Lessons in Pain

Xisve'ki is now playing dirty.

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And it's back! I can hardly offer any excuse or apology for the long, unannounced break; things got in the way of my not only working on the comic, but actually working on anything art-related at all. I won't bore you with the long details, but that stuff is past now, and the greater certainty I have in my life will be more conductive to working on the comic, and on more art. It was like breaking some sort of barrier I had formed against my own efforts.

On the comic itself... you may notice it's a bit longer. After working for years on the size that would fit my scanner, from this page onwards I'll be working in a more standard comic-page proportions. The step was a little change in perspective I had when I produced a 4-page story for the Japan Needs Heroes project (which sort of burned me out on doing Nahast as I had to do it at breakneck speeds).

I enjoyed working with pen nibs, but the little experiment I did on inking digitally proved a lot more convenient, and you will see some more experiments with inking lines. Also, a couple of commissions and exercises brought a couple of insights about coloring, which is basically consolidating what I've been learning from coloring Nahast and assorted tutorials.

Now, I must say that one of the reasons that encouraged me to haul my buttocks out of the funk I was in was your comments on the shoutboard; I'm not the most social of fellows, on- or off-line, so I don't do the level of interaction other webcomickers do, but reading there were people eager to know what happens next as much as I had the itch to tell it was a great source of support.

So here goes again; Nahast will continue, and with this I will reveal something that's been in the plans for a while. When this chapter is over, Nahast changes. This is the last chapter of Book 1; it has been telling the story of how Derrexi and the Hawk Maidens begin, and Book 2 will see them as an entrenched force in Beldatz and, with their role secure, the stakes of the shadow war between all factions will be that much higher...