readyart
patreon
Are you a fan of the Comics here? Read This!
🕑 Added 2019-03-02 11:59:11 +0000 UTC*******************************************************
Check out the NEW COMIC FAQ HERE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/10540827
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This is directed mostly at the friends and fans of the comics tier and the comics themselves. I don't want you to feel left out! For the most part I have been letting the comic tier rumble along without a lot of worry. Occasionally I get feedback from the crew who enjoy the art and stories.
I want to drop a line to YOU specifically if you are one of the comic lovers!
Right off the bat, something you should know...
Just to be clear, there is no "comic section" on the Patreon, all comics are on the main site. You access all the art galleries and download sections there with your Patreon account. No comic art is stored here.
Comic Gallery: https://www.readyartzone.com/patreon/
User Feedback
From qwerpyblah (a longtime friend and fan). I wouldn't normally call out someone specifically but since this was publicly posted here it's not like you won't be able to suss it out anyway.
“not bad, but it's already feeling rather repetitive(I think releasing your stories piecemeal exacerbates the problem, well that and if we're being honest most of your comics have maybe 10 to 20 pages of actual story and stretching them out to 50-100 pages with a bunch of padding and repetitive growth scenes doesn't help, personally I'd suggest just dumping them all at once if they're done and move on to the next one), hopefully we start seeing some swerves by the next update”
Let's walk through some of this.
Release schedule Part 1 - this comes up A LOT. I think people might be hearing things like "hey, I've got X thousand pages ready to go" and assume those are a button press away from a gallery upload. They are not. 99.99% of those pages are not lettered and that is a ton of work. I do that work week to week in between my other work on the Patreon and my other work in… LIFE. Haha So yah, there is no backlog that's a moment away upload.
Release Schedule Part 2 - Ok, let's assume I did have all those comics actually ready to go. What if I dumped 100-200 pages all at once or every month? Well, I would burn through most of the comics in short order even if I had 1000’s of pages. I don’t draw THAT fast and the most likely scenario is I would be out of content before this year was up. Now we can argue about that one way or another but the point is ‘then what?’ I don’t draw hundreds of pages a month to keep that pace so we would probably revert to a much slower and less consistent release schedule than we have now. In fact, if you want a sense of the pacing then look at the main site. I dump ONLY entire comics there and its months between releases.
The story pacing in general – I cannot disagree about this one. I have been working recently to add a lot more ‘sense’ to the story but some of those updates are a way off at the current pace. Still, I do care and I do listen!
“So Ready, yah, that’s all great but what the fug are you doing to address all this?!?”
Well, I already did it. I asked for help and started looking for paid collaboration partners. This was for people to help address things like the coloring, lettering and the story. Many awesome people responded and unfortunately many people fell off for one reason or another (life, other commitments, the workload, etc.). At this point I am likely to put out the call again for help but believe me I am always on the look out for assistance.
As you might already know, the Patreon itself has other tiers which require time and when I asked the patrons and public, most people said they wanted animation, so we have that! It’s a huge success. We ran the Patreon here for years under comics and it barely grew at all. I added animation and it jumped in size. That’s not a problem or an excuse, it’s just a fact.
I get that people who like the comics are passionate and I will do what I can to make things on the comics awesome. I just need reasonable and doable solutions. My time and efforts can only go so far and switching to full time 2D comics work isn’t an option at the moment. Still, maybe there is an idea I haven’t considered.
Some quick answers
Releasing all the comics or comics at a faster pace – not likely without some things changing (see above)
Full Color Comics – I would love this but I would need a colorist. Suggestions welcome as the ones I spoke with already have petered out
Better Dialog and Story – looking into this one always. I have spoken with a lot of people and the deal is this magical person must be willing to work within the GLab universe. A few writers wanted to collab but they wanted to do new stuff with me versus going through my old comics to ‘fix’ them (and who can blame them?). I need people who want to dive through my CURRENT work and help with that.
Are all the comics available for download anywhere? - Comics for download are only available as month to month patron rewards and only in sections of 40 or so pages. There is currently no plan or way to grab all the old comics and new comics as a complete download. That might change one day but at the moment they are only in the galleries on my main site.
So yep, I am right there with you when I hear “Let’s do what we can to make this awesome!”
Thanks, and as always suggestions welcome.
-Ready
Comments
Ready Art
Hey thanks for that very thoughtful response. Great to hear from you and I appreciate your support along with all the others who have stuck in there for the long haul. A few things: One, I always work to improve my art and bring my best to not only myself but my fans. It starts with me being happy and I do hope to bring that to you too. Two, I think your assessment of the comics is spot on and it’s exactly what I have been working on for the last while. When I put out the call last year for collaborators, I was looking for a reboot/reintegration of the series. Less of a total reboot and more of a consolidation of what was already there. Basically, some clever writing partner that could help me gather up the loose ends and have everything make a lot more sense. So yes, I think that would be a good idea and, let’s be honest, a not small task given the amount of characters and backlog to all the stories. I’m not looking to diminish what you are suggesting, only pointing out we are talking about a lot of work. Three, yep again, I am using the animation tier to tell GLab stories. I agree most people in that tier likely want awesome transformation animations over all else but if I can put in some Glab related work while I do it – so be it. Four, a writing tier? Hadn’t considered that but sounds interesting. I am not sure what you mean by it though in terms of what it would entail. Thanks again and I do appreciate the great input!
Abazaba
Well maybe once you are through the back log. Try doing a soft reboot of sorts, essentially taking what you have and using it to retool your universe. Since you already seem to have a story in mind, use what you have to refocus that story. Make an outline, one that takes you from the start of the story to where you want to go. Then take the pieces you have already done and use them. Clean the up, and use the sketch parts and use them to make more detailed images. This is something you seemed to start doing with Glab. Now it is just a matter of continuing to refine it, maybe even combining episodes. Even skipping some things that are more story elements and just writing them down in story form without pictures. Then using those parts to stitch the comic pages together. This would mean you would need less dialog on the comic pages, and they could be used mostly for process, and background work that adds to the story. Think of the art more as concept art, and process pieces rather than a full comic. Once you have that then you can better form it into a comic format if you choose to later. Additionaly think about using the animation tier as tool for your comic. Rather than doing a random scene use it to make a process scene in the comic into an animation. This would let you hit two birds with a single stone, and give you more time as well. More or less thinking about the story as a whole, and forming the process scenes around that. Since I would go out on a limb and assume many of your patrons care little for the universe and story and just want to see the process comics/animation. So use that to your advantage and draw out as little of the story elements as possible. Also in that vain, you could start a writing tier. Since I am sure there are those who might be willing to spend on just that. This would give you more motivation to do more writing and universe building without the drawing aspect. Lastly don’t worry about us so much. Most of us have followed you for a long time now. We want you to do what is going to keep you motivated. So if that means less content for a while while you focus on other aspects of the universe. I think most of us would be down for that, if it creates a better product in the long run.
Ready Art
Yah, as I said above, right now the thing I am looking for is a solution addressing the production of the comics versus ways to drain out the surplus I have going. Any idea involving something along the lines of "Hey just drop X more pages a month" isn't ideal for me. I'd like to increase the quality (add color, improve overall plotting, production help) as well as address the basic creation of the work I already have BEFORE I start unloading all the work I have stockpiled. I also mentioned above there is still the lettering to do and though minor, it's not a nothing job. If anything changes though - you all will be the first to know.
Louis Thomas
I wouldn't mind the weekly comics being upped to 15 pages
Ready Art
Yep, can't disagree and the Soap Opera effect is exactly the result of the pacing at the moment, hence the request for help. I think you are pointing at EXACTLY the correct solution, less pages and more production per story. Basically, 20-30 pages of highly produced work might end up requiring as much time as 200 pages of looser Soap Opera content. Ideally though, I can get some help and I will keep everyone posted. Again, to be clear, I would LOVE to have a 20-40 page color output of comics if possible or reasonable, along with all the other Patreon commitments!
qwerpyblah
that was a good response(and I'm glad my intentions came across clear, I would have hated it if my comment had upset you), after giving it some thought since I posted that comment, personally I think the best solution for future comics once you get through the backlog that's currently made(maybe even do some tweaking to some of them if necessary) would be to do shorter, more tightly paced comics, like try for 30 to 50 page comics, obviously if a story needs to go longer than do it though(Growth Labs 4 & 6, which I still consider to be among your best comics were 47 pages and 59 pages respectively for example), also might be a good idea to shift focus to some different characters once this arc in your backlog is done, I think part of the repetitiveness comes from the fact that recent stories have mostly focused on the same 5-10 characters(not counting nameless grunts), so there's been a bit of a "Soap Opera" effect where it feels like not much is happening
