Over 10.000 reads - Thank you so much!

The end of the year comes close and I just want to thank all of you for your support over the last 12 month. Your comments on my progress and your encouraging words helped me a great deal on my way. It really means a lot to me!

The last 6 days I was overwhelmed by your feedback. The first chapter has already been read over 10.000 times in less then a week. That in my eyes is a tremendous achievement for the starting week of a webcomic. I want to thank every single one of you who spread the word and I also want to thank all the donators who have already created a nice budget for my first advertising run. The next thing on my list now is the opening of the prints shop which you can expect within the next two weeks.

But now it's time to lean back a bit and celebrate the new year! I wish everyone a happy new year 2011 and I hope to see you all around!

Chapter 1 - Here it is!

I don't want to bother you with too much talk here. The first chapter of the Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel is waiting for you! To read it, please visit the brand new Wormworld Saga website at:

wormworldsaga.com

I hope you enjoy it and I'd love to read your comments here on the blog.

I hope you all are having nice Holidays!

The Wormworld Saga begins on 25th December

This year you can look forward to an additional Christmas present! On 25th December I'm going to launch the brand new Wormworld Saga website and the first chapter of the Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel which is titled "The Last Day Of School". I have finished the online formatting of the graphic novel and now I only have to prepare the rest of the content of the website. Here is a preview for those who are curious:

As you can see, I'm going for a compact layout. The whole startpage fits onto an iPad screen which I currently consider to be the best hardware to enjoy the Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel. Of course you will be able to read it on any other hardware, too. Together with the Wormworld Saga website I'm going to launch a Facebook fanpage and I'll update my Deviantart gallery with panel artwork for those who want to enjoy the artwork without word ballons. This blog will remain to be the centre of all news about the Wormworld Saga and the most direct way for you to give me your feedback.

In January I'm going to open up the prints shop. From that point on the Wormworld Saga themed artwork that is currently on sale on daniellieske.com will be sold exclusively on the new website. Ordering the prints will be much easier in the new shop and there will be many new artworks at various price points available.

You may wonder why I chose to launch the Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel on a date on which most people will be offline. Most internet creators are on hiatus over the holidays and would tell you that it's not worth the effort because nobody watches anyway. I considered to hurry up and launch the website before everybody disappears into the holidays. I also considered to delay the launch and start in January when everybody is back at work and hungry for new content. But ultimately I realized that it just would be nice to launch on Christmas. I imagine that everyone who learns about the launch will be happy to have this little additional Christmas treat. And when if not during the holidays might you find some spare time to sit down, relax and dive into a story? Hopefully in a cosy place with some cookies and a hot cup of tea.

Milestone 5 accomplished - It's done!

Today is the day! The day I was not able to imagine at the beginning of the year when I had finished my layout and saw how much work lied before me. You might remember:

But it happened - I finished the last panel today and it feels unreal to me. I cannot imagine NOT to head straight to my computer after work and painting until I'm too tired. Fortunately there's still a lot of work to do before I can present you the first chapter of the Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel. This is my list of tasks that have to be completed before the release can happen:

• Rework of some panels (I'll keep this brief and stay away from the perfectionism trap).
• Finetuning of the writing and preparing a document for proofreading
• Layouting the word balloons
• Composing and color correcting the final artwork
• Creating the website

I have no experience with most of these points and therefore have no idea how long it will take me. My goal is to have the main bulk of work done by the end of November and doing last touches to the website in early December. I definitely want to have everything online before the holidays so we are closing in.

I'll keep you updated!

Digitalartconvention 2010

I'm the admin of a german digital art online community and every year we have a convention (normally in Frankfurt). We had three wonderful days of creativity and inspiration and I want to share a small video with you in which community member Caccaduu has collected some impressions from this year's event.



Caccaduu is also known under the name of Kemane Bâ and he is hell of a creative mind. Illustration, animation, music and film - he does everything with passion and his results are always a joy to watch. You should definitely take a lok at his blog at:

http://kemaneba.blogspot.com/

And in case you're wondering what all these updates are about when instead I should be busy working on the Wormworld Saga I can appeace you: I'm sitting at the last panel right now so expect the next update really soon!

Some Design Changes

Well, maybe it's obsolete to mention but I finally got the chance to realize some changes in the layout of the blog. It now comes closer to the look of my website. I hope you like it.

Journey Around the World - Blizzard Entertainment

Whenever I pack one of my prints of "The Journey Begins" and bring it to the post office I wonder where its journey actually ends. I've already shipped prints of the artwork to many countries and sometimes people tell me where they are planning to place it. I like the idea of my image hanging on the wall of a kid's bedroom or over a cosy fireplace. On one of my recent orders I just had to ask for a photo of the print's new home:

 
Here you see Jason Bender and Wyatt Cheng in an epic struggle to release "The Journey Begins" from the clutches of Diablo himself. Or maybe I'm getting the whole situation wrong and the lord of darkness just did the wonderful framing job on the print and hands the piece over to his satisfied customers. However, I'm happy that this print has found a new home in the Blizzard Entertainment offices and I hope you guys there enjoy it! Thanks for your support!

Well, I enjoy seeing photos of my prints from all around the world and I'd like to share them with the readers of my blog. So, if you happen to own one of my prints of "The Journey Begins" and don't mind sharing a view of its new home (and it's owners, if you like) with me and my blog readers, please send me an email with a photo and soon we'll have a nice little series of blog entries going!

Wormworld®

In January I filed a trademark registration for the term "Wormworld". Only *cough* 10 month (and several thousand Euros) later, I have now finally received my registration certificate from the Office For Harmonization In The Internal Market which means that I can now officially put the ® on the Wormworld.

What totally cracks me up is the name of the President of the OHIM. I hereby officially proclaim that I will include a character named Wubbo in the Wormworld Saga!

Milestone 4 accomplished

I've finally reached my forth milestone! 80% of the artwork for the first chapter of the Wormworld Saga Online Graphic Novel is now done. I should have reached it half a month ago but I was a bit distracted by things that appeared from nowhere. One of these things is, that I'm now represented by a Los Angeles based agency that's trying to find ways to market the Wormworld Saga. Have a look at their website to discover some panel artwork that I haven't shown to you yet! And just in case you are wondering - of course I'm still going to publish the first chapter for free as soon as it's ready. But who knows which other ways the guys of Killing the Grizzly might find to spread the word.

Well, I'm seeing the finish line now and I'm looking forward to the last milestone. It will contain some artwork that I'm longing to paint since the very beginning of the project. Just to give you a hint, this is the last panel of milestone 4:

 Ok, now I'm off to work on the last milestone. I'm getting excited!

Back home

I'm back from my vacation! From a relaxed and sunny Spain I returned to a cold and rainy Germany. At least these are good conditions to work on the computer. Well, If there wasn't that cold that I catched right at my first day home which is plugging up my nose right now.

But hey, there's work to do and I'm ready for the finish run. I'll pick up work on the graphic novel soon and I hope that the last 30% of the artwork will come out smoothely.

I know, I promised a lot of sketches before I left. Turned out that I mainly wrote story notes when I picked up my sketchbook in Spain. And the few sketches I actually did, all contain elements that I can't show you just yet. But I have a pencil drawing that I can show you. I drew it yesterday and it's a goody for someone who ordered a print which I was hoping to be able to dispatch before my vacation started but that didn't work out. He had to wait the three weeks before I finally was able to send out the package yesterday. I like to compensate for inconvenience of that sort and what better way is there than sending an original - and therefore unique - pencil drawing?

I don't draw a lot with pencils these days and it's really fun when there's an occasion like this. I might even create some drawings in the future and offer them on my website along with the digital prints. Man, I should stop promising stuff that I'm not sure about to happen! Well, you can always order a print and hope for me screwing up if you want to get one of these. :)

Ok, I hope for some good news on my next update.