So after finishing College and all my exams, I've found myself with a lot more time on my hands. Strangely though, this time hasn't been relaxing... I continue to feel stressed, as though I'm putting off revision, which I can only imagine is because of guilt, due to how much work ii put off when I actually had to do some - I feel like I haven't earned this break, and I would be right. Because I got kicked off my English course (which, ironically, is the skill path I chose to go down for Uni) I won't get enough point to get into any Uni, unless I get A's, and that won't be happening. So, assuming I pass the exams I took, it will be a bitter-sweet victory, knowing that if I DO want to progress in my learning, I would have to retake yet ANOTHER year in college.
Sorry about that... I've been watching a lot of Scrubs lately, so I felt like summing up. It's just that with summer looming, the realisation that my future (at least for this year coming) is full of uncertainty, as I chose to take a gap year and have no plans.
Perhaps more on topic is my art situation. I have been drawing like a mother, but yet to actually really finish anything. Sadly my skill lies in the imagination of creativity, and not so much the refining process. I'm more than happy to draw something out in pencil, and if I really like it, ink the little bugger... but I always fall down when it comes to colouring. I can imagine you would be extremely bored if I had a gallery of black and white drawings... and yet I can't use my computer to colour things, so my only option is to use colouring pencils (oh yes, super-high-quality Crayolas), which yield less than stunning results. So I ask you,
what would you prefer: lots of black and white, or a few coloured? Now I'm anal about '
perfection', so I'd try to do whichever as best as possible, but colouring well really does take me so much longer than any other part of the process, and I rarely get urges to do it. Please tell me your opinion in a comment!
Following this same trail of thought, I've come to a turning point in my storyboard
Dirge: Chronicles of Midghar. I just coloured the first page of the new Scroll (the equivalent to season or series), and I have to say... I think the colour ruined it. When it was inked, it was sharp and clear, and while my style may leave much to the imagination, it looked 'finished'. With colour it now looks like a child's drawing, with bad colouring and simple characters...
Now, colour in the storyboard was always just about making things
obvious. In the beginning, characters were nothing more than sausage figures (chunky stick figures) so colour was used to differentiate between characters, and to clarify between sky and grass. However over the years these characters have evolved, as have the scenes. Yuri gained the extra detail of seeing the shirt under the neck of his jacket; Maya gained breasts to make the femininity of her character more obvious to those who did not know the back-story; Birah... well, Birah stayed the same, although his character was made more obvious after suffering a chest-wound on page 24, leaving a jagged burn. All the other characters have unique costume traits, like Hagironi's face-mask, Mitsune's scar, and even the "unknown character" on page 68 (though you can work out who it is) and their hair. The scenery has also evolved from a simple line, half-green half-blank, to a detailed Hospital room (though granted the simplistic outside worked for a long time, since I decided colouring the sky would make the picture far too busy). It's because of these changes, that I've really started to think if colouring the storyboard is the right thing to do. These days I feel more like colour is spoiling the picture, rather than clarifying it, and while I can ink a page in one or two days it takes me weeks to get around to colouring them. So this is my second question to you, people who have seen my storyboard and who might even go so far as to call yourselves fans:
Would you rather see colourless pages published at a faster rate, or continue to get coloured pages at the same pace as now? I would REALLY appreciate your opinion on this.
Getting back to the update though, there are now 6 new pages of Dirge: 1 has been completed and ready to upload, 1 had been inked, and the rest are pencilled. There is also a title page for this new chapter, which is in pencil. I would also like to remind you that this new scroll contains speech bubbles, which should helpfully bring the story together for those who aren't... well, me. To further this, I will be updating the Dirge description on here to hopefully provide more background information and descriptions of current events.
I have also been practising with other drawings, including fan-art, so for those of you who like that (and miss the old-days of my art), you will be in luck soon
Though of course, I have also been drawing new potential characters for Dirge, as well as drawing the faces to existing names. It's a very exciting time for anyone who likes my story as much as me
So, I shall try to upload some stuff soon, try to catch up on my deviations to look at (currently 484 u_u )and get some more Dirge info up, so hopefully you guys will know what's going on as well as I do! I'm sorry for the essay, but I think I'd give a proper update for once ^^ Hopefully you'll be seeing more activity from me from now on!
Take care!
[EDIT]To illustrate my above points, two new Dirge pages have been added. Please visit the links to get a better idea for the colours and their effects:
Dirge 71 -
[link] (Coloured)
Dirge 72 (WIP) -
[link] (Inked)(*Spoilers!* Preview of the next page!)
So, which is better? Coloured or Inked?
The other alternatives are:
Greyscale - A coloured picture, scanned in greyscale to give the effect of tones, giving the Inked version a more 'manga' feel. This, however, requires me to colour the picture, then nullify the colour on a scanner...
Simplified Colours - To revert back to the old-school colour system... colour only to differentiate. Background and objects will be left colourless, while characters' clothes remained coloured for identity sake. Grass will be green, water will be blue, sky will be blank; besides that, it's up to your imagination and my pen skills.
Shaded Ink - Just plain inked pictures, but with shading added with a black colouring pencil to add a little more depth and 'realism' to the shadows.
Please let me know what you think, I really appreciate it!
Thank you!
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Dirge - Chronicles of Midghar:Introduction to Dirge:
[link]Index of Content:
[link]=====================
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Summer Holiday!
Nervous
for the first time 
Hope
x
Insecure
Eager
