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Boxing Bugs Update & Announcement

I started my first original comic Boxing Bugs in 2018, and since then have finished the first issue as well as a mini side comic.

It’s been a long while since our bug friends Tap and Rumble have shown up again, and I’ve actually had the script for issue #2 finished for a little while now that I was going to work on after Pac-Man: Ghost Gamble. However, I’ve recently made a big decision: Boxing Bugs is officially going on an indefinite hiatus.

I do want to make clear that it is NOT being cancelled, but instead will be set aside in favor of working on a new original project. I’m honestly really happy with this decision and very excited for the new project I’m working on! I’m going to wait a little while before officially showing anything publicly, but rest assured it’s going to be something big and fun.

While I’m working on this new project my plan is to continue making fan comics in the meantime, so expect lots of short adventure stories from Pac-Man and more (and hey, maybe I’ll finally be able to get to that bomberman comic soon too). I might switch between another comic with each I finish, but I’ll make sure each story gets wrapped up!

As for the future of Boxing Bugs, I do plan on returning to it one day, hopefully next time with a full team. That’s all for now, thank you guys for reading and look forward to some great things!

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comic process

Comic Process- Meta Knight Wants to Battle

I mentioned back in February in my Kirby: Chilly Reception process post that I had written another short Kirby story I’d be covering soon. I started posting it in January and come April 28th I finally posted the last page. Now, let’s talk about it!

Right after I finished Chilly Reception in October, the very next month I began writing Meta Knight wants to Battle. This was going to be another comedic comic with a simple concept: Meta Knight wants to fight, but can’t get the battle he really wants.

Where Chilly Reception was done with a style in mind to keep things simple and fast in a comic strip format, this time I wanted to take my time on both backgrounds and characters in an format similar to manga.

I spent November to December sketching out all sixteen pages of MKWtB. This was a self imposed challenge for myself, as usually I’ll get a couple pages sketched, get those pages ready to post, then spend the remainder of the comic having to sketch out and finish the rest of the pages weekly. I wanted to try waiting until all of my pages were sketched before getting a couple ready to post, then all I have to do is ink and color the rest. Sketching for me is the longer process, so this help cut out a ton of time in the long run.

After all my pages were sketched, I set out working on the comic cover.

I looked at some Kirby manga comic covers for inspiration on what the cover should look like. I though of having the two other stars of the comic, Kirby and Galacta Knight, looming above Meta Knight, but didn’t end up going with it. I liked the composition, but it didn’t really reflect the comic itself properly.

What I did go with was MK jumping in the air with a determined look, with Kirby and Galacta watching on.

I colored in the characters and background. I felt like keeping the background lineless would help frame the characters better.

After some shading and a title, the cover was done!

I already had all the comic sketches done, so all I had to do was ink and color some buffer pages and the rest from there. Here are all the sketches.

I mostly wanted to experiment with composition and storytelling with this comic. Some pages ended up having panels too close together, so it was a learning process.

Next are all the completed pages. Since Chilly Reception was done in black and white, I wanted to go all out with colorful pages.

This was a very fun comic to work on and I’m happy with the result! Short comics lend themselves well to experimentation and learning techniques to bring over to bigger stories. I’m currently in the process of drawing another comic, Pac-Man: Ghost Gamble, that I’ll be covering the first part of once I’m finished.

Until then, thank you for reading!

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comic process

Comic Process- Kirby: Chilly Reception

Something I always wanted to do is create short stories based on franchises I love. Now I have done an eight page Sonic comic, but that was mostly playing around with a concept. What I wanted was a full story that felt complete, but also short enough that it could be done in a feasible amount of time. So last November, when I saw the daily October drawing challenge, Inktober, was coming up soon, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to finally plan a story.

Now Kirby, one of my all time favorite game characters, was on my mind at the time so I wanted to write a fun little story about him. When I decided to take part in Inktober I immediately wrote the script and planned how I wanted to go about this comic.

I usually separate the actions into panels, but keeping it like this ended up working just fine.

I decided the best way to go about drawing the whole comic without burning out would be to add two restrictions: four panels per page, and only a black and white palette. This way it’ll take less time compared to doing a traditional comic layout, and force me to condense the story.

I sketched out all the pages within four days. Each day I livestreamed the process for as long as I could so that I would be focused. I didn’t want to do any sketching when October came, just inking and coloring.

You’ll notice a few pages I combined two panels into one for a big impact on special moments, and of course one big panel for the very last page. This way I was able to make us of the limited space to save time, and still make things look interesting.

Once October came, each morning I inked, colored, and added words to a page. It took me about 2-3 hours for each page, the simple style I went with helped to get them done quickly.

Since the story only came to 28 pages I didn’t end up drawing through all of October, but the experience was still incredibly satisfying. Once I set my mind towards doing this project I didn’t let anything stop me until it was done. I finally made a story for something I loved that I was really happy with. I felt so inspired that I wrote another short Kirby story right after that I’ll be covering soon!

Until next time, thanks for reading!