Slime Mansion

It's been a little longer since the last entry than I had hoped for, but I'm back for some more site updates! A lot of things have been going on in the backend lately, including a server change that should speed things up a bit, and a slightly updated layout! I had quickly grown tired of the duller colors of the original new layout, so I adjusted the color scheme to have more contrast, and I decreased the size of the header a little too so that it's less overpowering.

Also, the three weeks before the new semester started I'd been working on figuring out a new shopping cart script for this site, because previously I had used this other program (Zen Cart) that was kind of ghetto!! It did its job but it was a major pain in the butt to use, and it was lacking a certain level of customization.

Namely how I wanted two stores to share the same product IDs and database and cart, but have different layouts with only certain products appearing in each store. If you ever tried to use the Shop link here, you may have been a little jarred by the fact that it takes you to a separate website with a separate layout and everything--I didn't want that! :O I want Directions of Destiny to be its own site and I wanted visitors have a more streamlined experience when they browse this site.

Long story short, I managed to find Magento, the perfect open-source shopping cart script that does everything I want, and after weeks of burrowing myself deep in code and support forums, I've finally finished the New Alatus Gift Shop!

Annnd the feature item right now is the new Section 2.1 book for only $4! :O! This was something I printed back in the summer to try to promote my comic at the summer conventions, and I've finally gotten around to making it available online. For those of you who were around back then, it is similar to the first mini-book I released back in 2005 for Sections 1.1 and 1.2, but this time it's just one chapter, but with lots of extra content! Notably, I've included a full breakdown of my comic-making process in the book, and there are a few new minicomic strips as well as some sketches and other stuff!

For the time being my store on my personal website is closed, but the cool thing is that when I get around to putting it back up I'll be able to have both that and the Alatus Gift Shop share the same shopping cart and everything ahhh I'm so excited Dx! Anyway, I think that pretty much fully wraps up all the site-maintenance stuff for Directions of Destiny, so from here on out I should be putting up much more comic-related content :D Check back soon!

As you may have noticed, I've managed to put up a new layout for this site like I said I would in the last entry! I hope that it makes it much easier to get around and more visually appealing for you. :D Also like I said, with this big ol' blog space on the front page, I plan to update more often throughout this year with various sketches and art and stuff related to the comic as I flesh out the script for the rest of the story. Please check back every now and then if you're interested!

As a bonus, here's the line-art for the two header character art I've done so far. Instead of using a pen to ink the line-art, I drew the sketch in blue pencil and "inked" it with pencil, and so I like the nice softer effect it leaves? I plan to add header art for the rest of the characcters too in my spare time.

A lot of things were going a little haywire in the background over the last few days as I was putting this up, but I think most things should be working properly now? If you find anything that doesn't work, please comment in this entry to let me know about it, or if you have any suggestions you should leave a note as well :>

I have come to give you a report! I-it's not good news, but it's not bad news either really. It's...okay news?

After years of on-and-off hiatuses, I think I've finally come to realize that I'm probably just not built to tackle school and regularly update an on-going comic at once. D: That said, I have one year left and I'm graduating next December if everything goes as planned!! (I-if it seems like I've been in college forever, that's pretty much been the case.) BUT that doesn't necessarily mean that I won't update the comic at all until then!!

I started this comic out in a really haphazard manner, and even after so long, sometimes I would go straight into drawing after only scripting out a few pages in advance. It worked in getting me to just DRAW, and my comic-drawing skills have improved a lot from when I first began, but now I really want the story and the concept to hold up with the art!

Over the past several months I've been developing the Alatus Institute further, working out the details to the building exteriors and interiors, adding more structures to the campus, and fleshing out the surrounding landscapes and towns around the school and stuff. I've also been taking out two birds with one stone by making many of my school projects directly correlate with my plans for the comic, and lately I've been really into drawing environments, so what I hope this leads to is an Alatus Institute that is much more REAL.

Another idea I've been entertaining is turning alatusinstitute.com into an official school website, where information about the school can be posted along with other fun things, like blogs for each of the student council members, and regularly updated minicomics! Although minicomics aren't substitutes for real comic pages that progress the main story, they ARE a lot easier to draw inbetween classes and don't require any planning. I really want to go through with this idea soon so that I can at least share the fun I'm having with my characters before the real comic pages continue updating.

Finally, I've been thinking much more about storycrafting and plot structure over the past year. I've been reading a lot of books on writing, and from there I've been further solidifying my story--laying out all the scenes in the entire comic from here until the end and making sure every scene is constantly driving towards the finale and no panels are wasted on boring things that make a story drag! I've been making a lot of notes on the rest of the story that will get organized and polished into full scripted thumbnails which I plan to show my friends so that I can get some good feedback before drawing them out and publishing it online. I'm really pumped about taking writing more seriously!! :D

With all these things going on in the background, I really don't want to keep it all to myself! In two weeks winter break will come, and the first thing on my agenda is to redesign this website. It'll feature a more accessible and streamlined layout that is more blog-friendly so big-ol' written entries like this won't feel so cramped. I also want to post a lot of the concept art I've been doing, plus random sketches of the characters, and maybe occasionally story thumbnails and things like that to get reader feedback! It'll make things much more interactive around here, and by constantly updating with what's going on and getting lots of input, I hope that it'll make the comic even better!

I hope to have the new site done in January 2010, so check back often :D Until then, if you have anything you'd like to see in the new Directions of Destiny website and/or the Alatus website, or if you have any issues with or comments on the current layout, comment back and let me know!!

I sketch Azalea a lot when I'm bored :B These were some from last year.

Another sketch from last year for somebody who donated money to me *_*

And some sketches of Magnolia too :D

These were sketches done of Rupert last year before I started drawing the actual comic. I guess it's sort of like pre-production, except my thought process when it comes to comics is not nearly as refined and polished enough to really label it as such. 8D() A bit of experimentation with different outfits and minor changes to his hair going on, with a bit of extreme winter sports thrown in there. o_o

As always my thumbnails are a complete mess and indecipherable to anybody but myself. And yes, a lot of the panel boxes are empty too--usually if I just place the box where it's supposed to go in the thumbnail, it gives me enough of a reminder as to what's gonna go in there. If you can even tell what's going on, the final layout ended up a tad bit different, but for the most part it's all there? ah ha ha why am I even posting this _-_