I'm gonna be at StellarCon filling in for some of the other NCWCCC guys, so this weekend's page is a series of quick renders of a model I'm working on. They're nothing fancy, but it does represent a lot of design work.
Go to Subject March 6, 2010
Having connectivity problems, check back later.
Ok, time to be realistic. Between internet problems, schoolwork (I have 18 hours and a thesis), and both Justin and I working more or less full time, SC has been... less than happening this year so far. Sad, I was hoping to be 10% through vol 1 by now.
So, with the real-world restrictions clearly being more than we can do and publish a comic, I'm putting us on filler updates until we build up a buffer. The fillers will be concept art and reference material. To help speed things up, I may end up hiring a colorist, maybe not. I'm aesthetical by nature, but paying two guys out of my modest paycheck is gonna be hard. We'll figure it out.
So, look for the misc section to grow a lot in the next month. This is all working towards having a real, professional comic published, but it's harder going than anyone predicted (well, anyone who I listened to).
Go to Subject February 20, 2010
No one likes hearing this, but between WTH Con, snow, and my thesis, no sandstorming has gotten drawn this week. Instead, might I direct you towards the updated Volume 1 storyboard?
Go to Subject February 13, 2010
After looking at my schedule and Justin's schedule, I have decided it would be best if we start updating on Saturday mornings (about 1am on average). That keeps the schedule solid and gives you guys something to read on the weekends, and doesn't conflict with my 7pm class.
In other news, WTH con may be canceled due to snow. I really hope not.
Edit: Page is live and I am at WTH Con. Whee!
Go to Subject February 5, 2010
As I rather expected, school and paying jobs have hit us rather hard, so this update is not a page (sorry) but rather one of my concept sketches for the Eindring armor. Hope you guys like it, I have spent literally years rolling this around in my head (still not very happy with it).
In other news, WTH Con is next weekend, I will be attending and giving a panel or two- you should come too!
Go to Subject January 29, 2010
If you're reading this, then it means that my date functions are working correctly, and it's past midnight in the time zone which my server resides. Unfortunately that timezone is not my timezone, but I'll live. A couple extra hours won't kill anyone.
Anyhow, this is kind of a boring page but you have to have this page to make a book work (and we are treating this as a book in mid-print). Some of the names may be familiar to you guys. :)
Go to Subject January 22, 2010
The front cover of Volume 1 is now live, along with the 0th page which explains hovers. I am working with Justin, our new artist, to come up with a better cover design, so check this out while it's still the same. Expect Volume 1 to start kicking into high gear next friday. :D
In other news, Modern Written Yarboan is mostly done. Thus far everything I have written has been in Basic Written Yarboan, but Modern is a much more sophisticated system that can say more with fewer brush strokes. I still have a few kinks to iron out, but it should be ready for public consumption by next weekend.
Go to Subject January 14, 2010
Well, it's terribly late, but here is the new site design. I'm not happy with the banner at all, and the archives are completely down until I rewrite them entirely, but it's progress. Please email me feedback!
Go to Subject January 8, 2010
Hope you guys are all looking forward to the new year: I certainly am, we have some cool stuff in store. For example, a new website design is in the works, which I was planning to make live today, but there are a few things left that I want to get perfected before I make it engage.
See you next week, hopefully with some less ambiguous news!
Go to Subject January 1, 2010
Enjoy! I'm not terribly proud of this drawing, but it fits the season, so why not.
In other news, I may have a brand spanking new website design coming up next week. We'll see!
Go to Subject December 24, 2009
I have good news and bad news. Good news is, we have a something on time, for once. Bad news is, it's just a concept sketch.
Also in good/bad news, I have decided to hire an artist to start illustrating Volume 1. In retrospect, starting with Volume 2 was probably too confusing, and my art still isn't where I can be happy with it. To make matters worse, next semester is going to be even busier than the last. To solve these two problems, I am turning to money for a solution. What does this mean for you guys? Well, probably better art, pacing, and all that. So that's definitely good. Not so good is that I'm going to have to start marketing this junk a lot more, so expect to see me peddling wares soonish. Definitely not good is that Volume 2 will go on hold until Volume 1 is done.
If you have questions, please email them to me!
Go to Subject December 17, 2009
Well, after months of occasional effort, and tons of youtube updates to this site, I have one more for you: Adopting Roda Jogo, my first documentary. Mockumentary? Anyhow, it is done, and I can get back to making this ship sail again.
Go to Subject December 10, 2009
So, because I missed last week, here is a buncha short clips from my documentary. Like them or else!
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5
Video 6
Go to Subject December 4, 2009
Here you go. I know that some of you are a little tired of watching this game, but what can I say, that's just too bad. I like it.
Go to Subject November 19, 2009
I am, at times, cruel to my characters. Pages like today's, while fun and informative to draw, are an illustration of how heartless I can be.
In other news (if you don't follow my twitter), I hate my life.
Go to Subject November 13, 2009
One of the things that has become readily apparent recently is that I need to do more thinking ahead of time about the little details. This week I'm sharing just one (sorry) of those details with you, in the form of a design that you will start to notice in future comics pretty soon.
Did some code revamping, the bonus pages ought to process a bit quicker now. Also shifted some navigation around.
Go to Subject November 6, 2009
Some of you probably noticed the signs a few weeks ago, but I'm finally going to admit it: SC is going on hiatus until the end of the semester. Don't worry, I'll still upload something each Friday, but it won't be full comics, sorry.
There are several reasons that I can provide. First, I'm trying very hard to graduate, so this semester is awful. Two, I have two big projects that are tangentially related to SC that I have hard deadlines for. Three, I'm having a lot of trouble drawing this part of the story. I'm trying to depict something I'm not actually familiar with, so the going is slow.
So yeah, hiatus until mid December. Many apologies!
Go to Subject October 30, 2009
As some of you may know (if you follow me on Twitter), I have not had much if any internet access this week. I'm working to fix it, but with midterms and family issues present, it's not been going well. Update should pop up late in the evening.
Go to Subject October 23, 2009
Remember that video I said I'd publish Saturday? Uhmmmm. The videos didn't really turn out so great, so here's some of the best footage. (I am apparently a terrible cameraman).
In other news, I really need to kick it up with the religion sidestory. I've run into some artistic hitches, but that can't slow me down now.
Go to Subject October 16, 2009
Where do the weeks in this semester go? Well sh--.
I got distracted videotaping people actually playing Roda Jogo. Once I get some of the footage captured this Saturday I will hook you guys up, until then: "how are you going to keep some mean mother hubbard from ripping you a structurally superfluous new behind?"
Go to Subject October 8, 2009
A lot of people have expressed interest in how to make Shirugi (the practice swords they use in the comic). I can't teach you that (I'd be sued for sure), but I will teach you how to make a America-friendly version for little money! Hurray!
I'm doing some recoding in the backend, btw. Things may be a little weird.
Go to Subject October 1, 2009
Not happy with this page at all, but I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Sigh.
In other news, I've been hit by a really cool idea... that has nothing to do with SC. :( I'm trying to find time to work on the project, since it is currently dominating my imagination. What I might do is sub out the religion sidestory I'm working on because it was rather poorly received. :(
Too much stuff to do, not enough time to do it. School is eating me alive.
Go to Subject September 24, 2009
This is coming in latish because I'm having internet trouble at home. Which is double-bad today, because I need solid internets in order to set up the new features for today.
What new features, you ask? Why, today I am very excited to announce that for the next month or so I am also going to be putting untoned versions of my upcoming Religion side story on this site. I haven't set up a nice little page browser yet, bt that's ok because there's only one page right now.
You can find the first page here!
Go to Subject September 18, 2009
I know that some people are still waiting for last week's page, and I hate to disappoint, I really do. This past few months have not been kind to my update schedule. (Ironically, I have a buffer for my personal site that could last me to the end of the month).
To those kind enough to stick around to read my feeble excuses, I have been sick since Saturday. Not bedridden or anything, but not up to leaving the house for the most part, which strangely enough does not result in drawing. I know, and I *will* make it up, sooner or later: all of these missed/delayed pages weigh heavily on my conscience.
Go to Subject September 10, 2009
While putting together Friday's page, I realized that without the CG it doesn't even make sense to me, so I'm going to hold out until I have something that will make at least a little sense. Sorry about that, this is what happens when you add in last minute characterization panels.
Go to Subject September 3, 2009
This is the last page that I regret writing. The next several are actiony and have some cool stuff in them: I hope you guys out there are sticking with me while I get my crap together, and forgive my oh-so-easy to do time-passage panel in today's page.
Go to Subject August 27, 2009
Well, my cool junk is not presentable, but I am back to posting comic pages. Yay? This page is pretty boring though, so I'm really looking forward to the cool stuff I'm working on.
In other news, school starts next week. :(
Go to Subject August 20, 2009
Whelp, I was hoping to get a new cool thing done by today, but no dice (as evidenced by the extreme lateness of this post). As some of you know, I've been on vacation this past week, so to be honest, rather than thinking about SC I've been getting rubbed raw by the beaches of Nag's Head.
There will be an update in the next day or two, but not today. I am too tired to finish it right now.
Go to Subject August 14, 2009
Well, maybe not criminal. It feels that way. My evenings, which were supposed to be filled with productive 3d modeling and research, have instead been filled with friends and Baccano. I really have no excuse, a model I was hoping to be rendering by now is instead unfinished from the hips up.
Anyhow, today's update is a cast page, a wondrous page that lets readers learn a few details without spoiling the story. I know that it's a pretty lame update, but it's better than nothing at all (which would be totally unacceptable).
Go to Subject August 6, 2009
I'm really not pleased with the current state of this sidestory, but that's what editing is for. I'll get it ironed out sooner or later (it'd probably help if I wasn't depressed while trying to continue a love story).
Not much else to report. I have made no significant headway this week, which bothers me greatly but there's not much I can do about that.
Go to Subject July 30, 2009
Well, I was hoping I wouldn't deteriorate like this, but I feel like crud and it's 2am already. I will have to rework the lastest page in the morning.
Edit: Well, I was hoping it wouldn't get to this, but it has. As most of you know, my RL job mostly deals with working in Photoshop all day. Now that I'm out of class for the summer, I'm spending even more time in front of the monitor at work, working in Photoshop. This means that the Photoshop aspect of the comic production is becoming ever harder for me to motivate myself into doing. I enjoy making comics, but a lot of days I come home and all I want to do is watch anime and play video games- not restart doing what I've been doing for the entire day already.
So, I'm going to take some weeks to recover a bit, maybe build up a buffer and get to those pages that I have left half-finished. This does not mean I'm on hiatus: I will be updating the comic. Just instead of volume two, I'm going to be uploading a side story. I'll decide which one by Friday night, there are several in the works. So come back Friday and see what I've got. :)
Go to Subject July 23, 2009
Something I've been talking to other webcomic artists about recently has been front page comics. It's a widely held belief in webcomicdom that having a site that does not have the latest comic on the front page equates to having a crap site.
I contend otherwise. I think that, should you separate your "latest" page from your index page, the average webcomic reader is smart enough to figure it out and choose which one they want to bookmark. Since most people don't have a specific "latest" page, the community has forgotten that such a thing is very easy to code (seriously, it's an extra... hold on... 12 characters of php for me. whoo, complicated stuff -_-).
So why didn't we do it this way from the beginning? Offering readers options is good, right? Well, a lot of comic creators are not interested in getting their hands dirty with the code that does the work around their site. So when a feature was missing, they just did without. Or, a lot of comic creators believe simple web designs are better (which is actualy generally true), so in some cases they deliberately combined the latest page with the front page... which has led to some comics cramming almost everything onto the front bad. Eugh. Not a good idea.
I think that a lot of readers are genuinely interested in what you have to say each week, and will want the news to be on the same page. However, an equal or greater number of readers don't care: they just want the comic, and windbags like me can stuff it. The third group that is usually ignored is the incoming readers that do not want to see the lastest, spoiler-ridden page. Lemme say that again: there are people who specifically don't want to see the lastest page when they first visit your site. This is especially true for comics that are heavily plot based: a thumbnail of the latest page is fine, but what they're looking for is a "First Comic" link.
So, please consider: does your comic ever have big reveals or plot twists? Are you sure you want to brand that into the eyes of your new (or prodigal) readers right off the bat? I certainly don't want to spoil my own story, and that's why the front-page rule is bollocks.
Go to Subject July 21, 2009
This page came out a bit late (and a bit rushed IMO) because I got sidetracked making a 3D reference model for the parking lot area. I suspect I'll write it into future scripts, so I made the whole thing in Anim8or and then drew it by hand.
Also, I have decided to change from lineart-textures-dialog to lineart-dialog-textures. It just makes more sense from my end, and I think it makes a little more sense for you too.
Go to Subject July 16, 2009
Whew. First just barely finishing the colour on the previous page, and now just barely getting done with today's lineart before playing more TF2 going to bed. Aaaaaand dangit I have already spotted something I overlooked. :(
EDIT: You would think that being out of class for the rest of the summer would give me more time to work on stuff. Instead, it seems that my friends are better at talking me into doing stuff other than working on texturing (read: going to the Celtic Rock festival and then going to the bar with a gal I'm sweet on). I'm thinking I may revise the order of my updates to lineart-translation-textures, rather than the current lineart-textures-translation. Texturing takes much longer than adding in translations, because I've created some tools to help me translate quickly.
Go to Subject July 9, 2009
So I was bumming around with texturing the latest page (one panel left, whew), and decided to take a break by making Page 0, which is a web-only page which ensures that incoming readers will notice the hovering aspect of the comic. It also enunciates the three methods you can use to browse the archives (which are finally starting to fill out a bit).
Next up: coding a news archive (should be done before noon, I expect).Go to Subject July 7, 2009
It's hard to look at your comic and see what other people are going to see: famous examples range from Gary Larson's dog-catching-a-car comic to... other examples that are not occurring to me at 1:30. -_- Today's comic is a perfect example of me seeing something different than my audience, and not catching it the first time around.
Had a fascination discussion/coffee/hang with Evan Dahm, who is one of the very few people I know who is willing to make me defend my habits, goals, patterns, and ideas. It's a rarity that I cherish deeply, because most people stop being willing to challenge me on anything as soon as I mention one of the languages I've created for the comic. :( Thumbs up for making me reconsider how I approach some things, we're already seeing it positively affect the art in the comic.
Go to Subject July 2, 2009
Just finished with summer classes, get my grades back tomorrow. Whoo! This hopefully means that I can finally catch up on coloring the last several pages. :(
Edit: got so caught up in coding and re-coding that the page didn't get colored in time- I failed to anticipate that I don't know of a good way to texture rock without killing the lineart. :( So, color later. I also need to catch up on the other pages, so it might be lots later. (I am beginning to regret doing a color comic).
Just putting a general reminder out to the internet that Evan Dahm (of Rice Boy) and I will be hosting the first meeting of the NCWCCCWB (North Carolina WebComics Coffee Clatch Western Branch) Mountain Brew?
Where: Boone NC
Specifically: Expresso News
(http://www.espressonews.com/ (has sound))
When: 6:00pm this Saturday.
How long: About an hour or until they kick us out
Contact: If you need help in realtime, I can be reached at 828-773-2829. Otherwise I can be reached at tentus@gmail.com
Go to Subject June 25, 2009
I actually put this up yesterday, but neglected to post about it. So here we are.
Oh right, explanations. Uhm, in a nutshell, I'm a member of the NCWCCC, and their next anthology is about religion. I figured this would be a perfect opportunity for me to talk briefly about what the Yarboa believe, in a manner that people would be able to decipher easily. So, the above link sends you to a PDF storyboard (another red book, actually) of what I'm planning to put in as my entry. It's still being edited and all, but I like it so far.
Go to Subject June 23, 2009
Two new pages! The previous two pages are still kinda empty, but I want to try and pick back up some of the momentum that summer classes have killed.
In other news: if you are a webcomic artist in western NC, please come out to the first meeting of the Western NCWCCC! Evan and I will be hosting it at Express News at the end of this month, and we're kinda in the dark about who might come. More details on that... soon.
Edit: a good friend of mine has returned from a two-year missionary trip to Taiwan. I am bringing him up to date on the 'states, so color is delayed (betcha didn't see that coming...).
Go to Subject June 19, 2009
Ok, we've had a number of idiot mishaps on my part, but I think I've gotten them ironed out now: the archive is back, the images to the side are rendering, and my super manly top secret comic database is coming along and should be online soon. Once I get it working well I may release it to the public, or maybe not, we'll see.
To everyone coming over from AGAHF, uh, hello? It's been a rough month for my websites, so I'm sorry that you've walked in on my messes. Hope some of you get to stick around, I promise that I'm usually pretty punctual. :)
Go to Subject June 16, 2009
New Site Design! The old site just wasn't working for me, so I've whipped together a new one, working on a different design premise (grit is great, but it's a pain to get it working, especially if you're an optimization obsessive-compulsive like me). If you notice anything weird going on in this design, please send me an email and I'll look into it.
In comic new, the current pages are in production- they should be up soon! I apologize for the hiccups in the update as of late, they should be smoothed out very soon.
Go to Subject June 15, 2009
And that's it. :)
Sandstorm Conscience is an extended examination of miscommunication between cultures, and the harsh consequences that are born from that lack of comprehension.
The Sandstorm Conscience series is the most lasting and thought-out project by TSHolden to date: the first book is completely scripted, and the second volume is being released incrementally as a webcomic. The first volume is still in need of a proper artist, someone better than my chicken scratches, so contact me if you're interested.
The Red Books are best viewed at 50% resolution on most monitors, with two-page side-by-side. Volume 2 is a mostly normal webcomic, but makes extensive us of hovering to spice things up. Comments welcome.
I believe in usability, and I believe that no two people have the same preferences. To make my comic more usable to a wider variety of people, I have set up multiple naviagtion options for the comic archive. You can do any of the following:
Please note that hovering over the comic, while not essential to reading the story, does reveal special aspects of the comic.
Rice Boy
Hero
A Girl And Her Fed
FreakAngels
Para-Ten
The Meek
Gunnerkrigg Court