Okay, as usual here is the latest page, and here is a link to my Instagram.

Now After today's page I am going to be taking a short break/hiatus/leave of absence/whatever you want to call it, from updating the comic. While I wont deny that a little bit of the reason behind this is due to deadline burn-out, I mostly want to do it to work on things that will make the experience of this comic better (both for me working on it and for you folks looking at it). These are things that I would have done a while ago, but with how much work I put into each page of this comic I wasn't really affording myself the time to do those things.

I'm going to try to come back if not the first Wednesday of April than definitely the one after that. And I certainly wont go into media black-out during this time. I'm going to keep posting onto my Instagram and even update my deviantart page. And I might even Post stuff here during that time.

So sorry for the little the little break I'm taking but I will return very soon!
Thanks for reading.
-TiMBo

Hello again everyone! The new page is available HERE! And just another reminder to follow me on my Instagram page. I've been having a lot of fun documenting my creative process, and I would like that fun to transcend onto people who like my work.

Now the subject I want to talk about in this journal is a piece of advice that I gave someone someone about improving their drawing skill. I simply said "Don't buy into your own bullshit." That might sound like an odd and maybe even off-putting piece of advice, but I do say that phrase with purpose.

We all have to work our way up from stick figures and rudimentary shapes into solid forms and tight rendering. To do that we have to use what tools are in our means (I don't necessarily mean finical means, but means of conceptualizing and understanding). It doesn't take a genius to know that the more time that you spend with certain tools the more comfortable you are with using them, and often the negative effect that can have is that it can create this mental barrier and fool us into thinking that we can only be proficient with either one tool or in one way of doing things.

"Oh I'm only a pencil artist." "I can only ink with microns." "I can only draw on printer paper." "I can only draw digitally." "I only play piano." "I can only sculpt cats." "I can only juggle with toy balls." Okay you see where I'm coming from here.

This creates a very rigid way of thinking and puts a ceiling on our improvement. It takes experimentation and trial and error to improve upon our creative process. Someone who thinks that they are only good at piano should maybe try experimenting extensively with drums. Not only will you possibly become proficient at two interments, but what you learned from trying out the drums will inform the way you've been playing the piano in a way that you never thought about before. Then you can incorporate the knowledge of both into one or the other.

To bring up how this applies to my life, I would say that I'm less than proficient at drawing digitally, however I will often give it a try while I have my graphics tablet plugged in. While I feel like most of my output from my digital drawings aren't successful, I take what I've learned from the experience to build upon my skills of drawing with pencils on paper. I now use a layering process of penciling my pages similar to how photoshop artists do it with doing my rough sketch in light blue, then doing my more refined detailed drawing over that with either red or HB lead.

Now while this sounds like this piece of advice only applies to tools or skills, I also say it refers to an attitude that we can develop about all the knowledge we've acquired. A mentality that might sound something like "Why would I read a book about drawing with a pencil? I've been drawing with one for 'X' amount of years, I already know everything about it."

Well let me be the first to inform you, no you don't. You don't and you never will. There is always more to learn and always room to improve your skills. Also, just because you might know something intimately doesn't mean you won't benefit from hearing someone else's perspective on that same subject.

I guess what I'm trying to say in short is that we are all sponges with an unlimited compactly that we should try to fill with whatever we can, and sometimes we need to overcome our mental barriers and attitudes to understand that.

Sorry if this sounded preachy, but I felt inspired and compelled to write this. Hope you enjoyed it.
-TiMBo

You know the drill of the first paragraph. The latest page is here. But first of all I want to thank everybody who shared last weeks post. Some of you said some things about my work that made it feel a little dusty in the room. but Now for the winner of the contest.

I put everyone who participated in a randomizer and the winner of the piece of artwork iiiiiiiisssssssssss…….. Bobby Walsh. Congratulations Bobby, I will reach out to you to get your mailing information.

In other news I have now become an Instagram user, Follow me at http://instagram.com/timbo1834 . I will try to post a lot of cool things over there such as sketches and process pictures.

Okay, Back to keeping the ball rolling.
Thanks for reading.
-TiMBo

A new chapter begins today and you can either look at the cool cover I made here and then hit the next button to check out the first page of the chapter.

Now for everyone who's been paying attention, there is a contest happening on my Facebook page where you can win this ink and watercolor drawing!!

So here's what you do;

1- Like This post with the Facebook like button, Either here on the website or on the Facebook fan page.

2- Share this post on your Facebook page. You don't write text for it if you don't want to, but doing so will be much appreciated. However, sharing is essential.

That's it! Pretty simple rules huh? Every person who does this will have their name put in a randomizer and the name that comes up will be the winner. I will contact YOU the lucky winner and ask for your mailing address to send the original piece of art to.

So thanks for sharing and I hope you enjoy the new chapter as it comes along.
-TiMBo

Here is the last page of Chapter 2 right here. The two motley brothers arrive in front of Galsha with a reddish dusk sky following behind them (SYMBOLISM!!!).

Now I'm going to turn right around after writing this and get to work on more pages. Just so you know the contest for getting an original drawing from me will still be going on next week (God I still need to finish that too :-Z).

So I'll see you all next week, Wish me God Speed.
-TiMBo

This is the penultimate page of Chapter 2 which means that the beginning of Chapter 3 will be in 2 weeks.

Now I have to be honest, I'm not sure how far this comic is reaching, I just work on this thing as if I'm "dancing like no one's watching". However, I would like for things to get bigger with this comic, I would like books to be made and fan and guest art to be drawn, all that jazz.

So for Chapter 3 I propose a contest. To be a part of this, you have to like the Streets of Galsha Facebook page (HERE is a link to it if you haven't liked it yet). When chapter 3 is released, I want YOU (the fan reading this) to share the post it on your Facebook page. Everyone who shares the post will be put into a randomizer and the person who comes up will win an ink and watercolor sketch done by me. Unfortunately this is only for U.S. residents, you know, shipping and all.

I'll show what that sketch is as soon as I finish it. Until then, I hope you're enjoying the work!

Thanks for reading
-TiMBo

Page 42 is out now so go check that out!

I almost forgot to post this page today because I almost forgot it was Wednesday, yippes! But the good news is that my hands are pretty dirty with my work on Chapter 3 so that should be coming as scheduled.

Since I forgot it was Wednesday I don't really have much to say in this journal. I'm just going to turn around to my drafting table and keep working!

See you next week!
-TiMBo

Sorry for delay folks. I tried catching up the pages to continue the schedule last week but I didn't want to release page 41 until it met a level of quality that I was satisfied with. Page 41 also represents the last page that I used the "Long way around Flatting" More on that later. I thought I would touch on our perception of "Sort Cuts"

When people talk about taking a short cut, it generally comes with a connotation that it's a weaselly or cheap action to pull. If it is a case where doing so is bending or breaking the rules than a short cut is understandably frowned upon (I'm looking ay YOU Wario Stadium in Mario Kart 64!). Although for making a comic page it seems like the only rule is 'have a finished page' and there aren't really any rules that are pertinent to achieving this goal. Like the Metroid Prime tag-line said; "Use everything at your disposal, dispose of everything." That is if 'disposing of everything' means finishing comic pages (What is it with the video game references today?).

With the rise of digital technology, more ways of taking short cuts have become available for us. With this, the term "Cheating" has been used for taking advantage of these tools. Now, if you only use physical pencils/inks/paints/dyes and use them to maximum efficiency and the desired quality, then that's totally cool, but I don't think that using a computer trick should be viewed as cheating any more than using a q-tip to spread ink around more quickly than your #2 brush.
When it comes to comic art, there are two realities that we have to accept;

One: We can't spend an eternity on each piece we do.

And Two; It's better to spend more of our energy on the creative aspects of a project than the tedious parts.

I can see the argument that comic art/literature can be viewed as a fine art that an artist could spend copious amounts of time pouring his passion onto every page, but from my personal perspective, doing it that way is pretty unreasonable. It can take a couple years to make enough content to create one graphic novel and I don't see why I should spend more than that instead of moving onto the next new idea. While working under deadlines can feel like hell, I could argue that it forces one to be more creative to get the desired effect in a limited amount of time.

Now to explain my second point, let's go back to what I said about the "long way around flatting" that I brought up in the first paragraph. For anyone unfamiliar with this digital technique, flatting is where the colorist lays down flat colors on a layer underneath the line art so the different elements of the piece are separated and organized before the shading and rendering happens. Now selecting the base color for a given subject can take mere seconds, but for the longest time, these flats needed to be applied manually. Whether it be using the pen or free select tool (which I don't find very efficient) or painting them in with the brush or pencil tool (slightly more efficient). Either way, doing it this way leads to several hours being spent on just 'placeholders' for where the real creativity will happen. Through my internet browsing I came across a plug-in called 'Multi-Fill' which automatically finds closed off shapes to drop in random colors throughout a line art piece. Then once it's done you can just use the Paint Bucket to fill each spot with the color you want. I stared using this filter on page 42 and onward and it has been a huge time saver. I used to spend much more time in the flatting process then I did on the shading and rendering, and thanks to this automated filter, that has now reversed. So now I can focus more on the artistic part of the coloring rather than the utilitarian part.

To sum things up, if taking short cuts is wrong, then I don't want to be right (groans at the cliche saying). Making art like comics is a lot of work and if there is something that you come across that can help take the weight off your shoulders, You shouldn't feel bad about using it to your advantage. And with that said, this discovery makes the beginning of chapter 3 feel a little more exciting.

Thanks for reading,
-TiMBo

Okay folks, We've reached page 40 and I'm going to take the holidays off from updating. Of course I'm going to take this break to spend time with family and friends, but I also want to spend some time catching up on this project and doing things for this site.  I might change the design on some things going into the new year and hopefully they are welcome ones.

So to anyone who has followed me this far, have very happy holidays and I will do what I can to come back with a bang in 2014!

Thanks,
-TiMBo