Chapter 6, Milestone 2 reached!

Man, you can't imagine how I was looking forward to reaching this point. You might notice that I'm pretty late with this milestone update. The reason for that is that I was caught completely off guard by the amount of work that this second milestone threw at me. I kind of anticipated that this portion of Chapter 6 would mean some extra work. I mean, after all we're entering the biggest city of the Wormworld with a lot of people running around and I was going to present the city with lots of panorama shots. To make things worse I also decided that it would be fun to dive deeply into a crowded bazaar scene. But you know, I've remembered the detailed backgrounds of Chapter 3 and those had no substancial effect on the time it took me to illustrate the chapter. So, I thought that I might just need to throw in a couple of extra hours and that would be it, right?

WRONG!

Turns out that it is a HUGE difference if you're painting people and architecture as opposed to trees and vegetation. You paint a couple of bushes: done in a few strokes. You paint a couple of people: everyone needs a pose, a hint of a face, clothing. You paint a background of trees: just suggest the foliage, eyeball the perspective and you're done. You paint a huge cityscape: everything needs to be in perspective, houses need roofs, windows, signs, everything in different colors and values, you're constantly changing brush sizes, work with tons of layers - it drives you insane!

You want to hear the bottom line of all this?

Alright, let's have a deep breath!

I've spent 76 hours on the first milestone of Chapter 6 and for the same amount of screen space in the second milestone I've spent ... 162 hours.

One hundred sixty two!

To put this into perspective: the total painting time of the ENTIRE Chapter 1 was 154 hours. Think about it: I've spent more hours on this milestone than on Chapter 1 which is more than double the size.

Maybe now you can imagine how it feels to have wrestled that beast. It took me 6 weeks to do it (I've spent one additional week during that time to record video trainings for Video2Brain). When I'm browsing through the artwork I still can't believe how insane I was to put so much work into that comparably small space. But it will show and it's been absolutely worth the effort. I can't wait until the last milestone is finished and I can finally put everything into the big layout. It will be overwhelming for me to see it all come together in one big picture and for you beloved readers it will undoubtly be a special feast for your eyes.

Speaking of which, here's the preview images from this milestone:

Jonas is thrilled to leave the transport ship and explore the city

Jonas and Raya enter the city of Kingspeak

I've intentionally chosen panels that don't show anything of the insane imagery that took me so much time. I don't want to spoil anything. If you're longing for some more material though (also without spoilers) you might consider to join The Attic. There's a brand new preview gallery with lots more images there!

In The Attic you'll find much more preview images than on the blog or Facebook

Ok, on to the next milestone then! There's still some complex artwork lying ahead but I don't think that any of the last three milestones will take me as much time as this one. However, due to the long time I've spent on this milestone the release of Chapter 6 will most likely not happen at the end of May. And, with three milestones still ahead, I don't think that it makes sense to commit to a new release date just yet. So, for the time being let's just say "it's done when it's done".

In other news:

I've already mentioned that I've spent some time recording new video trainings for Video2Brain. The first of these trainings has just been released. It's a training about drawing in perspective for beginners. As usual, the training is in German language. Here's a little trailer:

The three hour training is available at the Video2Brain website and as always you'll be able to watch some free sample clips there.