So a lot has been going on lately. You guys already know I've opened up a Redbubble shop and its currently fully stocked with 9 stickers of the main girls and 4 Wanted Posters. I released a big lore document about a new territory in the world of MHFAP!, Mewtopia, and we've seen a surge in catgirl OCs and interesting lore because of it.
One thing we haven't seen, is the main comic. Why is that? Well, I've told you guys already, my situation is worse these days financially and I need more and more commissions to just get by leaving like 0 time for the comic. But listen up.
The Redbubble shop is my first attempt to fight this. If the shop does well, and say, 20 of my fans buy one sticker then I'll have made passive income WITHOUT commissions. Meaning I'll get money to fund my day to day life while still having that time I need to work on the actual story. Ideally this will eventually sustain me more as I have more and more fans but for now things are slow and I'm not putting *too* much bank into the Redbubble store. I will only spend time on new things for it as more demand is created for it... but I'll be doing my best to promote it as the best way you can support me (besides the MHFAP! Patreon), and hopefully we can start to get things moving a bit more.
I feel like I've been... struggling not only with my irl situation but with myself and how I've reacted to it as well. I know I've come off as desperate for more help, and that I've painted how bad things are multiple times... and while it's true things ARE bad, and that I DO need all the help I can get, I feel like for the last few months all the motivation and willpower I used to possess had been sucked out of me and continuing on had become extremely difficult. I've been much slower and sluggish in a lot of ways these last few months and I don't know how much of it was my fault. I'm a man of ambition and passion, and when put on the spot like that I just sort of lost it for the first time in my life.
Some of it's back. I don't know if it's most of it, but I hope so, but I just don't think it's healthy for me to not at least attempt to be doing my best like I used to. But to start doing that again, we need to talk about the main comic.
I'm not sure how to proceed creating it, so I want to talk out some things and then ask a question of you.
I can create a page of comic somewhat fast compared to other creators. The sketch and composition takes under 2 hours. Inking maybe less than an hour. Flat colors are handled for me, and another hour or two for colors. But that's so much time for how little I have these days. Especially for lineart- which is essentially wasting time drawing the exact same thing a second time, and especially for coloring, which I'm not even good at.
If this were the old me, who had more time and funds available, I'd pass it off to a colorist and oversee it. Which, hell, I'm still doing with commissions because I just can't handle all the work I need to do these days. But even at the really low price my assistants are helping me for I can't regularly pay anyone to color a whole comic page and get it fast and at the quality I want it at.
Not being able to work on the main comic is hurting me two huge ways. Mentally and financially. Mentally speaks for itself, I'm extremely unhappy to not work on the comic and it effects my morale which has been at an all time low- lower than it ever has been. Financially, how the hell can I capitalize on a story if no progress is ever made on it? When I'm only able to put out filler/side content/lore drops and say 'oh yeah, more comic is coming... when I get money... I guess...'. It's a vicious circle that effects morale and makes me feel bad that I have to explain over and over again.
But I've been trying to think of a way to work on it again in a way that works for my time and budget limits. So I want to get to that question I mentioned earlier in this blog- as my fans.
Do you guys want me to Hunter x Hunter this shit?
For those who don't know, in HxH (the manga) the author is notorious for putting outright scribbles in its weekly magazine chapters (when it's not on hiatus) and then the he draws a finished version for the volume release.
Example - https://i.imgur.com/TnkSazz.png
Now- I'm not saying I want to start doing scribbles. I'm asking if you guys want me to start putting out black and white sketches as finished pages similar to this.
And then each page would have a message saying to pledge to Patreon to help support me coloring it or something. I have actually been working on making my sketches tighter and cleaner in general lately, to the point where my colorist doesn't even need me to make finished lineart. This is because I both hate the lineart stage and want to work faster, but if you guys are interested in my releasing finished sketch pages, aka Hunter x Hunter-ing it with the promise of color way down the line, then I could feasibly start pumping out new pages of the main comic very fast and very consistently.
But at least this way SOME significant story content would be coming out, it just wouldn't be colored. And hopefully with the increased amount of story more and more people would understand why I need the support to color it.
As far as the writing, page composition and sketching goes, that's the easy shit. I can knock that out forever as far as I'm concerned. So let me know if you think this is a good direction to head in.
In the meantime, there are ways to support me and help me make the comic faster right this second. Patreon and Redbubble. Patreon is of course always preferred but I do not have much as far as rewards go so I know it's not the most enticing, however, to get more comic I can't stress enough I need money that doesn't tie me down to commissions. Therefore the Redbubble shop is the 2nd best thing, and you can get something for supporting me as well- I just won't get the full cash you spend. Which is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
If you read this far thank you very much- I need you guys to give me your thoughts and feedback. So please tell me your thoughts in the comments!