Page 29 is up and please check it out because it took a lot of work. Also the original art of the page is up on my DA page.

In the process of trying to work ahead to possibly release two pages a week, I have been working myself like a mule. I know things like ambition, fortitude, and patience are important things to have to make a comic like this one, but I have been working on it so much that this comic kind of felt like an awful thing to exist for me.

Don't worry, there's no way I'm quitting. I'm just saying that I don't want making Streets of Galsha to stop being fun. It feels like I haven't given myself any other hobbies outside of doing the comic. So now I'm trying to give myself a few hours a day to do something else other than work on my comic, like reading a book, or going for a walk, or playing a video game.

Well one thing I will definitely take time off for is the Breaking Bad Finale tonight! Oh I can't wait.

-Thanks for reading! I'll keep working on this, just not to death.
-TiMBo

Page 28 is up now. Which also means that I have uploaded the scan of the original art to my deviantart page here.

Well the Fall weather is approaching here in Ohio and I am actually kind of excited about it. During the summer I feel like some kind of wastrel when I spend most of my time inside drawing when we have the beautiful weather (or maybe I was just raised to think that way). Something that I do strangely really like about the fall is bundling up inside with blankets. Plus my wardrobe just feels so much more limited in the summer.

A little bit of an update behind the curtain is that I'm still continuing my crusade to get all of chapter 2 penciled. They may be taking me a while but let me just say that these are some of the best comic pages I have ever drawn in my life coming up, and hopefully I can keep pushing myself to go far beyond that.

Keep enjoying the comic!
-TiMBo

Now page 27 is up so go check that out. Plus if you want to check out the original or of this said page, check it out here in my deviant art gallery.

Just going to give a quick update about the comic. I have almost penciled all the pages of Chapter 2 and It wont take me too long to ink them all. So my goal of being able to release two pages a week is becoming more of a possibility.

I'm going to be honest. I didn't realize how much of this comic was going to feel like work. I think that I was in love with the idea of making comics, at first that is. Satisfaction has now come in a different way of feeling like I've paid my dues with each page I release.

Well, I'm going to get back to it. Enjoy the comic.
-TiMBo

Page 26 is up so read that to keep up with the story. Plus for all of you that are as nerdy about original art as I am, go check out the scan of the original art of page 26!

From the title of this blog post, I don't want anyone to get alarmed. Noting major or tragic has happened in my personal life, just something that's a big bother.

Something happened to me yesterday that left me in a pretty glum mood. The wire on my long standing graphics tablet was getting frayed and would sometimes short out and not function properly. As many can see who have read this far into the comic can see that digital coloring and editing has now become integral to producing the comic, and using a pen/stylus based graphics tablet is 100 fold better than using a mouse. So I figured that it was time to look into an upgrade.

I did some research as to what my next tablet upgrade should be. I came across something that looked pretty nice and I went ahead an purchased it, and it was a pretty awesome tablet. I was really getting used to the feel and the new features of this tablet purchase. Then yesterday, when I was planning on doing a lot of color work, the functionality of it goes kaput! The driver suddenly doesn't recognize the tablet and every option for trying to get it to work myself (besides opening it up and seeing for myself) couldn't bring functionality back to it.

I know that all sounded kind of vague, as of right now I am e-mailing the purchaser back and forth so I don't want to sully any products or services just yet. For right now I am coloring back on my old tablet.

It's hard to say how You should react to things in life that you don't expect to happen to you in life but there is one piece of advice I can give for certain after yesterday, ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP PLAN! I didn't totally know if my old tablet would be of use so I didn't just scrap it or give it away. Now it has become almost invaluable. That piece of advice might not be as colorful as my other blog posts but I guess it's important to know what to keep around and not just throw away as junk.

-Hope you're enjoying the comic.
-TiMBo

Page 25 is up now so go check that out! Which also means that the scan of the original art of page 25 is up on my Deviantart page as well so please check that out too.

On the note of original art, in the world of modern day webcomics it looks like there's not a whole lot of original art being made (as in a one-of-a-kind physical piece of art made with physical media.). I don't view this as a bad thing, just that the way in which two-dimensional art is being made is evolving. It is something that makes me feel nervous about being some curmudgeon who's set on doing things the old fashioned way being left behind by the direction that the artistic process is going.

It is because of this that I do try to draw things on my tablet. While the digital tools give us great advantages and the advancements in graphics tablets are substantial, it still feels a little clunky and un-fluid for me (especially in the inking category.). I understand that it's something you're supposed to get used to with practice, but I can just tell that if I decided to drop all of my physical tools and go %100 digital, you might be looking at bi-weekly updates of a page instead of weekly for a little while. I'm open to the possibility of %100 digital art, but a piece of advice I often give illustrators is "It's important to experiment, but when it comes to a gig, you have to know what tools will work for you."

Although this topic is not just pertinent to traditional and digital. It could mean things that you change solely in the digital or traditional realm. I decided to take a look back at the past few years and point out some significant changes I made in my art repertoire.

-Penciling with Col-Erase or Erasable colored pencils:
I used to only use these for underdrawings that would go underneath my HB pencil. Now I will pencil full comic pages or pin ups with these pencils. The advantage of using these? You don't have to erase the pencils away after inking. However this only works well with light or powder blue or carmine red. Though recently I did text a multitude of colors in my scanner and Orange, Lavender, Pink, and Grass Green all work pretty well too. I might oder more of these different colors and use them to do clean and organized pencils for layered perspectives.

-Painting:
I know how I was and how many young artists tend to think. That painting is one of those hard, complex things that only the people meant for painting can do and that you'll only be good with a pencil. WRONG! The only real layer of complexity to get over with painting is color (if you decide to paint in color that is), other than that it's using most of the fundamentals of drawing. Also, this day and age is one of the best times to try to get into painting, with all the online tutorials and videos, and library books available to you. It's easier now more than ever to learn the tips and tricks about painting.

-Nylon Bristled Brush Pens:
I have been brush inking for a long time. Most of the brush pens available to me were felt tipped which would become frayed and useless for me halfway through a drawing. So the only way to ink on the go at this point was a paintbrush, bottle of ink, bottle of water, and a rag or paper towel. Not the most portable set up if you like leaving the home or studio. Now recently brush pens have been cropping up (particularly the Pentel models) that sport actual nylon bristles out of it. These make the brush both much more durable than a felt tip and much more fluid for brush inkers. I find myself using my Pentel pocket brush pen pretty often since I don't feel more tethered to my drafting table.

-Using the Pencil Tool to do flats in digital coloring.
A lot of people who have colored on the computer know that the first step it placing or painting on the flat colors underneath the line art to both create a nice mid-tone and to make targeted areas to color easily selectable. Some would do this with the brush tool, which would be fine but the brush tool is anti-aliased which means that it has a fuzzy edge to it. This may interfere with when you're trying to paint to the edge of a flat area and you see a weird inconsistency where one fuzzy edged line of a flat meets another fuzzy edged line of a flat. The pencil tool uses a more pixely-looking line (or aliased line) that has a hard edge a has no fuzziness to it. Which makes the selecting process a much more clean one.

There's to name a few. So keep and open mind and try some new things out!
Thanks for reading!
-TiMBo