SLEEP IS OVERRATED

Recently I convinced a couple of friends to act as script checkers (and by convince I mean that they'll get the antidote once I hit 10 chapters), and they raised concerns over the way chapter 03 was heading.

As a result I redid half of the chapter over the weekend.
Hopefully I won't go through that again any time soon.

It's a bit late, but regardless it's online.
However Chapter 04 will have more splash pages to compensate for lost time.
i try to avoid these if I can, but in this case I have to make an exception.

Besides I can quit splash pages whenever I want!​
Stop judging me!

​Anyway, since Alien Colonial Marines can go suck a dick, I've been playing through the Mass Effect trilogy again.
I now remember why I love this serious.

Anyway sleep now, work tomorrow.

TAKING A STEP BACK

I talk a lot about "getting into a rhythm" with my work, which lately I feel is a loosing battle.

I'm getting stressed about getting Raiden Legacy done, and juggling that with my work at IKEA.
As a result I've decided to stop doing comic strips for a while, at least until I've finished the first volume of Raiden Legacy, which will be roughly around 7 chapters, plus some bonus strips (if you're going to sell something that you're essentially giving away for free on the web, you should offer a little something extra).

This should give me time to get used to producing a weekly comic series.
Following that I'll start doing weekly comic strips again if I feel like I can handle the work load. I do want to do a follow up my previous strip, which talked about my hype over Aliens Colonial Marines, after it turned out that the game blew donkeys.

I also want to get into a habit of giving feedback more when viewing other deviant artwork.
After all, how can I expect people to critique my artwork if I'm not willing to do the same?

No Raiden Legacy this week, but defiantly next week.

I'll aim for a weekly release, but won't go more than 2 weeks without a release.

FEELING THE PRESSURE

The past few weeks haven't been kind to me. I've been trying to juggle multiple projects (including a new one I'll talk about in a few weeks once we have a definite schedule,), overtime at work and financial issues (I get paid next week). On top of that I haven't been feeling too well lately.

However chapter 02 is finally online, and I hope to keep the releases weekly. I've been working to get into a schedule with my new circumstances, but I'm starting to find my feet recently.

Not much else to say, but GO SEE DJANGO!

DAZED AND CONFUSED

You may notice a distinct lack of comics this week. Fortunately it has nothing to do with me stoping and starting again; Chapter 02 is well into development and will be ready for next week. Also it gives me time to create a Neuro Crash and Campfire girls in advance for releases on Wednesday and Friday.

I have started a new job, but it hasn't put much of a damper on my productivity (that job has been saved for my procrastination), but that in addition to current personal issues have created a bit of a dissonance in my schedule, so I just need a bit of time to get into a sort of routine and essentially sort out my life.
At least it gives me time to work on the first few chapters of Raiden Legacy and ultimately I aim to release a volume of the comic to make some extra money.

I mean my job at IKEA is alright and the staff is friendly but it's not ultimately what I want to do.

So, here we are again

Raiden Legacy Chapter 01 is now online!

Chapter 02 is into production too, and will be ready for next week, with a weekly release to follow.

A new comic strip is also online, a bit late, but I will have another up on Friday and a new Campfire Girls on Wednesday, for reals this time!

However I do need to preference the comic strip, I'm actually indifferent to Michael Bay. He's directed some fun films, including the first 2 Transformers movies which I actually enjoyed. However he's become sort of this character due to his infamous changes to the Ninja Turtles and his company producing nearly every remake to a horror franchise over the past few years, plus his personal as the explosive happy nut gave me some visual material to work with.
Really I just feel that a joke is funnier when you have a name and face attached, and the joke was more a stab at the current entertainment industry as a whole. Plus with the release of the Devil May Cry Reboot it seemed like an appropriate time to make this joke.

Speaking of Devil May Cry, I have to say despite my initial reservations it might be my 2nd favorite of the series (it's tied with DMC4 and behind DMC3).
Looking at my work on Raiden Legacy you can probably tell that it greatly influenced me, and as a fan of the franchise I was glad to see that it stayed loyal to the franchises trademark gameplay, while also adding new angel and devil abilities, and holding the record for the first game in the franchise to do platforming well. As much as I love the other games (with the exception of 2) it's hard to deny that jumping felt really, REALLY awkward to do. The characters are well developed if a little bland at times, with the exception of Dante who is a great follow up to the original Dante and quickly warmed himself to me. He's kind of like a middle ground between Dante's cool and Nero's more abrasive character. I'm not a huge fan of the music and the emo style to the design, but not so much that it distracts from the experience; more as a preference to the music that I like than anything else. And visually it's awesome! The twisted design of limbo and the way that ink seems to flow out of everything; it's like playing in a piece of graffiti.

But there is a huge thing that I hated about the game; and that's that it's called Devil May Cry.
And I don't mean that it's a poor follow up; far from it. But it's good enougth and has enough original ideas that it could be it's own game! It feels like a game that was forced to be a Devil May Cry game to get off the ground, creating a problem that I felt with the new Total Recall; as good as it was, and no matter how many things they did better than the original, I was constantly reminded that it was standing in another game's shadow.
As a result it was hard to get into the relationship between Dante and Virgil.
SPOILER WARNING!
In the previous games the brothers weren't really developed in the sense that we never saw them as children or before their rivalry began. They were just enemies from the get go. In the remake we see them interact and actually get along, before they discover that their ideological differences would make them enemies. Because of this their fight becomes tragic as a result. They want to be brothers and fight on the same side, but their reasons are completely opposed.
However I felt that Virgil was there because he was in the original series, and their storyline felt tacked on as a result.

Regardless I recommend it to fans of hack and slash games and especially Devil May Cry fans. Give it a chance! You will not be disappointed.
It doesn't feel as hard as the others in the franchise, however I haven't played Son of Sparda mode yet and due to my recent Ninja Gaiden embarkment I feel that the bar is raised somewhat. Though as someone whose played all of the previous titles on Dante Must Die and loves a challenge, I hope that the higher difficulty meets my thirst for punishment.

The biggest thing in my life is that I now have a part time job at IKEA. However it's only 16 hours a week, so I will endeavour to make my comic and animation work a priority.
It's just another step on the ladder to self-employment.

We now return to our regulary schedualed website

I apologise for the lack of updates in the past few months, however I attribute this to a job a that literally sucked up my will to live, as well as my free time.

A lot's changed since then however; for one I'm now employed. It's at my local Ikea, which isn't really a comic artist position, but baby steps people. It's a 16 hour contract too, so I have time to focus on the work I really want to do.

Speaking of which, I'll be uploading new campfire girls and Neuro Crash on Wednesday and Friday respectively.
I mean I've literally had this one comic strip on my desk since December.

I mentioned my insecurities last time I posted on this site, which has cultivated in my re-doing Raiden Legacy Chapter 01 again.
But I have very good reasons for doing so.
People who follow my artistic progress or know me presonally can attest to what a struggle it has been to start Raiden Legacy; my baby project from the age of 11.
The problem is that I'll rush something or I'm not skilled enougth, or shit gets in the way etc.
But as Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth once said, "You need to make 20 of something before you get it right.
Creating Raiden Legacy chapter 1 has been a learning experience, about artisitic, editing or writing mistakes that I can rectify through practice.
The reason I remade it this time was for multiple reasons. Mainly because it was rushed; in fact it had less pages because I cut the chapter short.
This draft introduces the main characters and establishes their personalities, whereas characters like Alex and Izumi were largely left out of the previous version. Now I feel like everyone gets some time to establish themselves and their powers are also touched upon; I've established what Denku Bure-do is, as a technique to enhance a fighters abilities by covering their weapon in their own energy and transforming it, which will be the what defines each warrior as the true form of their weapon. In addition we see that each character has specific abilities which are explained a bit better; Alex has more variety of techniques, Keanu's bulletfist style is introduced in it's different forms and the Yukihana sister's conflicting styles are touched upon. I also got to do some work on combo techniques, like Izumi and Natsumi use of freezing water to create water blasts capable of freezing a target, which neither could do alone otherwise.
I also got to add a proper cliffhanger; one which harks back to the flash back in the first few pages and introduces a key character that I want to have a greater role in the shadows.
Also I get to draw Lok's face; last time he was wearing a mask, but I felt that this way was better; it lets us see his character more during his initial appearance and allows me to explore the relationship between him and Keanu (not in THAT way, but how both warriors see each other and react to one another's personality quirks).
I also like it more style wise; there's more comedic moments, particularly ones that allow me to explore what drew me to the Manga style; it's versatility.
Batman can't do what Bugs Bunny can, but Goku can, if you get me. You can have a serious series but allow cracks of abnormality to get through. Kind of like the physics of the world in Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Space Jam.
I had fun writing it and hopefully you'll have fun reading it.

Right now the physical pages are finished, though I still have to finish editing it. As a result it WILL be out next Monday. It's necessary to get this thing right so I don't end up regretting it.
On top of this it gives me a chance to work on Chapter 02 in time for next week, putting me one chapter ahead production wise in case anything happens that menas I miss a release I have a back up.

I would give my thoughts on Hitman Absolution but I've taken up enough of your time, so he's a quick review; it's balances the combat and stealth elements in way that've wanted from the series for awhile, even if the more story based structure does take away some of the large maps from previous games in favor of more localised hits. But there is still a lot of options open to you, and the story is actually fairly engaging with interesting characters, even if it does descend to the tired old "emotionless killer redeemed by little girl scenario."
The contracts mode and challenges give it a lot of replayability and as a fan of the series I enjoyed it.

Anyway, hope you had a Merry Christmas and check back Wednesday and Friday for Campfire Girls and Neuro Crash respectively.

Or don't.

Insecurities

I seem to be getting to that time in the Raiden Legacy development cycle where I wonder if I should start again.

Obviously the argument against this is that I should wait and see how I improve; series always look a lot better as they go on (have you seen the early Penny Arcade? They've come a hell of a long way) but the fact remains that I want to sell this series so I can do it full time. The fact remains that I'm not convinced that it's at a professional standard.
No bodies said that it's bad, but I haven't heard all that much that it's good either. It's difficult to tell if I'm leaving an impact.

I'll ask around my friends to see if I can get a better reading on what people think before I act rashly, but I don't want to continue with something that people are going to pass over.

Please, tell me what you think.

Sleepy...

Weekly chapters are starting to get to me. The quality is dropping and I seem to have literally no free time to do anything else.
As a result I've decided to release Raiden Legacy Bi-weekly instead. As a result the chapters will be of better quality, and I can also work on other projects.

It is not because of Halo, Assassins Creed  and Call of Duty.

Honest

Speaking of other projects, I'll be starting two comic strips; Campfire Girls (written by my sister Lara Hancox) to be released on Wednesdays and Neuro Crash on Fridays.
Both have more of a focus on comedy and will be simple 4 panel comic strips.

And no I'm not ripping off Penny Arcade!

I was a fan of Ctrl+Alt+Delete before I even heard of Penny Arcade.

Finally, a little about Chapter 04. Like I said before I'm starting to get a bit tired, so I'm not too happy with the end result, but it ended up better than chapter 02 at least. Izumi's finally getting to do something; so far she's been little more than  background character, but she's finally stepping onto the battlefield! My plan for her has always to introduce this fairly timid character, pretty much a Moe stereotype, and have her grow into one of the more powerful characters. This time she had surprise on her side, but I plan to push her limits a bit more in chapters to come. I also ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, adding a new dimension to an existing character which I'll go into further next week. Next chapter I'll be going into the reason why the Yukihana sisters are in this situation, as the first act reaches its climax. Essentially these first chapters are establishing the characters and the situation they're in, before I begin the story proper.

Since everyone on the internet is raving about it I may as well put in my two cents; Disney bought Lucas Film and are producing a new Star Wars trilogy. Personally I'm excited to see where it goes; Lucas is stepping down as the head of the franchise and while the prequel trilogy was a disappointment to many fans, lets not forget that he also did the original trilogy, which is cemented in our minds as classic films. I'm glad that the guy got to leave his francise in what he feels is in good hands, as well to end things on his own terms. Pixar and Marval have only seemed to benefit from the Disney partnership, and I with the same of Lucas Film. Hell, the more steps a francise gets from the reboot the better!

Right now we seem to be getting into that game release period of the year. Right now I'm relaxing with Assassins Creed 3, which is a fantastic game, though I have a few complaints; namely it suffers from multiple bugs. The double assassinations only seem to work if the moon is in the correct alignment, data entries update before they're supposed to and ruined a fairly big plot twist early on (stay away from Kaniehti:io's data profile is all I'll say) and there are other physical issues like characters getting stuck on terrain, colour changes to the outfit not reflecting in cutscenes, when Connor first gets his hidden blades they don't seem to appear on his wrists and his braid seems to keep clipping with his head when he's in his naval uniform. That aside, it hasn't ruined the overal experience. The graphics and music are fantastic, the world feels more alive than ever before with animals and children, the frontier and Naval battles add a huge new aspect of fun and keep the game from becoming repetitive (the best bits are stalking guards from the trees like Predator and stringing them up with the new rope darts). The main character seems kind of bland to me though, but it might just be that I miss how fleshed out Ezio felt. The story takes the main stage for me; I have barely touched multiplayer because I'm anticipating where it's going. Overal flaws aside, it's a blast. Just be ready for little hiccups in the programming.

FIlm wise there is also so much that I want to say, namely Skyfall, Taken 2 and Hotel Transylvania (it stars Adam Sandler and is directed by the guy behind Dexter's Lab and Samurai Jack! How can I not look forward to that?). I have gotten to see Frankenwienie, which was fantastic! The style, music and story were all great! It felt like a love letter to the 30s horror films, which at the same time having a fun, interesting and at times heart breaking narrative. The acting fells a bit hokey at times, but otherwise fantastic. If you haven't seen it yet and are a fan of the old Universal monster films or just Tim Burton in general I say check it out. I was surprised that more people were more intrigued by Para Norman, which just seems kind of lame from the trailers. The story seems interesting enough and the style is kind of cool, but the jokes in the trailer seemed kind of lame to me. Clearly it's done well with the kids, but I find it hard to get excited about it myself. I feel like the idea of a kid that can see ghosts should have led to meeting a soul reaper who gives him supernatural samurai powers. I'm happy that more people are using stop motion animation however, and using it well too.

Delayed response

Chapter 03 took a bit longer to make, after I fell ill for a few days, but it's done and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I seem to be establishing a lot of stuff in these chapters but not really answering anything, primarily why so many people are chasing the Yukihana sisters. Rest assured answers are coming in a few weeks, namely starting with chapter 5. So the reason why I'm not saying much about the scenario is because I want to flesh it out a little and establish what the stakes are.

Also, new characters!

Sekai was a little different to do, since her dark skin meant that I had to start using greys. I like to stick with white and black due to the contrast it gives, but in her case I felt it was necessary. Also her tattoos may change from time to time. It is not because I am lazy, but because they are magic. 

.....stop looking at me like that. Tattoos can be magic too.

Other characters are Max and Jet, members of the same clan as the guy from chapter 02. They don't keep their masks on as long as he did, so you get a little more face time with them. They were created by Phil and Cameron, two kids who take the time to watch me draw when our families go away together, and requested that I draw their characters. I liked the designs so much that I kept them in the story. However then they started asking me to kill off the main cast and make their characters the lead heroes.

Yeah, not going to happen. And if they ask me again, Max may have an unfortunate accident at the hands of a rouge anvil.

I keep promising comic strips and they are coming! I've just got a lot on my plate right now. Rest assured once I start I'll get into the same rhythm as with Raiden legacy, it's just finding the time to start.

On a completely unrelated note, comic strip next week!

For realz this time.

I'm serious.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

​First new update! Took a few days off, so this chapter was a little bit behind. Still, here it is, chapter 2. Not my best effort, however I'm on a deadline so it'll have to do. The best I can do is promise to improve.

Hopefully I should have a new comic strip up next week along with chapter 03.​

Maybe if I finish my work on time for once I can test out that FTL game on steam.​

Here's hoping.​

NEW SITE!

Finally moved onto a proper website (no more googlepages for this guy!​), thanks to squarespace.com for providing a website that even someone like me can use.

Anyway, Raiden Legacy chapter 02 is still on the way, as well as the first of a new series of weekly comic strips.​ I'm still working on getting a proper job (or any job), but hopefully I can get into the position where I can provide content you guys will enjoy on a regular basis.

We seem to be getting into that ​period of the year when all the new releases are coming out, but personally I'm looking forward too Halo 4, mainly because of the new forge world tools! I'm a sucker for any game that offers some sort of creation tool, and now I'm looking for a new time sink to fill the void.
Not to mention Assassins Creed 3 and Black ops 2. Normally I wouldn't get too excited over a call of duty game, but the fact that they are talking about who wrote the story and music speaks to me that they're getting serious about delivering a compelling campaign experience. Maybe I'm wrong, but the fact that they're actually using these facts as part of the advertising is enough to peak my interest.

Until Assassin's Creed comes out I'm finding distraction in Sonic Adventure 2​, now on the XBLA. Still technically a bad game, but a hell of a lot of fun!