Hey, Everyone! Dang, I can't believe it has actually been so long since I updated things here. Rest assured, I have not been idle during my hiatus, of sorts. The latest strip is now up (The PHP still works!), and the next one is already drawn and in the computer awaiting colorization. I'm still playing with the photographic backgrounds, as I'm still fond of the effect, so we'll see how long that lasts. I actually just got myself a tablet PC with a stylus to do my drawing and coloring straight into the computer by hand, so with some practice the strips might end up becoming a bit more "painterly" over time. Considering how difficult it might end up being to find license-free images of prehistoric landscapes, it might be for the best if I end up phasing out photographis backgrounds.
Anyway, classes are now done for good, and it looks like I'll only be working one job this year, so I should have much more time to devote to the comic and website. Hopefully I'll find the motivation to keep up with my personal expectations. Until next time!
Hey, Everyone! Amazingly, despite the usual amount of homework I've been doing as the semester winds down, I somehow managed to squeeze out a second strip this month! Holy crap, right?! I've been trying to make a concerted effort to do a little bit of work on the strips each day, regardless of what other work I have to do. Who knows, if I manage to keep up the momentum, I might actually start churning these out on a regular basis once more time frees up. Ha! Free time...
Anyway, as I mentioned last time, I'm experimenting a bit with the style of the strips. As I said before, backgrounds are not my strong point, as I find creating them to be tedious and boring when there's so much more interesting character work to play with. So in this strip, I tried using some license-free textures and photographs to create some backgrounds without having to draw them. I rather like the effect, if I do say so myself. I may try it for the next few strips, though I can see running short of usable images before long. Feel free to leave feedback on my Twitter of Facebook; I'd be interested in hearing what people think of the effect.
As I mentioned above, the semester is winding down for the Spring, which means there will be a few changes happening here and in real life. The first is that, for my final Web II project, I will be making some significant under-the-hood modifications to the site to make it more efficient and better organized. You may also have noticed that there is also an option to subscribe to an email list on my Contact page, which at this time is completely non-functional. However, I intend also to get this up and running as well.
In real life, once May starts, I will be back out in the field tracking Box Turtles for the field season. I'm not sure yet how this might impact my ability to run the comic, but at least my evenings will be free of homework, which should help. Jess and I are also planning on moving mid-May into a new apartment in the city, which will probably demand a significant chunk of my attention. Basically, May is probably going to be a quiet month around here, though, as I mentioned about, things will be happening behind-the-scenes. Take heart, though! The next bunch of strips is still scripted and sketched out, and I plan on attending to them immediately. Until next time!
Hey, Everyone! So, as predicted earlier, classwork/homework has pretty much eaten up all of my free time and creative mental energy this semester, and I haven't been able to spare much of either for the comic. I have made some glacial progress, though, and the next strip is up now! There's also another one inked and scanned that's ready to be colored, but I suspect it might be a little while again before I get it finished. The only reason this one is done at all is because this past week was Spring Break, and I actually had some time to work on something other than homework for school. Classes are going well, but I'll be happy when they're over so that I can funnel that freed up time back into the comic. I'll be starting turtle work as soon as the semester is done, of course, but at least that's something I don't have to bring home.
As for the strips themselves, I imagine the "humor" here is something that only I would actually find funny without delving into the dark gutters of my mind. Comedy has never been my strength anyway, and while I'd like to keep the tone of the comic light for now, things are going to get serious pretty soon. I'm also going to be experimenting with some different techniques with the artwork beginning with the next strip, which might be interesting. I've been struggling a bit with backgrounds, for instance, and have a thing or two I'd like to try with them.
As I mentioned last time, my computer was in need of a bit of upgrading. What started out as the addition of some RAM and a Blu Ray player quickly spiraled into a full-on complete hardware and OS replacement. I've now got an awesome new tower with all new guts, a ton of RAM, and Windows 8, which isn't nearly as bad or frustrating as I was led to believe it would be. Honestly, my computer has never run smoother or faster, and the new interface isn't nearly as baffling as people have been saying it is. I think the fact that it's the first major change in the OS since Windows 95 is just throwing people for a loop. Anyone who can navigate a smart phone can navigate the new Start Menu, and the desktop is pretty much the same as in previous versions. It also work with my duel monitors a lot better, and I am looking forward to adding a third soon.
Anyway, that's about all I have for now. I might post a preview of the next strip on the comic's Twitter shortly, though, as I mentioned above, it could be a while before it is completed. Until next time!
Hey, Everyone! So, I am painfully aware of the fact that there hasn't been much in the way of activity in Timeslip-Land lately, either here on the site or on Twitter/Facebook. This isn't to say, however, that I have been completely idle. As I mentioned in the last update, I have been working on scripts for the next bunch of strips, as well as getting what drawing done that I can in my free time. I currently have the next strip in Photoshop as I type this, and the following strip fairly well along on paper. I really wish I could be faster with this, and I hope that speed will come as I progress with this little project of mine. I must admit its a little frustrating and daunting to go online each morning and read the usual comics I follow and realize that these are produced by artist who have a fresh strip ready to go daily. Heck, some of them have multiple daily comics going, and I can't imagine at this point how they manage to do it. I can only assume that they don't have another full-time job to go to during the day...
Anyway, in other news, I will be starting classes again next week. I'm taking Web Design II and Digital Publishing this semester, both of which I imagine will only benefit the comic and the site in the long run, even though they're likely to significantly suppress my progress with them for the nest few months. I'll work on the strips when I can, but most of my free time will most likely be devoted to homework.
Life at the Aquarium is a bit on the slow side right now. There's not a ton of extra work for a Horticulturalist to do around the place in the dead of winter, which leaves me spending a lot of time making busy work for myself. I'm definitely looking forward to the spring when I'll have some plant shipments coming in for the Exhibit. I'm also pretty excited to see how the Plaza and newly seeded Greenroof are going to look this year. Speaking of the spring, I'm also hoping that my Box Turtle work will be available again. Funding for the project always seems to be year-to-year, and while I don't expect that there's any reason that we wouldn't be good to go for another field season, it's always best not to take these things for granted.
Anyway, I guess that's all for now. I'm hoping to have the next strip up on the site sometime this week, and the following one up shortly thereafter before my classes really gear up. Until next time!
Hey, Everyone! Comic #11 is now complete! I was hoping to have this done two weeks ago, but between the holidays and being sick more often than not, I've just had little time and energy during the past couple of weeks to work on it. Hopefully I'll have the next strip up sooner, though Jess and I will be out-of-state later this coming week, and I'll be away from my computer for four or five days.
Ideally I would love to be able to produce a new comic each week, though I think for the foreseeable future, that might be a bit of a pipe dream. Once the spring semester kicks in I'll be taking two classes again, which will likely eat up whatever free time I have that I could otherwise devote to the comic. But, I will be taking Web Design II, which will help me streamline the site a bit and put the finishing touches on it, so it won't all be for naught! I'm still a long way from having the site where I want it, but I consider the time away from the comic itself an investment as long as I'm developing the skills I need to make it a success later.
In the mean time, I've got a bunch of the next strips scripted and sketched out, and I hope to bang out a bunch of them on paper, at least, before the semester starts. Oh, and be sure to check out Dimitri's new character page! I drew a new picture for the page so that he fits the template a little better and matches the rest of the characters. As always, keep an eye on my Twitter feed and the Timeslip Facebook page for updates, insights and random thoughts from yours truly. Until next time!
Comic #10 is finally complete! And it only took me, like, four years... Oh well, better late than never. The backgrounds are a little wonky, but I really just wanted to get this done and up so that I can move on. In the meantime, Comic #11 is currently half-done on paper. Guess I'll have to make a concerted effort to get that done soon, huh?
I've also got a different sketch of Dimitri started to replace the banner image I used in his character profile. It makes for a very awkward page, and I'd like to have it consistent with the rest of the characters' profiles.
Oh, I've also got the Twitter and Facebook pages up for the strip as of yesterday. Check 'em out if you haven't yet already. There's not much there yet, but those will be good places to check for quick progress updates and even a little content here and there that otherwise wouldn't make it to the website proper.
I also appreciate all of the positive feedback I've gotten so far. Thanks so much for the encouragement, everyone! It keeps me on task, that's for sure, especially knowing that there are people out there interested in what I've got going on here. Now if someone could just tell me how to turn this into a money making operation, that would be great? :D
Well, here we are again! Welcome to the second reboot of Timeslip, or Timeslip 2.0, I suppose. Yes, technically it should be Timeslip 3.0, but I don't consider the previous two incarnations dissimilar enough from each other to really warrant segregating them. Anyway, I hope everyone likes the pretty new site I've put together for the strip. I've been wanting to put something a bit more professional together for a while now, but up until this point, haven't really had the basic knowledge of site design and construction to create what I've been wanting. As it is, I still have a lot to learn, and several features that I haven't yet implemented, but I'm finally happy enough with what you see now to consider it at least presentable while I progress with the behind-the-scenes stuff. What you are seeing is the current culmination of over two years worth of art classes at Howard Community College, which I actually highly recommend to anyone in the Baltimore area who might be looking to take a class or two here and there.
Anyway, as you can imagine when trying to port an old FrontPage constructed site over into Dreamweaver, there are a few issues to address, as well as some things I'd like to clear up regarding picking back up on a strip many years after I started it, and probably four years since I last updated it. First, on the technical side, all of the old strips required a bit of tweaking in order to incorporate them into new Photoshop and Dreamweaver files. All of the text, for instance, was mysteriously lost in the old Photoshop files, and I actually had to redo all of the dialogue in each strip. This was actually a bit of a blessing in disguise, as I was able to fix some old typos and completely rewrite some of the speech to make it sound a bit more naturalistic.
Some of the old Photoshop files are actually corrupted completely and unable to be opened at all. In the case of Comic #8, for instance, I actually had to insert the jpeg straight from the old image files, which included the old site's border. I realize it's pretty awkward looking, but it's all I had.
Ultimately, I'd actually like to completely redraw all of the old strips, which brings me to the other major issue. My drawing style, at least to my eyes, is very different now than it was ten years ago when I drew the first strip. I am also considerably more proficient with Photoshop now than I was then. Looking back at the older strips is actually quite embarrassing on several levels. I'm rather mortified by how scantily clad Cindy is, for instance, and have been, to my credit, been trying to at least pull her shirt down a bit over the course of the strip. If I ever manage to finish this storyline (Which has barely started!), rest assured I'll change her outfit to something a bit more appropriate. I'm all for the occasional fan service, but I don't want to be a perv from the outset.
Also, while Jaws had identified the dinosaur in the garage as a Carnotaurus, it's drawn nothing like what Carnotaurus would have actually looked like. The proportions are all wrong, the stance is a bit off, the head is way too long and wide and the forelimbs are enormous! Carnotaurus' forelimbs were so vestigial that they make a Tyrannosaur's look reasonable. About the only things I got right with the design are the supra-ocular horns. Everything else is just a mess. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking when I first drew it, but it certainly wasn't "I should probably do a quick Google Image search of this species before I commit to a design." More than anything else, the design of this guy might be what embarrasses me the most, and is what I look forward to most when thinking about redrawing the strips. Having said all that, though, I'll probably still end up leaving the original comics here somewhere for posterity's sake. It's always good to keep one's self humble.
Anyway, that's about all I have for now. I'm not sure how frequently I'll have new strips available to begin with, but I intend to make a concerted effort to get this project up and running on a consistent basis. I've put it on the back-burner for too long, and need to get it out there. I've also put a lot of time, effort and money into developing the skills and gaining the knowledge I needed to get this site into shape, and I couldn't live with myself if I let that go to waste. Please check back often; I'll do my best to have something new here for you!
