||||In the Dark of Daylight

So in my jumble of thoughts about release plans and the future of Dark of Daylight a while back, I started considering a sequel. Now, I’m sure that seems a little ‘wtf?’ because I’m working on Chapter 5. The thing is, it’s Chapter 5 of the one general storyline for the series.

I’ve several ideas bounce around to do a second one in the world I’ve destroyed gets recreated, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then, naturally, the thought occurred to me that it might be overdoing it.

Then, of course, I started second guessing all of plans and my writing ability altogether and, well, that just led to me being face down in a pool of self loathing.

So I’m not saying it’s going to happen (I’ve still got at least 2 or 3 chapters to write for this first bit) and I’m not saying it’ll never happen.

I’m just thinking about it and thought I’d share the idea.

-Christina

Setback number one? The constant spam comments. I know I approved some but, that was just to nurse my ego a little. I’ve the spam blocker plugin going on but, it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. I came on to check out comments…35 spam. It sucks. Seriously. I’m about to call up some buddies and have them post comments. At least then it might be funny spam. Grrrrr.

Anyway, the other setback is me not having constant use of the computer and internet anymore. I won’t go into details about the situation because it’s not really appropriate and all that stuff. Personal, y’know? At any rate, updates here have clearly become far in between. I don’t have a nice enough phone to get access to the website that way, but fortunately I’ve got good friends (not all of them in low places though) that allow me to borrow their laptops here and there.

Now as for the mention of time…I’ve had a lot of it to be working on chapter 5. Unfortunately I’ve had the most obnoxious brain cramp over the past month or so…again. So I’m only 16 pages in on chapter 5 and my brain is on the verge of imploding from me working to figure out where to go next.

I’ve got some decent ideas laid out though and I’m going to start scratching out some test portions for the panels I’ve got in mind. Hopefully it’ll start coming together. Especially considering, lately, I could realize use a distraction from my day-to-day thoughts. Yeesh.

So I’m a dork and I make playlists to help me get into the groove of whatever I’m writing. Here’s the list of songs I listen to for the series. Maybe later on I’ll put up the lists for individual characters. Enjoy!

Mad World – Gary Jules
Killer Queen – Queen
Anna Molly – Incubus
Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap
Elysium – Composed by Lisa Gerrard & Klaus Badelt (Gladiator Soundtrack)
Gravity – John Mayer
Savior – Rise Against
Viva La Vida – Coldplay
Human – The Killers
Broken – Lindsey Haun
Carry On Wayward Son – Kansas
My Hero – Foo Fighters
The Killer in Me – Smashing Pumpkins

It’s short track list, I know. I’m working on adding more. Until then, shuffle is my friend.

Maybe I’ll figure out a way to add a music player to the site or something. That’d be cool, right?

Christina

I thought it might be interesting to any watchers out there (and handy for me) if I put a list of things that I use in the process of creating my comics. So here’s the list with a short explanation of what I use them for.

http://celtx.com/download.html — This is the program I mentioned before. I use it to type of all of my scripts. It automatically formats the script, it stores characters, time stamps my saves, and has a “sketch” feature that lets me work out panel arrangements if I’m having trouble with sequencing, pacing, or anything else.

http://www.limewire.com/download/?404 — I’m a wierdo so I have specific songs that relate to certain characters, themes, scenes, whatever. I use limewire to download all of my music because I’m broke.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ — Itunes is my primary music player. It makes creating playlists easy and has the Genius feature that shows me similar music in my library.

http://www.dafont.com/ — One of two sites that I use to browse and download fonts to consider using when I get to the lettering stage.

http://blambot.com/fonts.shtml — The other font site that I use; it’s specifically for comics.

http://images.darkhorse.com/darkhorse08/company/submissions/DHScriptFormatGuides.pdf — This is where I got started with figuring out how to do the script format for comics.

http://www.bigredhair.com/work/comics.html — A fantastic site I stumbled upon that gave me a lot of great information to help me along in the early stages of writing comics.

http://www.jinxworld.com/scripts.html — The article that helped me get past the hangup of perfect format and carbon copying the formats presented to me. Also the website for one of my favorite writers.

http://www.whiterose.org/dr.elmo/cwrite/writing2.html — This is where I found the lettering key that I became very fond of and am currently using.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/ — Where I go to stay updating on all the interesting happenings of the comic world.

http://www.longbeachcomiccon.com/ — The website for my nearest comiccon. Long Beach Convention Center is a 30 minute or so walk if I cruise…which I always do when I’m on foot. Hoping to attend this year…might cosplay…might go the professional route. Haven’t decided yet.

http://www.deviantart.com/ — This is where I first started networking. I still use it here and there but, I admit, I’m not as active as I used to be.

http://www.writing.com/?i=1 — A great site I was introduced to by a friend. It’s great for getting good, solid, useable feedback on your writing.

And that, kids, pretty much covers it. Hopefully some of you find this useful. If not…at least I killed some time, fought some writer’s block, and made a handy list of daily places to visit for myself.

Christina

Well, I’m certainly significantly less than proud of myself right now.

For some reason, it’s taken me about a month or so to catch on to the fact that a lot of the comments on here were either a mistake or good old fashioned SPAM.

People were saying things like “this is information I can really use”…when I didn’t give any information about anything of real relevance.

…Anyway, I deleted about 16 comments from the site.

From now on, I’ll be a bit more careful…and I’ll stop approving things just for the sake of having comments on the posts.

Let’s see how many people are actually visiting the site out of interest…or stumble upon the site and stay out of interest.

Christina

As i was transferring the finished scripts from MS Word format to my new CeltX project, I started making some changes and adjustments that I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

Along the way, i realized that I’m going to need a lot more concepts than I originally anticipated.

For one, the female lead is going to need about 3 different concepts. Then I’ll be needing some civilian concepts. I haven’t made a list of weapons/gadgets concepts.

It’s safe to say that I was super overwhelmed when I realized this. But I’m calm now and I’m actually looking forward to seeing the designs that I came up with. Primarily the designs for civilians. Maybe I mentioned it on here before, but the females will be roughly similar to milk maids and the males coal miners.

Here’s hoping these work out alright.

Christina

Salutations once again, comrades.

Things have been slowly falling into place over the past few weeks and it’s really taken some of the stress off.

A good friend of mine has blessed me with what is now my favorite program on my PC. I’ve switched from typing up all the scripts in MS Word to putting the entire project into a program called CeltX. Character sheets, plot notes, story notes, scripts…I’ve got it all in one place now and it’s so much more convenient. Thanks again, Johnny.

Now there are two bits of art news I’d like to share with you all. First is about the concept art. I think I mentioned in a post not long ago that I was finally working with some concept artists that I found on deviantArt.com. One in particular has been doing an outstanding job. I’ve attached the final concept for Ethan Chambers to this post. Hopefully you guys enjoy the art as much as I do. Thanks again for all your hard work, Craig (cubica.deviantart.com).

The last bit is in regards to a potential collaboration on the actual project. Thanks to some friendships I’ve formed through “church”, I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet two fantastic artists. One is highly skilled with characters and the other with characters. Between the three of us, we may be able to collaborate and get some things done here.

Nothing has been officially decided, so I can’t say whether or not this would be for the entire series or simply one issue. One of the two artists has selected a portion of the Prologue to do a test run on. We’ll discuss that as well as my plans for the story and we’ll see where it goes from there.

What I can tell you is that the two men are fantastic artists that would each bring a personality and style to In the Dark of Daylight that would be highly beneficial.

Keep an eye out and your fingers crossed for more good news.

Thanks for your support as always,
Christina

Here are the set titles and the order in which they should be read once they are finally released.

Prologue (webcomic)
Splitting Seams
Three to Get Ready
In My Youth
Soul Salvation (webcomic)

There’s actually one more issue that I’ve finished writing, but I don’t have a title for it yet. Hopefully I’ll have that taken care of soon. Anyway, just though some of you might find that interesting.

I’ll be starting on the next issue. Also, be on the lookout for a nice addition to the site soon. If you’re a Facebook follower, you might already have an idea what it will be.

Good news.

I started working with a concept artist last night and I’ve had a look at a rough draft for one of the supporting characters. This is one of two artists that will be working on the concepts for me. One will be doing a few of the designs I’ve come up with for the supporting characters, the other is going to be taking on the lead characters.

Hopefully they’ll do as good a job as the sample work they

DeviantArt has been turning out some good responses to my search for a concept artist.

I think I might be able to split the load between two talented artists that replied a day or so ago.

Here’s hoping for the best, eh?

-Christina