The plush panda is pretty much done. There's still some mild tweaking to be done, some of the stitching is really rough, and the goggles are still in the shop, but on the whole it's set. I'll be finishing up the goggles after I get some sleep, and I should have more pictures and a rundown of what's gone on so far up in the forum at some point over the weekend.
With luck I can be sending this one out next week, and we should be getting the final factory prototype back by the end of February.
I'll explain more when I wake up :P
Well I'm nearing completion on the "final" prototype. The whole thing is sewn together and all the parts are more or less in the right place. Things left to do include...
Repositioning the legs, they're too far back. This will be the fourth time I've had to do this, after the first two I redid the lower body completely.
Adding tension lines in the head to help it keep the proper shape. Being fabric, everything likes to balloon outward.
Repositioning the eyes and constructing the goggles. The goggles are going to be tricky. The ones that came back from the factory were great, but way too big to be workable. I've been toying around with various concept patterns, but I can't put them together till the rest of the panda is finalized.
I am going to have a section up in the forums later this week, once the body is finalized, with pictures of the process. I apologize again for the lack of comics while I work on this, and I hope you all appreciate it when it's done.
On the whole, it's looking fantastic, and I couldn't be happier :)
2 more panels more or less finished. The rest should be done early on Thursday. I hope.
Unfortunately I can tell you for sure now that you're gonna have to wait an extra week to find out what's being revealed in that yawning chasm. The plush Pandas demand attention, or I may not have them in time for convention season. So Thursday evening I'll be finishing the latest prototype and making corrections from it to the patterns. I'll be putting together what I hope to be the final prototype over the weekend. It will still need to be revised by the factory peoples to ensure they can mass produce it, and I'll likely get a slightly different version back in a month or so, but I'm working hard to make this as accurate and replicateable as possible.
Once the Panda is finished and in the mail to the plush people I will finally put up a summary of the process, and show you what's been going on with it over the past many months. It's been something, lemme tell you...
Found my Daisy Cutter book, btw. Still have no clue what I'm doing, but it has helped.
I freely admit I may have bit off more than I can chew with this latest strip, but that's what happens when you try new styles.
I'm still not quite happy with the look. I'm trying to find a simpler style that still has a degree of texture to it. I can tell you this isn't it, but it's still fun to play around with.
Really wish I could find my Daisy Cutter book, there was a couple pages in the back where Kazu explains how he does the shading. Very much in the vein of the look I'm going for.
The plush Panda prototype is marching right along. The first draft went together in just a couple days, before I had to break and start this strip. All that's left is to sew up his bottom, and start making corrections. It's looking pretty good for a first time job, I think. Made lots of mistakes, but made patterns for everything before I put it together, so making corrections is going to be easy.
I'd put up pictures, and I am working on a progress report to be posted in the forum sometime this month, but I really want to have version 2 at least partially completed before you all see any of what's gone on so far. You'll see why.
Fun things are about to happen, btw. Some of you may have noticed that the strip has been differant lately in a lot of ways. There's reasons for that, which I'll be able to talk about soon. I've finally made a decision as to what happens after strip 101. This one here is 99, so it was kinda getting to be crunch time. But someone out there gave me exactly the kind of inspiration I needed.
Hopefully I can properly repay them...
This looks very promising. I was very surprised to see they were sticking to the first game plot wise, but that's fine by me. Seems like they're using some stuff from 2 also, like that really long staircase... when you're walking down, and then you start to hear the air-raid siren...
The alternate world looks really accurate too. And they've got the nurses and the mannequins. Man, I am officially excited.
All I ask now is for the ghost babies from the school. Those things still creep the hell out of me.
All I gotta say is, this better be good.
Teaser looks decent, but who knows, I freakin' love Silent Hill.