July 2022 Newsletter - A Complete Makeover

Over 9 years ago I started working on my wolf comic Hunters; the entire prologue, Chapter 1, and even pages in Chapter 2 did not look the best but for my lack of experience at the time I thought they looked good enough as for the most part I just wanted to tell a story.

But Chapter 2 is officially finished, and Chapter 3 is very soon beginning. As I have started drafting the cover for Chapter 3: Amarok and Fenris, I am seeing that my style has drastically changed as of late. During my high school I was able to draw usually 2 pages a month. Even in my initial months in college I was pushing out pages at a decent page. But soon page frequency dropped; I was lucky to post just a single page a month.

Now I am pushing myself the hardest I possibly can: 3 pages a month (excluding the fact that I have slowed because of my project management certification). I have already redrawn all 16 pages of the prologue. And now that I am considering merchandise for my comic, I have decided that my entire first chapter needs a makeover.

Some may have known this already, but I plan on redrawing the entirety of Chapter 1, all 72 pages. I will likely redraw the chapter cover at some point for the second time, and remove "The Shadowed Forest" title as I do not believe it is needed any longer. I'll be sharing the final resulting pages with patrons, but will not release the new pages for an indeterminate amount of time (I'm still thinking about how I'll go about that).

Redrawing old pages, pieces, and artworks is never a bad thing. If anything it reminds us artists just how much we've changed, how much we've grown, how much we've learned. Redrawing the prologue pages was an absolutely delightful process, and the redesigning for Chapter 1 will be a much bigger undertaking with more pages, more color, and more believable story. Yes, I will be updating dialogue and story bits! Who knows, I might end up with a different number of pages by the end of it!

I've grown as both an artist as well as a storywriter, and giving my comic a complete makeover isn't a bad way to show that off.