Friday, June 1, 2012

Chapter 4, Title Announcement


It's almost a tradition now that I announce the title of the upcoming chapter of the Worworld Saga as soon as I have finished the preliminary version. So, here we go! The next Chapter is going to be published in August 2012 and its title is:

Chapter 4 - The Shelter of Hope

As you can see, the upcoming chapter is a bit smaller in size compared to its predecessor. However, first test readings clearly indicate that this will be the longest chapter so far in regards to reading time. As you will already have guessed, Jonas and Raya are meeting Raya's master Janaka and together with Jonas we'll receive a lot of background information. This chapter really wasn't easy to write because of all the things that I want to transport in it. It's likely to feel quite different from the other three chapters because it's mainly centered on dialog and a good deal of the action takes place in one interior location. However, I've made sure to keep even those parts visually interesting. In the end, I think, this chapter will mark a nice point of rest before the adventures continue their journey into the Wormworld. By that time they will have a clear mission to fulfill, that much I can say.

Now going to create some concept artwork for Chapter 4 and after that I'm going to work on the milestones. As always I'm going to keep you updated on my progress.

I've also updated the Wormworld Saga website. The first thing I wan't to mention is that I encountered a nasty bug in the website code which actually prevented anyone from buying a print inside the print shop since. If you tried to click on the Paypal buttons you were redirected to the Google Play website. It's fixed.

There's a space for Chapter 4 now and I toyed around with the sidebar elements a bit. I don't know how long I can keep up with that layout though. The newest content is sitting on the bottom of the site and the language flags start to clutter the main content area. I think there's some major overhaul neccessary after Chapter 4 but we will see. By the way, since my last blog entry we have added some new translations. Chapter 1 is now available in Malaysian, Chapter 2 is translated to Bosnian and Turkish and I added the Dutch translation of Chapter 3 just a few minutes ago. Again I have to thank Ivan Berov for his wonderful help with the layout work. 


On a sitenote:

Did someone notice the change on my desktop in the illustration at the top? It's subtle but you will find that my PC tower vanished from under my table. I bought my PC at a food discounter back in 2006 and when I worked on the massive layouts of Chapter 3 I started to notice just how old it was. Saving files often took minutes(!) and several important operations weren't even possible to perform because of "out of  memory" errors. I decided to invest into a new machine and now I'm working on a Lenovo Thinkpad W520. It's unbelievable how fast things work now. Plus, since it's a handy 15'' notebook, I'm now able to take my workspace with me anywhere I go. We are living in the future!

17 comments:

  1. Fantastic! Can't wait to see your progress on ch. 4! Question: I don't have anyway to download WW to a mobile/tablet and would love to buy the extra content. I do have a Kindle Fire and would love to get it through the Amazon App Store. Any chance you are willing to put it up there?

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    1. My last info concerning the Kindle Fire is, that its operation system is based on an older version of Android which isn't compatible with the Android App. The developers plan to create a Kindle Fire version as soon as the OS is updated on Kindle Fire. I'm definitely looking forward to that as it's a very popular platform.

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    2. Thank you! Would love to support you!

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  2. Yay! I love the Wormworld..
    One question, do you paint in Black and White and color with Overlay/Color layers?

    Thank you! We need a book! :)

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    1. I create a grayscale preliminary version but this is more for storyboard reasons. The actual artwork is created by making a quick sketch and then blocking the colors in. You can see the complete process on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvN1zbpCqlw

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  3. You are working on the next chapter. Great! The voyage continues.

    Ralf Schoofs

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  4. Keep up the great work! I've followed you ever since you started on chapter 2 and I'll love to see where you are when I get back in 2 years. Keep up the great work!

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  5. Woohoo!! Chapter 4 is coming!! Can't wait :)

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  6. Wow. Somebody made a Malaysian translation. Going to check it out

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  7. I just stumbled across this. This is some fantastic work. I too like to paint digitally though I am not at your level. I have been thinking of doing some kind of a graphic novel or comic book. I don't have a smartphone and the only pad I have is a NOOK so I do not know if I can help you by buying the app. I would if I could, and if I ever can I will. Great stuff, keep up the good work. ~Levi

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  8. I've been watching your Youtube videos. One question. What do you do to figure out the best way to create a brush? And have you ever thought of sharing your brushes? Mostly I am curious about the one you used for doing the drawing like a pencil. This project is really inspiring.

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    1. Experimenting with brushes and different settings occupied me throughout the years. Recently I haven't altered my brushes a lot since I concentrate more on what to paint and not how to paint it. In one of the YouTube videos there should be a link to a set of brushes that I use in these videos. However, if you don't find it, just use this link: http://www.wormworldsaga.com/downloads/WWS_Brushes.zip

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    2. Thanks Daniel, I'll check them out. I really got into this and watched a bunch of your videos and such. You were working toward doing Wormworld full time. Did that finally happen for you? I was also thinking of doing a little fan art at some point. Do I just email that to you?

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  9. In July I will be working one year full-time on the Wormworld Saga! That's pretty amazing and I'm going to make a big post about it with some info about the last 12 months. And yes, you can send me fan art simply by email.

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    1. Thats fantastic. Congrats on getting to that goal. Hope you don't mind my questions, I just keep thinking of them. When I was reading your comic on my computer I noticed that the long comic strip was actually broken up into chunks. I was curious if it was one LARGE .jpg or something. Is there a reason for this, my thought was that it cut back on load time perhaps.

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