The prologue and Chapter 1 of Eryl are being rewritten and redrawn to match the current style. I’ll be working on it behind the scenes while Ashes updates for a while. This post will be continuously updated to show my progress.
Prologue progress:
37/37 pages are completed
Chapter 1 progress:
25/36 pages are completed – 0 pages are in progress.
March 11, 2021:
It’s spring of 2021 and I’m finally entering the homestretch. I’m sure all of you are as eager as I am to get through the last of this rehashed material and onto new storylines. I’m not sure how many readers from before the redux are even still with me. With all the health delays, this has taken… so much longer than it should have. But that seems to be true of every project I start. To tell the truth, I’m just exhausted and want to be done.
June 5, 2020:
Wow, it feels crazy that it’s been over a year since I updated the text of this post. Of course, I’ve been making fairly steady progress on the redux this entire time and (as of writing this) am only 17 pages away from finishing. Sometimes… I forget that 17 pages is actually a lot (an entire Ashes chapter is 16 pages). After a few months of hiatus, I’m back to updating it again, albeit sporadically.
Eryl pages used to take around 12+ hours to make, but as I was working on the redux, I rearranged my workflow, which has cut a lot of time off of production. Even so, drawing the redux pages has shown me that the current style I’m using just isn’t sustainable. If Eryl was my only comic, I could handle it, but I simply can’t work on both Eryl and Ashes simultaneously without experiencing frequent burnout. Which is why Eryl is getting a big style change from Chapter 6 onwards. I have, in fact, already completed the first 6 pages of Chapter 6, and I think it’s about time to announce some big news: I’ve hired Sophie Pfrötzschner to colour Eryl from chapter 6 onwards. Sophie creates the beautiful comic Soul’s Journey, and as you can see in the preview below, she’s been doing a fantastic job. 🙂
February 9, 2019:
Page 04-11 was partially redrawn! Finally I got rid of that awful ‘comedy’ relief that was not only terribly unoriginal, but also didn’t match the tone of the chapter at all. Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder what the heck past me was thinking. Being an indie comic artist and not having an editor is both a blessing and a curse: we have no one to stifle our creativity, but also no one to smack us upside the head when we make these kinds of tragic decisions. Anyway, this was the last archive fix I needed to do, so now everything from Chapter 2 onward is all shiny and finished!
February 2, 2019:
BUFFER GOAL MET!!
This afternoon I finished the last two pages I wanted to complete for my Eryl buffer. I now have 35 sequential pages ready to go, giving me a cozy 6 month buffer after Eryl returns from hiatus on April 3rd. I also have the cover, first 4 pages, and last 8 pages of Chapter 1 drawn. In all, I have 48/81 pages done, with 33 left to go. And the bulk of that has been done in the last 7 months, which, considering what I’ve been trying to deal with IRL since the hiatus began, gives me a major feeling of accomplishment.
In addition to the brand-new, 6 page lead-in that goes before the prologue, you’ll notice very early on that some major changes have been made from the old beginning. We’ll still be following the same characters and the same plotline, but there is more world-building and background, and a lot of things have been changed up or moved around, as well as introducing new concepts and plot threads that will better unify it with Book II and beyond. You will notice some of the biggest changes in the beginning of Chapter 1, where more emphasis is given to the character Seamus and his relationship with Andrea, since this will become very important much later on.
During this long hiatus, I have also been making a TONNE of fixes to the pages that aren’t being redrawn. Most of it was minor stuff like fixing spelling, punctuation, and grammar, rewording certain dialogue bubbles to fill plot holes or make minor plot changes, and fixing inconsistencies such as when objects inexplicably flipped hands or things mysteriously vanished from one panel to the next, etc. I have one page left in Chapter 4 that needs to be partially redrawn, but other than that, the archives are all polished up.
But a couple of noticeable changes were made:
-Andrea’s alias was changed from Myosotis to Thyme, because it’s less obscure, weird, and easier to pronounce. Why did I choose Thyme? Just do a search of its meaning in floriography!
-All of Raven’s pronouns were changed to be gender-neutral for future plot reasons.
In these last two months before Eryl relaunches, I will continue adding to my buffer if I can, but I will be focusing more on getting Ashes’ updates back on track and getting some promo art finished so I can advertise Eryl.
July 6, 2018: Wow, it’s been over a year since I updated this post beyond the progress bars. I’m still working on the redux, but it’s slow going since I’m struggling just to get Ashes pages finished. However, progress is picking up lately, and I hope to be able to continue that pace. This past week I made a six-page lead-in that will go before the prologue. This is all new material that will either clear a few things up, or just pile on the mysteries. XD
May 2, 2017: Honestly, I don’t know how I’d get by in life without three-ring binders. This is something else new I’m trying for speeding up page production. I panelled out all 35 pages of chapter 1 in Clip Studio and then printed them out so I can sketch it all by hand. The scripts are on the other side of the divider. 😀
While sketching digitally does allow me more detail and accuracy because I can zoom in and manipulate bits and pieces, I really hate the feel of sketching on the computer. Often I’d procrastinate in making new pages because I was dreading sketching them. I can do it faster by hand, plus it feels more comfortable.
April 26, 2017: I have gone through and made fixes to all the chapters that AREN’T being redrawn. A lot of it was fixing typos, rewording certain pieces of dialogue, and fixing inconsistencies like missing objects, or when people or items got flipped around. Most stuff was minor, but one page has now been cut out of Chapter 4 because I’ve always hated it, and a few pages need more extensive work. Some of my photoshop files were lost over the last few years. One page is missing backgrounds, so I need to repaint them. Another page, I lost everything except the ink lines. 🙁 Fortunately it wasn’t a page with intricate backgrounds, but still, I was pretty upset to find the file missing in ALL of my backups.
Other than that, still working on the scripts for the redraws, as well as writing scripts for Book II. Chapter 6 is completely scripted, and more outlined. I’m going to be trying several things to increase the speed at which I can release pages in Book II. This time I’d like to get the whole book (chapters 6-11) scripted out before drawing it. I’m decreasing the resolution of the full-sized files from 600dpi to 350dpi. This will allow the programs to run faster and that saves time. Files will be worked in spreads, allowing me to draw two pages at once, also saving time. And lastly, I’ll be painting larger backgrounds on separate canvases so I can reuse them more. Laying out all the panels for the chapter ahead of time will help too, as it’ll give me a better idea on how big a background I should paint to reuse throughout a scene.
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