Where the Wild Things Are

So this weekend, I went to see Where the Wild Things Are. I wasn't sure what to expect from the film, but I was hoping that it would at least leave me feeling happy.

The film, overall, was good. But I must say that it was not what I was expecting.

There's so much psychology about the film: clinging on to people, not seeing how your actions end up hurting those you love, expecting others to lead you to happiness. I'm actually surprised the film got away with a PG rating.

At the very beginning of the film, the main character Max is chasing what is presumably the family dog. He eventually tackles the dog and proceeds to wrestle with it. Very violently. Now, this would be okay... if they actually told you what happened to the dog. You don't see it for the rest of the movie. Which seems a little... disturbing.

Still, I enjoyed it. It was a pleasant film that definitely went to interesting lengths to get its message across. Though, I'd say watch it yourself before letting your kids see it.

Anniversaries and moving

So November 7th will be the one year anniversary for Lumia's Kingdom. That's right. One full year of inundating you people with my horrible inking, my flawed panel continuity (gestalt be damned!), my tacky racially motivated pun towards bird brains and, let's not forget, naked kings.

How do I plan on spending it?

By packing up boxes and moving into a new apartment!

Lemme explain.

Sadly, my roommate, despite all his awesomeness, could not find employment. And so, after almost a year of working on his portfolio, sending out resumes and hoping for the best, he's decided to leave the hotter-than-hell world of SoCal and move in with his family in the colder-than-hell world of Michigan. And, given how expensive it is to live out here, I can't financially handle living in an apartment by myself.

But as luck would have it, some friends of mine are in need of a roommate. So if all goes well with a meeting with their apartment manager, I will be moving in with them later this month.

Of course, this means that there won't be any regular page updates for Lumia's Kingdom for a while. I do plan to edit some of the website, but the actual comic is on hiatus until I can relocate and unpack everything.

So in the mean time, subscribe to the RSS feed, join the email list, follow me on Twitter, or park yourself right here for updates on when I'll return.

And if anyone has anything they'd like to submit while the comic is on hiatus, drop me a line.

Hope to be drawing for you guys again soon :)

Another preview!

Here's a preview of page 65! Don't look if you don't want it spoiled!

Page 64 rough

I'm experimenting with the digital process still. I don't so much like it for making the final piece, but I've discovered it's flexibility for refining roughs at a lower resolution. So today, I did "digital pencils" instead of "digital inks". The digital pencils are done at a resolution of 100DPI (I typically scan my inks at 300DPI). I also see that it's good with spotting out potentially nice areas of black. Adds more contrast to the page.

So the thumbnail started off like this:



I took it into the GIMP and refined it some more so that it looks like this:



Now, I'm gonna take a break and then come back to it later. If I decide nothing needs to be changed, I'll convert all the black to magenta, print it out and ink it by hand :3

Some concept art

Here's two pieces of concept art I did tonight.

Advertisements are live

I've been approved by Project Wonderful to host their ads on the LK website. My goal at this point is to make enough money so that I can indulge in chewing one gumball each day.

Nom nom nom.

On story progression & making new characters

I'm extremely guilty of playing things by ear, even if I have an idea of where I want things to go overall. Of course, we tend not to focus on the little details until they're immediately in front of us. Then, when the deadline rolls around, it's like "Oh, crap, I gotta put something out now!" And it's very tempting to write a farts-and-dicks joke just to keep the current gag going, but sooner or later, it can bite you back and it often hurts.

I've been trying to keep things moving at a decent pace but trying to make sure they stay interesting at the same time. Last Friday's page is an example of this; I didn't really have an idea of what I was going to do when I made the page thumbnail on Wednesday. I figured, "I'll just do another Lumia versus Camilla comic and call it a day!" But before I began, I realized that in the long run, I still have a lot of ground to cover with other characters that I haven't touched as much. Sure, Lumia's got her plate full with the R-MUTT and the palace doors and the queens, but what about Ott and Jordan? What about Kitty and the alleyway bums? And did Marceaux survive his epic toss out of that window??

So I think I was wise to deviate a bit and do a strip about Antoine and Leon remembering the good ol' days. And, if you caught it, I hinted at something else as well ;)

The deviation, I feel, should prove to be a nice segue into these next couple of pages.

...Which, ironically, aren't written down yet, but at least I know what I'm gonna do for them!

I actually took time to brainstorm a bit and doodle some (I don't doodle enough. You can chalk that up to my free time being spent too much on game design) and I came up with a new character to push the story forward.

But I can already hear you: Tamar, are you insane? A NEW character? But you've already hinted at two characters (Violette and Etienne) that haven't even appeared yet!

Well, hear me out. This character plays an immediate role in the page I have planned for Friday, October 17th. They will help bridge a gap between current characters and characters that haven't appeared yet.

Oh, here we go again. MORE new characters? Are you serious?

Well, wait a second, let me clarify. Settle down. Yes, more characters are on the way. The slew of characters that have yet to be drawn have a pretty big role in this story arc. And maybe beyond the story arc as well (I haven't decided yet).

Hell, they've had a pretty big role in my life...

But I said the character in next Friday's page will be new. Technically, the characters after that aren't all that new.

If you catch my drift :D