I’m not sure what the original post for this page was, but looking back, it’s pretty clear that this was around the time where I’d gotten really comfortable with the tablet.
I still wasn’t sure what to do with my very large cast, so I decided that Stan would make occasional cameos and not say anything.
I like the way that the first panel gets across the sort of show-stopping effect that such a statement would have on a crowded room, and Ladybug’s expression is priceless in Panel 3.
It looks like a stream or two got crossed, and the original comment for this post was either eaten or swapped with that from a preceding page. I’m not really in the mood to dig through and try and figure that out, so here are my thoughts on this page now.
Again, lack of planning hurts the comic to an extent- if I’d had it to do over again, I might not have made the cast quite so big. It does make sense with my original idea of Amaranth being a sort of counselor to the newly Forgotten, but it was just rough to draw and place everyone, as well as make them relevant to the story. I’m still not sure that I did this with all of them at this point. I ought to make a flow chart or something, but that never seems to work out.
Watch the next few pages for Roy’s evolving mane-puffs.
Hey Internet.
The last time we spoke, there were some announcements made at what was probably the worst possible time to be making decisions that don’t involve holiday cheer.
While we stayed mostly on schedule (I think), we could have done a lot better. In fact, there was a fair amount of stuff that just didn’t get done.So we’re starting this year off right, albeit a week late. I resolve to have weekly updates, for CottonFluff as well as MegMan, and artwork for major holidays.
(Edit 1/16/07 – This is the first page where I tried to ink the comic in Photoshop, as well as color it.)
***
Or so I said a long time ago. Since then, I have held to those resolutions with varying degrees of success, although there were some stretches where I was posting regularly. Those were the days…
This is another post that had its comments eaten by the ghosts of Not Backing Up What You Write (something poetic about the ephemeral nature of content on the Internet goes here), so here are my thoughts from about 5 years later:
I wish I were one of those comic artists who did all the layouts and designwork ahead of time; this kitchen must be 100 feet wide or something.
The yellow tile was not only a pain to put into each frame, but now that I’m looking at it, only adds unnecessary visual “noise” that doesn’t really improve things. I’m really proud of the last panel, though, and I rather like Amaranth pouring cocoa from the stove. If I had the luxury to do it again, I’d probably have made the stove look more like an Easy-Bake Oven , although not a modern one like the link has.
While my original thoughts on this page have been lost to antiquity (if there were any at all,) looking back I have to say that the top 2-panel spread (something that I hadn’t done before) is still one of my favorite things, design-wise, that I’ve done with the comic.
I really like the feeling that the dialogue between Percy, Amaranth and Amaranth’ is going on while Cuddles is frantically writing all that out (or at least I hope that that’s what comes across), and I’m also a big fan of breaking a border, like how Percy and Amaranth’ are doing.
Complex panels and sad characters. Who wins? you do.
Thanks,
-P
***
Back in 2005, that was all that I had to say about this page. The point of that was that I had very little experience with laying out comic pages, and this multi-panel layout was actually something of an accomplishment for me, but I was not as articulate then as I am now.
So who wins? You still do, five years later.
Once upon a very long time ago (has it really been this long?) I probably had something witty and/or insightful to say about this page when it first went live.
Now, several years later… I’m not as insightful, but have a comment box to fill, so here goes:
Technical progress aside, I still like this page a lot; the power that a single change of inflection can have, even on the same repeated word is striking to me.
In hindsight, Cuddles’ room is so barren because I was (and still am) a lazy background artist.
Okay, so the font changed, and hopefully for the better. I’ll get around to changing the font in the banner, too.
And I didn’t goof- the moon’s supposed to be visible in both frames.
In other news, CottonFluff Hollow missed the deadline for the Blank Label Webcomic Telethon for Hurricane Katrina survivors, but I did do a comic for it. (deadline for charity, go figure. I’m sure there’s an administrative/technical reason or something)
I participated in another webcomic telethon, but I can’t really mention it here. Visit Graphitegolem.com, and read the News section for more.
Thanks,
-P
Present-day thoughts: Panel 4 needed work. I remember showing it to some other folk, and getting feedback on it that the perspective should have been more dramatic- the lamp should have been closer, instead of floating in midair like that. I never had the time to go back and fix it, and, well, I still don’t.
But I’m aware that it kind of sucks, and that’s the important thing.
“Hi! Thanks for reading the first of many episodes of The World of Cottonfluff Hollow. For those of you who were first introduced to Cuddles at Anime Boston 2005, don’t worry, he’ll make the transition to badass soon enough. Right now, there’s character to develop and back-story to explain.”
Thanks,
-P
…Or so I said back around the time when this first went live. Has it really been so long? Well, here we go again.
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