Still experimenting with coloring techniques in Photoshop, so things might look a bit different from page to page. It’s a fun learning process though

No your eyes are not playing tricks on you, this page really is in color. As some of you might remember, I’ve contemplated making this switch before. Partly it’s because some things are hard to depict in black and white (e.g., one distinguishing characteristic of the famed Red Hare is, well, that it’s red). I’ve also always wanted to experiment with coloring digitally, and I figured this is the place to do it. So for now at least the pages will be in color, we’ll see how it goes…

I know it’s been awhile, but I was still a bit shocked when I realized my last update was last October. Holy macaroni if that is not ridiculous… Well for those of you who followed this comic before, the reason for the delay has stayed the same – my little science illustration gig has grown from a once-in-a-blue-moon kinda thing, to a skip-dinner-so-I-can-make-deadline monstrosity. OK I’m exaggerating, I don’t skip dinner for anything. But still, you get the gist… On top of that I decided to try painting with Photoshop for really the first time, so the ensuing learning curve didn’t help either. But anyway, finally here’s the cover for the newest chapter, with more updates to come hopefully at a more reasonable frequency. Like more than once every 5 months. I know, lofty goals over here

Phew! It took a lot longer than I anticipated to get to the end of this chapter, because of my little illustrating side job (which is still going on, in case anyone’s wondering – in fact I have a couple of big deadlines coming up, so the next update probably won’t be till December March), but finally we’re here. I think I’ll stick to the digital drawing for the foreseeable future, it’s just sooo much faster… but I do plan to experiment with some changes in chapter 3, so like our friend Dong Zhou, I’m looking forward to the next chapter, hopefully my efforts will pan out better than his

During the Han Dynasty, the highest civilian authority was held by a ruling triumvirate, know as the Three Excellencies. By the time depicted in this comic, five members of the Yuan family, over four consecutive generations, had taken position as one of the Three Excellencies (including Yuan Shao’s uncle Yuan Wei, who held the post of Tai Fu). As a result, the Yuan clan was one of the mostly powerful and deeply connected families at the time.

One of the best things about digital drawing is the ability to zoom in and out… the little details on the 1st and last panels used to be pretty tiring on the eyes to draw, now they’re a snap

As many of you already know, Dong Zhou was one sick dude. Our eunuch really did get off easy…

I’m sure many of you will notice that this update looks different, some of you might even realize why – this is the first page I’ve drawn completely on the computer. Ta da!

I have a number of reasons for finally joining the “dark side”, but the most important one is time – it just takes so much longer to do a page with traditional media, and as I mentioned a few posts back, free “art time” has been mighty hard to come by for me lately… so I’m hoping that by drawing the pages digitally I’ll be able to update more frequently. My goal is to make the digital images look just like they were drawn with an ink brush. They’re not there yet, but hopefully with more practice I’ll get there in the not-too-distant future.

To quote one of our very astute readers, “Oh crap, it’s Dong Zhuo!”

I’ve scanned the last page at different stages of completion and put those up on the new “process” page, for anyone who’s interested.

Ever had one of those days at work when you just want to wring somebody’s neck?

No? Me neither

I scanned this page at different stages of completion, those will be posted soon also.