear Solid and the Time Machine I found at a Yard sale, since these are all on going.
 I also want to have weekly highlight videos on Battle Misfit, while a monthly highlight video will go up on my channel, Raichious Muffin.

Playing Devils Advocate is going to be a while, until around after February.
The original plan was to work on episodes along with Raiden Legacy, but that's not really feasible.
So I'm going for a new production model, where I'll be using my week long holidays from work to focus on a project like PDA.
After that it'll be all about waiting for the copyright claims to be taken care off, which will take about a month each, then schedule everything to come out periodically.
What was left of Season 1 will be rolled into Season 2; with any luck I can record a new first episode and last episode of the season with Chris over Christmas, since he isn't available outside of school holidays.
Also the new animation cells have taken a new turn; the setting will be changed and the aesthetics of the show will reflect these new surroundings.
When I start working on them properly I'll post stuff on the Facebook page; it's going to be fun if nothing else!

Finally Metal Gear D-Bridged; it started as a one off for the Team 4 Star contest, but it was fun enough that I want to do the entire series.
Pre-Production work has started on Metal Gear 2 D-Bridged, based on the second game for the MSX2.
This will have a longer production cycle, with more episodes coming out periodically.
Ideally I'll work on the main stuff during one of my free weeks, then release them as they come available, though if all goes well I can have everything done at once.
We'll see where that goes, but if you liked the first one it's officially on my to-do list.

Right now my life seems to be moving in a new direction; I'm hopefully moving house before the end of the year, and maybe a new job! This one will be full time potentially, but I'm looking into a new sleep cycle that will help me have more time to work.
Either way It most likely won't disrumpt my Raiden schedual too much.

Lot to talk about, and a lot in the works.
Stay tuned for the Patreon launch, and Raiden Legacy Chapter 07 will be out November 28th (hopefully).

November 6th Update

It’s been a while since the last update, but here I am!
So much has happened over the last year, and I finally get a chance to type about it.
I’ve started a few, but then something else came up and I wanted to add to this.

But anyway;
Raiden Legacy has started!
This has been a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG time coming; if you’ve been following my pages I’ve talked about it forever, but I’ve been working on this since I was 11 on and off. Never thought I would actually be looking into publishing the thing.
A huge thanks to everyone who read the first few chapters, and especially to the people who shared them on social media.
The plan right now is to have chapter 1 to 6 be volume 1, with another bonus chapter included that won’t be online, as well as some extra stuff like mini strips and behind the scenes.
I want to have this out on kindle by the end of the year, and I’m on track to do that. I’ll be looking into a Kickstarter for a paperback version; most likely a few months into 2017, most likely February, after everyone gets a little less broke after Christmas.

I’ve been quiet recently because I’ve been trying to catch up to my own comic, so I’m one chapter ahead for the Patreon.
The lowest pledge of £1 a month will get supporters the next chapter early, with the patreon chapters always being 1 chapter ahead, even if I miss a week.
Doubt anyone will support it, but the same with the merch I make, it’s better to have that stuff out there on the off chance that someone takes an interest, otherwise what is the point where you can say, “OK, now I’ll make it, because I’m now popular enough.”

Now that I’ve caught up I’ll be releasing new things as I can.
I want to have Neuro Crash back before the end of the American election (for reasons), and hopefully How 2 Fail will be back this week on Wednesday. I’ll post more about them when they are actually out.
I wanted to focus on Raiden Legacy for now, to keep myself focused on one thing at a time.

That’s about everything.
I’ll be trying to get some ideas that I’ve been cooking up for a while on Youtube, the chief being Metal Gear D-Bridged 2; I’ve begun the writing process, but it’ll be some time before it comes together. This one will be under no time constraints too, so I’ll be taking longer to make it and produce new animations for the codec conversations.

That’s everything!
It’s good to be back and I better get back to it.
But needless to say, once the kindle version hits, I’ll be locked into Raiden for about 9 years.
No more restarts.

VIDEO UPDATE - WHERE THE RAIDEN AT YO?

GODAMN IT ME!

Well, this year is off to a rotton start.
Raiden Legacy Chapter 33 isn't ready for release on time; it's nearly done, but I'm unable to get it finished in a timely manner given my other commitments.
The curse of a part timer I suppose.

Well I don't want to go without anything, so I'll have a video sketch ready tomorrow as penance.
With Playing Devils Advocate released bi-weekly due to Youtube's spectacular content ID policy towards reviews,
the least I can do is have an alternative up.
They won't be big things, more the video equivalent of the comic strips (though hopefully better drawn).

As for chapter 33, it'll be out next week, along with chapter 34.
This is a defeat for me; a humiliating one at that at the hands of my own incompetence.
And I sure as hell won't be taking it lying down.
I have a lot to do over the next week, so best get to it.

WHO WOKE ME UP?

Wow, it's been a while huh?

Mainly because I've been locked out of my site and so I couldn't write comics for it.
It's sorted now though.

Unfortunately I'm about to go dark again; I'm starting production on a full length Raiden Legacy story called Raiden Legacy Bloodlust, which will be the first monitised comic that I'll produce.
The story takes place between chapter 13 and 14, and follows the cast as they deal with an ancient dragon clan obsessed with feeding their bloodlust. They also contend with Drian Vernai; a dragon with ties to the leader of the dragon clan and has his own issues with bloodlust.
The story behind this comic actually goes all the way back to when I was in high school; my friend Alex and I were involved in a role playing story during IT class, which included his character Drian and my character Keanu (who was called Gytoa at the time). We've talked about doing a follow up in the past, and I asked for his permission to use his characters in a story.
I want to do a few of these payed comics in the future, with side stories that exist as standalone adventures between seasons. It's a download file that would cost around £2, so it won't exactly break the bank, but I always felt that if I was to sell something, it should be something worth selling, which is why I won't sell the individual 20 page chapters individually; they would need to be bundled with something else like a bonus story.

But anyway, I'm also working on other stuff.
Check out battlemisfit.com for my reviews for games, as well as a few Lets Plays.
My own lets play series How 2 Fail should be released soon, once the intro is finished.
And now the comic strips are back on Fridays, so there's that too.
Playing Devils Advocate and Raiden Legacy will both come out in February, so I'll be working on those behind the scenes.

Also I noticed that there is a motion comic option on the deviant art submission menu now, so I'll be working to get Raiden Legacy here on Deviant Art before season 2 begins.

Lot of stuff to do, best get back too it.

SLOWING IT DOWN

Well, I'm back and raring to go!
Still a little Jet Lagged, but what are you going to do?

What I'm going to do is finally finish Playing Devils Advocate, which you may remember I started back in February, and then led to issues with Youtube which we don't need to get into again.
Well it's set for a September release.
Both that and a new Lets Play channel, but we'll see what comes of that plan.

After the pain in the ass that February turned into, I'm staying sceptical of my future plans.

SEASON 1 SUMMERY

Well, it’s done.

Over a year and a half worth of work and it’s done.
The first season anyway.

This is only the beginning, and I plan to be writing Raiden Legacy for many years to come.
It’ll end eventually; in fact the end has already been planned, but it’s the beginning of a long road.

Hell a lot has happened during this first season; I started a new job and have become adjusted to life after education.
Next step is a better job, or maybe make money doing this?  Or I’ll stay in IKEA for the rest of my life and do this on the side.
Who knows, but I’ll at least try to make 2015 the best year of my life.

There’s no chapter of Raiden Legacy this week, since I’ll be going away for about 2 weeks and this chapter seemed like a good place to stop.
The next chapter ends in the middle of a battle, and it seemed like an odd place to have a break.
I had intended to have all the remaining chapters ready and to release them all at once, however my computer shutting down every 5 seconds and the limited time I have left means that I won’t be able to finish them in time.
It’s not worth degrading the quality, not to mention abusing myself in order to finish this all before I go away.
So it’s time for another break for a few weeks, with the next chapter coming on either the 4th or the 11th, depending on when I can get my laptop back.
However all the line work is finished, so it’s only the editing to finish when I get back.
I wanted to go away clear of this project, so I could come back and go straight into Playing Devils Advocate, but hey, shit happens.

So, thanks for the few people that read my stuff, and thanks to the people who didn’t but supported me non-the-less.
And a huge thanks to Tim Quinn, who told a nervous 20 something that his art was good and to never give up (seriously, a guy who worked on Spiderman liked my stuff! How crazy is that?).

If you have any criticisms of the season 1 chapters, it’s never too late to tell me.
Does a storyline not make sense?
Or is a characters jacket the wrong colour?
Please, don’t hesitate to tell me.
Some of my best improvements have come from critics

I BELIVE THE PHRASE RHYMES WITH CLUCKING BELL..

I'm currently speed typing this, as my laptop has decided to up and quit on me.

It' keeps restarting and turning off randomly, I don't have much time.

I don't even know if it's charging, but I will try and finish chapter 26 of Raiden Legacy regardless.
The last chapter ended in the middle of a fight for Natsumi's life, and it would suck to leave it for about a month as it is.

I will do what I can however to finish everything that I can before I leave for Canada, and short of killing me there's no way I'll stop doing the line work.
So this is just one more hurdle I have to get over.

Check out raichiousmuffin.com for the other chapters, and I'll see what I can do to overcome this latest dealing of bullshit.

CAN'T I GET A BREAK?

Just when it seems like everything is going well, something else hits me in the gut.

This time it's the pen I use, which I'm still waiting for the order for over a week now.
The plan was to write up every comic before I went away at the end of July.
However without the pens I can only do the pencil work, which is good in that I can keep working, but I can't release anything new.

So that's the reason I haven't released anything recently, but I'm still staying productive in spite of this.
Staying positive too!
Actual things are coming, once Hobbycraft gets it shit together.

Everything seems to be constantly late recently, and I apologise for that.

Everything is put to the side over the next two months while I finish the first part of Raiden Legacy, and after that I can start thinking about other things.
The comic strips will be up as usual, if only to give me a break.

Back to things.
leh.

GETTING BACK ON TRACK

Firstly, if you're going to change the format of your comic strips, try not to forget and do half of your work in the old format.
Next week's is like this too, or it might be the week after; I'm going away on the 23rd so I'm preparing to have things ready for when I'm gone.
I may not have internet when I'm away, but I'll sort something out.

Not much else to say, except for the fact that I'm finally getting my happy back.
Raiden Legacy is coming along nicely; gearing up for the final few chapters of this season, before I can finally take a break and do something else
It's been a blast to work on, but I do feel like I need some time to do other thing, since it's pretty much dominated my life for over a year now.

PLEASE EXCUSE THE CRUDITY OF THIS UPDATE...

It seems that no matter how much better things get, something else goes wrong.
But for the first time in a while, I don't mind.

This time it's my graphics tablet; I need a new pen and I'm still waiting for it to come.
As a result I can't edit either Raiden Legacy or Neuro Crash, but I can still do line work.

That aside, I'm in the best mood that I've been in long time!
Don't know if it's the sun, or my reorganisation of my work load, but I'm feeling good!
Damn good!

Also the cherry blossom tree outside my window bloomed these past few weeks!
It's like pink snow! I love it!

PERSONALLY PERSONAL

Despite my last post seeming to be my big declaration of my grand return, I've been fairly inactive recently.

I reason being that I've been in something of a dark place recently.

I thought that I could loose myself in work, but it only made it worse.

It was only by talking things through, and taking stock of my goals that I've been able to come through the other side.

I couldn't afford to loose myself in alcohol, or other self destructive pass times.
I felt like I had to come through on my own will, and with the help of the people close to me.

No one has ever given me anything but praise for my work, and any criticism has only helped me grow and have actually been helpful.
All my hang ups on my work came from my own low-self esteem, and I had to finally tell myself to shut up and accept what I'd done.

Sorry if I'm being vague, but this is about as close to being open with a laptop as I'm willing to get.

Why type this?

Because everybody goes though hard times.
Nothing is given easy.
Sometimes you won't even have people who believe in you.
So you have to believe in the you that believes in yourself.

Cheesy and over done, yeah. But it helped me.

And for the record,
I'm the one who believes in you, even when I don't believe in myself.

Which I do now!
So let's finish Raiden Legacy part 1!

16 more to go.

OF MICE AND MEN

This has been the week of set backs.

Firstly the second episode of my new review series Playing Devil's Advocate was delayed due to an issue with Premiere, leading to me having to reinstall whole thing and I spent the better part of 2 days exporting both this and 2 lets plays.

And now I've finally conceded to my niggling doubt and decided to redo the last few pages of Raiden Legacy chapter 20. To be honest it didn't feel like it made much sense and could have been summed up much more efficiently.
It'll only be a day late as a result, but I'll have a video in Hitman Blood money up to tide you over!
It's started as something silly, but I might go through the entire game's missions for funsies. Who knows.
Whatever.
Here's hoping next week is less annoying!