Please see blog below for special announcement.
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I HATE to do this, I but I need to put Dirtnap on hiatus for a few months before it’s conclusion. There are several reasons for this. The biggest is that it is running longer than I originally planned. I’ve drawn far ahead of my posting dates and my “padded” weeks have run out.
I started with a full, written script. It was a 52 page document. At first, on average, each page of script equalled 2-3 drawn pages. So, I figured the story would be between 140-150 pages. I now know it will be closer to 180! As the action increased in the story, a single written page was often turning into 5 or 6 pages of drawn art!
Below are examples of how I work. I print out the script and draw thumbnails on the edges. You can see the page count varies widely (right click on image to “Open Image in New Tab” if you’d like to view them larger)—
If you compare these to the finished work, you’ll see I sometimes change things as I draw out the actual page. The creative process doesn’t stop at any given point. I love that freedom.
I think the hiatus will be around 6 months. We’ll see. I’ve also taken on some exciting freelance work which I will share more about in the future on my blog. I’ll understand if you suspend your current Patreon support. I also, of course, will appreciate if you don’t. 🙂
Thanks for reading!!!
I’ll miss interacting with you in the comments. 🙁
I know it may sometimes be challenging to read a 170 comic story at one page a week, but here’s a creator’s benefit I love– I occasionally go back and read the story to insure it’s holding together or see if there’s improvements I can make. I have altered art or dialog a few times, but no one probably ever knows.
So, just for kicks, I’m telling you about one I just did! The top image has the old dialog from page 117. The bottom image is the change I made. It hit me as a little more fun, which is hopefully the bottomline for this strip!
And now, for no reason at all, here’s a cat comic I drew a few years back–!
I do ridiculous things like this.
Instead of carving anything this year, I was inspired by an old Dante’s Inferno etching by Gustave Dore. I used a Sharpie and drew on a white pumpkin. I had planned to draw the art around the entire pumpkin, but after a couple of hours, I decided to cover the rest with black paint. 🙂
Still works! Maybe even better.