drugsandwires

Word Puzzle! + ramblings

Hey, so this morning I received an email from my printer saying how issue 1 & 2 reprints are going to be more expensive with the new printing process unless I add 4 extra pages for a more efficient sheet distribution. Turns out 32 pages fit on a single sheet perfectly, while 28 have to be spread out onto 2. 

Anyway, issue 1 already had 4 pages of filler, so I left it as it is, but since Issue 2 only had one, I added the 4 pages - mostly consisting of that original cover with Marilyn Hope-Fokker, some pencils/inks and stuff everyone's...

Early Update: Fear_and_Loading

It's been a while since we checked up on Unylsk's most infamous mindtripper 'zine, but it looks like the new management is working out just fine. 

Drugs & Wires Patron Discount

Good news, everyone - I'm launching pre-orders for issue 3 to help me with the costs and all our patrons are getting a 20% discount!

Just use the code DWPATRON20 at the checkout - it's active till 14th April. If it doesn't work for whatever reason, let me know!

In addition to that, if your lifetime contributions to us equal $30 or more, you can get a free sketch with your order - I realise there's no easy way for you to check how much you've paid in, so no worries - all qualifying parties will get a mes...

Issue 4: Dan gets rehabilitated

Many of you want Dan to be happy and healthy in the comments, and here at D&W HQ we're all about reader's feedback. That's why starting next chapter Dan's life is gonna get a whole lot more wholesome and filled with purpose. We're also renaming the comic by removing "Drugs" from the title to make it friendlier to the audiences and work better with all the new content we've got planned. Hope you're as excited for the new chapter as we are!

Blue Pill Arcade Thumbs III

Ok, so these thumbs are so terrible even I can't make out what's going on in half of them. But I'm still working on the story so here's proof at the very least. I've decided I'd rather fight my block and thumbnail it in any way I can then edit later than make no progress whatsoever. Once these are done and are somewhat coherent  I'll make the edits to our actual script and have Io take a look and probably tell me to go to hell for ruining his hard work in the first place. I keep marketing this as "...

Issue 3 Cover

Some of you might remember that I had two drafts  for the cover of chapter 3. Originally we had a bit of a miscommunication with Io and as a result i picked the one none of us actually wanted! So yeah, now that I'm about to release a print version for it, I thought I'd redo it how I wanted to. I decided that the painterly soft look wasn't really my thing either and went with simple bold colours and cellshading. I dunno, i just think it grabs the eye more and works bette...

Chapter 3 - Pages 30-31 (chapter finale)

Link to the last page in case it gets resized. 

So yeah, this is it. End of chapter 3! I'll be taking a month long comic vacation from now - shorter than our previous breaks, and hopefully I'll put it to good use and make plenty of exclusive content in the meantime!

Chapter 3 Page 29

..Nothing good's gonna come out of this. At some point Io wrote out the return of the flyer out of the script, but I basically kept bugging him until he put it back. I just thought it's a great use of the prop :p 

Abyss Cafe hasn't been a thing yet, but it will be eventually! In the meantime, here's a loyalty card Dan completely fails to make use of: 

And yes, it's the same "beatnik hell" Lin refers to in Chapter 2 so you can probably imagine what kind of place it is.

And ...

Eve: 2012 vs 2017

Greetings, patrons who stayed with us ;) Thanks for supporting us in February and I hope we'll keep delivering content that's worth your while! :D

So I was looking through some random documents folder and found this doodle I did in Tegaki (online drawing app back then) of proto-Eve. It was definitely pre-Dreamspace comics, way before I had her personality down or even a basic design. I knew two things - that I liked drawing sad edgy punk girls and that Dan's miserable life wouldn't be complete without a failed relationship to mop about. So, E...

Chapter 3 Page 28

Time spent pencilling: 10%

Time spent colouring:10%

Time spent tweaking stubble transparency sliders to start Dan off on his Sad Addict Beard journey: 80%

So far I haven't been happy with a single Legit HQ page I've done, so I was determined on rethinking the lighting in this one. I opted for natural lighting, although it did require inventing a window in a place that probably wouldn't have it, but, uh, details?

I'm going to hell

You know how a couple years back I posted a D&W shoujo parody cover and everyone was like "Yeaah do more of that!"

Well. I'm drawing these things unironically now. Unless Io comes over to my house and sets my Cintiq on fire, which he totally should do.

But no, I'll probably come up with a better one later. I kind of fucked up a lot of things in this drawing wise, but I was determined to use my insomnia for evil. I should probably start drawing the damn comic before i mess around with covers anyway

Also, needs way more random a...

Blue Pill Arcade - Thumbs II

So, uh, yes, somehow i'm 18 pages in on this thing. It's currently a mixture of Io's existing script and me writing stuff in right into thumbnails and I barely know what I'm doing here. This is probably gonna need a lot of overhauling, but i figured I'd see how far I can get before I give up.

Chapter 3 Page 27 + commentary

Taking a break from Dan's drug antics this week to this guy making an appearance. Since this character is one of the most spoilerific things in the comic, there isn't much I can tell you about him. Sorry!

This page was pretty straightforward. Though I made it over my first stream with a mic and cam on, so that did lead to me distracting and making some mistakes - namely, i had to add the headphones to panels 3 and 4 at the last minute. I also feel like I could've done a better job with the layout of panels 6 and 7, but that was definitely too...

Someone You Might Or Might Not See In Chapter 4

That's right, I'm gonna spoil you a bit. Real, non-Ghostly Eve's coming back and, well, she's gone through a bit of a makeover. I don't even know what inspired that look other than she reminds me of my primary school teacher, but if anyone from the Dreamspace crew had to mature out of their goth  phase, it's gotta be her. 

Seems like being away from Dan does people good? Or...does it? *suspenseful music*

Chapter 3 Page 26

Our heroin adventure ends here. Took a bit of an artistic licence when portraying the trip, so hopefully we won't have people coming in saying "ummm actualy it's not heroin", like we do with all the technical aspects :P Should be fine, though. 

 The original page was planned as an extra and only had 6 panels in. I had to add a couple of extras so we can wrap up the scene here, though it did make the page a bit too busy. In general I don't like switching scenes/environments within a page as it makes it too broken up, and yet I KEEP D...

Chapter 3 Page 26 - Lineart Only

Well, my plan to post updates early is repeatedly failing. So here's the progress of tonight's stream! 

Blue Pill Arcade - Thumbs I

FULL SIZE IMAGE HERE 

So you know how we've been wanting to revamp the original prequel for ages? Well, after having this script lying around for ages, i thought I'd start laying it out and filling out the blanks as I go along. Now that I've got the time and with DW hiatus approaching, i think now is a good time to do it. I also want people to learn more about Eve and the ops and Dan's relationship with all of them before the next chapter! Not sure how we'll go about ...

Chapter 3 Page 25 (+ page 26 layout)

Welp, not much to say here, but Dan seems to have gotten what he came there for. I was contemplating adding some animation, but it was a bit too late in the game.  Might still do some for the next page, though! Speaking of next page, if you don't mind spoilers, here's my initial layout/ writing pass here. 

Chapter 3 Page 24

And it's done. I don't have many warm colour schemes in this comic so i kind of went full orange with this. ...the final panel came out mildly suggestive which led to people cracking terrible jokes the entire stream :p Can't wait for comments. Sigh :D

Ch3Page25 Pencils + Layout Passes

Hey, here's the page I'm gonna be wrapping up tonight!

I guess now's a good time to show how this scene came together, because to this day this is probably the most iterations we've gone through. I'm sure Io's  gonna post his script drafts later, but in the meantime here are some layouts of my own.

To start off, I should mention the whole heroin scene wasn't in the script to begin with. But every now and again I'll get incredibly stubborn about something, and "Dan should try heroin before chapter 4 events" was one of those things, ...

Chapter 3 Page 23 +scribbles

So I can't put up our preliminary drafts for this week just yet because spoilers, but there was quite a few. Like we actually didn't know what the next scene was gonna be  until 2 days before posting (mostly due to me constantly butting into Io's process with Opinions). 

I kind of really wanted Rock Bottom chapter to feel like, well, rock bottom,  so I felt like hard drugs were appropriate. Especially after spending entirely too much time on /r/opiates and watching some vice documentaries. In fact, there's even this, uh,  ...

Chapter 3 Page 22

Ah yes, the montage page. Due to our pacing and tons of things happening in the comic we didn't get to get Dan hooked on the stuff properly. Hard to believe it, but since the start of the comic, the story's only moved by like 3 days. Anyway, some future events required that Dan develops a habit, so we had to speed things up.  Io's probably gonna tell you more about that bit getting written and rewritten over and over again in his script commentary later.

Fun fact: I used an actual '95 calendar for this, and it turned out Dan's been worki...

Chapter 3 Page 21

Back from the break with an actual update, at last :) Dan having a bit of a meltdown after 5 pages spent in Fixer's chair. Can't blame him too much.

This was fun to do. I was worried about panel 3 and tried to find a good ref, but it seems that extreme poses are actually easier for me than subtle ones, I'm fairly happy with how it came out.

Fun fact: We're still not 100% sure how the next couple of pages are gonna pan out, hence why I haven't posted the layouts yet. Apparently I'm in charge of the drugs in D&W, but I've been anythin...

More prequel arts?

when you want to test some Clip Studio brushes and accidentally stay up till 5am

...someone find me a fandom so I can stop ruining our comic

New Year Gifts II part 2

Seeing how we seem to have lost 3 or 4 patrons after posting the last strip, I should have probably learned my lesson, but hey, I promised part 2 so here it is. 

I'm not entirely sure why I keep insisting on writing SIM a bit on the murdery side, but hey, at least it's kind of consistent.

New Year Gifts II

Kind of a sequel to last year's NYE extra . Dan clearly hasn't learned his lesson. I've got another strip in the making where Lin returns the favour which I'll try to wrap up tomorrow!

In the meantime, happy new year, everyone!

Chapter 3 Page 20

Managed to finish this up before going away for Christmas, which means patrons actually get a page early for once \o/

This one seemed to have gone fairly smoothly considering I've done it over work days. Lack of backgrounds might have something to do with it. 

Couple of layouts. (spoilers?)

Layouts remain to be the trickiest part of the process. Here's the current page and two upcoming ones.  I'm leaving to see my family for Christmas/New Year, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish those on time, however ideally I'd really like to wrap up the Fixer shop scene before we go on holiday, so I'll do my best in the next couple of days. At the very least I'll try to post a WIP here before I leave!

Chapter 3 Page 19

Our longest, most decompressed scene to this day continues. Next update is the last one we spend in Fixer's shop and I can't wait to get the hell out of there. Seems like Dan shares my feelings on this. Still, next page is pretty important so I better nail it.

I had some issues saving out the final version of this page and some of my corrections ended up missing. I fixed what I could, but the joy of producing a page over the weekend is that at some point I just have to stop and post the damn thing. 

Side comic character concepts

So seeing how I'll be freelancing next year and might actually try harder to make this comic work (if I'm not buried under work for hire stuff), I decided to dig up a side comic me and Io started and do a bit more drawing (and a bit of writing) on it. Can't reveal much plot-wise yet other than it will be dealing with Lin's background which I'm sure many will find fascinating :D I don't think I'd have it freely available, but it would be a great material for Patrons and a printed/PDF edition once it's complete.

Consistency is a huge issue for ...