1069 replies to this topic

[TRiPPY]

fromoooommggg Fen, that's a lot of merch XD;;; Thankyou so much for the photos! I shall be adding this to my superstash. I seen the one of you on DA too! Awesome stuff I dare you to go up to Arch at the SoS convention, point at your bag and walk off laughing XD

I'll be making more badges taken directly from images in the comic once the pages are all colored.

Speaking of the comic i finished ANOTHER page @_@ Now I'm on 21 and 22. that's about 10 pages to go now.
Cannot wait! *irritated twitch*




...



This is really hard work.

DiGi counted my pannels so far and he said I've done about 70 or something. I consider each of those damn panels to be a full blown picture >_<
Today I'm working on a boring page. But i get to draw Victorian dresses so i guess it's not that boring.

And ninja birds. Yeah.

[MidgitLD]

Ninja birds are awesome and you know it, Scotwoman. <3

[Feniiku]

XD I thought you'd like the photos lol. I intend to blind as many people with the EYEMELTYCOLOUR as I can XD _{... you owe me, woman XD} (j/k)

Awesome mega page muchly, and umgahwah, Victorian dresses? Those things are so pretty but such a pain to draw cool!

Ninja birds ftw too.

[TRiPPY]

I spent all day on one sodding panel of rich aristocrats making merry and fafafahhing. Never want to draw Victorians again :|
Top panel has some Vidal Sasoon Imagni hair action lol, bottom has hippies and mary poppins.
I'm not on drugs i swear.


BE DONE ALREADY T_T

12 Reasons Why by My Life Story is inspiring me to do silly things with the main badguys. I might. Hmm.

[Meggiemaccat]

Ninja Puddlebird reporting for duty?

[TRiPPY]

I'm stuck on one of those pages that bore you so much you want your head to explode and somehow in the aftermath the goop splatters into a perfectly inked page (albeit red) ARRRRGHHHHH IT SUCCCCKKKKKSSSSS. I know i shouldn't be saying anything sucks, but nobody can like every page in their comic, lol. It feels like I've been on the same page for a month despite finishing another page yesterday :/

When I'm flipping through my folder now i can see the end in sight. The end lies in 5 plastic sleeves.


OH PLEASE LET ME GET THERE ALREADY.

Drawing with amazing migrain and lack of sleep bites.
Comic artist life= unglamourously hard work brainbusting cack at times i swear to god.



Despite this i try to remain upbeat and merry. Merry. Very merry... *twitch* I know I'll say it was the 'best thing ever' when I'm able to hold it in my hands and sell it, I'm looking forward to the 1 week nieve bliss before i start the next one.

[Feniiku]

Just hang on and keep at it Trip, or, a better option might be to wait until your migrane's gone?

*hugs for you*

[Nyx]

When I'm flipping through my folder now i can see the end in sight. The end lies in 5 plastic sleeves.

OH PLEASE LET ME GET THERE ALREADY.

Drawing with amazing migraine and lack of sleep bites.
Comic artist life= unglamourously hard work brainbusting cack at times i swear to god.

Despite this i try to remain upbeat and merry. Merry. Very merry... *twitch* I know I'll say it was the 'best thing ever' when I'm able to hold it in my hands and sell it, I'm looking forward to the 1 week naive bliss before i start the next one.

Sleep is good -- good is sleep. How much of it do you get these days, two hours? And the lucid dreaming keeps your mind awake, so your body's getting the rest, but your brain isn't. If you're having trouble sleeping for more than two to four hours without waking up several times,

Spoiler

try 'Melatonin' -- it's a natural hormone that tells the body to sleep -- it'll give you a steadier sleep cycle. They use it for jet lag, and lucid dreamers use it to keep themselves asleep for longer periods of time. It's always placed beside the vitamins in a store.

As for the migraine -- Ouch. I hate those. It doesn't help when your neck is bent at a 90 degree angle, either. A few quick remedies:

Spoiler

1. Wet a towel liberally, then squeeze, not wring, some of the water out. Fold until the towel can easily be placed in the freezer. Leave in till the towel begins to freeze. Unfold and refold until the towel is reasonably frozen, place around the head and eyes, and leave it there for a while. Using this in a dark room helps.

2. If the migraine is in the starting stages, a snack of any other salty food can calm the attack. Sometimes this calm before the storm is the end, sometimes it is not. However, this calm period does provide you with time to prepare the frozen towel treatment.

3. Take a medication like ibuprofen, Tylenol, or a different migraine pill BEFORE you start drawing/inking/coloring for the day. That way the medicine will already be in effect for when you start to get one. Don't go over 2 days taking ibuprofen, though -- too much of it is bad for your kidneys.

4. Something called 'Head On' that you can find in most grocery or convenience stores -- it's like a tube of chapstick or lipstick, but you apply it to your forehead. It works very fast, but it may not be enough for a really bad headache.

This is all out of personal experience -- my job takes up all of my energy, and when I come home, I use the remainder of my time to draw or make plush dolls. The headache usually starts halfway through my work day, so migraines are a common thing.

Hang in there -- you're almost done!


EDIT: Spoiler'ed because it's off topic and irritating to those who don't care. Plus I have a nasty habit of irritating the people I want to help.

[TRiPPY]

Doctor Nyx is much apreciated and loved XD

Nearly finished that boring page now! Just a panel to go before dinner.

I can smell food.

So hard to concentrate waaaargh lol.

Also guys, calculated the printing cost per comic (not including profit) is like $3.80 or something... so that's about £2. A profit would probably be a £1 or less, i dunno how much i want to charge people yet because there will also be postage charges like airmail to anyone out the UK. I'll try to keep it all under £5 however because that's too expensive for a comic. There again... hmmm.... Feedback? I know I'm not gonna charge £5 for a 32 page comic. I know i probably wouldn't buy a comic at that price unless it was a friends or something i *really* wanted considering you can get 104pg graphic novels for about £8.

[Purgatory]

Go go TRiPPY Do your best! /Katamari

Hmm.. Well, I'm kinda a broke mofo.. XD But you know I'm gonna get one anyway! I'm never good with this whole pricing thing, since I usually buy graphic novels and not comic books.

... OK so I didn't help, but I'm wishing you luck with finishing the comic!! XD

[Meggiemaccat]

Weh, this is tough; you never do know how well your comic will do and, therefore, how much you need to set the difference between covering production cost and making profit. There's also the choice between a) setting it high so you don't end up not making any profit whatsoever the first month (or in whatever timeline you think you need to see some money from it) and end up wondering how you're going to get more art supplies, or setting it low so purchasing it presents itself as financially unstressful as possible to the customer. Then there's c) setting it to the optimum price between a) and , but I'm guessing so much guesstimating of things dictated by economics, the general public's personal taste, word-of-mouth, advertisement, and sheer dumb luck that calculating a perfect middle ground would be even more puzzling.

Yes, I think out loud too much and end up far too chatty sometimes, but what I really want to say is that you need to set the price at what you think is right. Short of a professional adviser specializing in this field, or possibly those that you're publishing with, you're likely not going to get a better answer from anyone but yourself, and even with such help it's going to be up to you to decide in the end.

And as for shipping to other countries... erm... I know I don't have a clue about this sort of business, and I don't want to be a killjoy, but I think you should let those that want it shipped out of Scotland worry about that at least until you're doing well enough in sales to support doing so. I do sincerely believe that iMAGNi's going to take off like a screaming jetplane, but it really is preferable not to take too much of a financial strain in the early stages, although it certainly will only be a few people from this website at first. ^^;;;

..... Bleh, a.k.a. I don't really know the answer either; all any of us can really offer is well-intended opinions. XDDD Unless someone here's a financial/business genious, of course. ^^;;;

I seriously need to learn to keep my mouth shut when all I have is guesses and opinions. XPPP

EDIT: WTF is up with putting a 'b' and a ')' together making a sunglass-wearing smiley even when you're not using caps?!! XDDD

[Nyx]

Doctor Nyx is much apreciated and loved XD

Sometimes.
But remember, I'm not an actual doctor. If things are that bad, go see a real one.

'Doctor' Nyx is also working on a present for you -- if she can manage to get her computer to stop locking up every time she opens a file.

[TRiPPY]

Unfortunately I've been cursed with serious migraine since i was a kid, i usualy just try to wait it out rather than eat up painkillers all the time since I'd be on them every other day lol. I know what my triggers are but half the time it's just due to eyestrain, which thankfully isn't so bad anymore since I'm not a 24-7 internetter like i used to be XD Now i'm just developing a SEXY HUMP NECK. I kid i kid.
Thanks Nyx ^^

I'm just 1 panel away from finishing page 23 now. It's the most stupifyingly detailed page yet. Serious. At least the last panel on this page is pretty simple. I'll get working on the next page tonight! I'm really excited the next page is something i really want to draw >:3

Finding it really easy to get stuff done today. Wish it was like this all the time lol!

MAKING FUN FUN PLANS FOR AUCHI! : D We've got our table almost. Yeeeeee. I want it to be beside Wyldflowas one!

[wyldflowa]

MAKING FUN FUN PLANS FOR AUCHI! : D We've got our table almost. Yeeeeee. I want it to be beside Wyldflowas one!

YES YES. We can throw paper planes at each other and poach each other's customers~ XD

Aaah, Amecon's just gone and now I'm worked up for this~ Guh, I've got the october expo between now and Auchi. Ouch, my bank account... X(

Feedback for prices - generally between £2-£3 is good for me for a small press floppy comic. If you got some postcard-sized prints or bookmarks or something done in bulk on the cheap to give out free with it it'd be very inviting - maybe going up to £3.50. *nodnods* I know Amecon was a bit crap for selling though, possibly because there were a lot of other things going on and I don't think they're the sort of crowd to go for small press comics... smaller cons (and Expos) seem to be better for selling than the big cons.

[TRiPPY]

Is your comic out yet woman? I WANT TOOOO OWWWWWN.

[DiGi Valentine]

Got a bit of an update regarding the Dealers Room at Auchi, just thought Wyldflowa would like to know. Apparently the room is going to hold around 50 dealer tables or so. Last Auchinawa had about...er...10, lol. XD So that's a huge improvement over last times effort.

Also, the Dealer Liason did a runner and left Ninja Steve in the sh!t because of it so now Steve's trying to sort out all the dealer liason related FAQ's. It has been said that they may offer all the tables free tea and coffee because of the mess up, which is nice. Spot of tea, Miss. Wyldflowa?

I'm still trying to sort out our table but i'm needing more info on it from them before i can get us set up.

[MidgitLD]

*shakes fist* I WILL GO TO AUCHINAWA ONE DAY!

And please save me a copy of Issue 0. I has been a good little midgie and will pay for it.

[TRiPPY]

^^ course i will.

[DiGi Valentine]

Current plan is print enough for Auchinawa and sell them off. When we finished moving things about we'll let everyone know when the comic will be available to buy online, but that will most probably be in the new year.

[Murasaki Doku]

but that will most probably be in the new year.

...

;-;

but...

[DiGi Valentine]

Could be worse. We could take orders now, get ourselves muddled in a big pile of other priorities that need doing and then fail to send you your issue because your orders have been misplaced, thus resulting in you calling us "thieves" and believing that we are scamming your money.

...wow. I really went places with that. o.o

Anyways, in all seriousness. After Auchi me and TRiP are going to be quite busy organising a few other things and we don't want priorities falling over eachother. Once we have sorted out those other things then that means we can focus on the comic and selling it online properly. Trust me.

Besides, when i say New Year i kinda mean like January time...which is only 2 months after Auchinawa anyway. And boy don't those months fly by nowadays.

[Nightingale]

Current plan is print enough for Auchinawa and sell them off.

oh, I you kill me now, now me heart is broken ;_;

/wrists

Kidding. I can totally understand not wanting to get buried in stuff. *nodnod*

Although... if you end up not selling them all at Auchi (perish the thought) could you save one for me as well?

[Meggiemaccat]

Oh... wait... I didn't realize your primary distribution technique would be the internet. XDDD Now I feel kinda silly, but the topic's gotten a bit too far from where it was at the time this observation would've been relevant, so now I just want to wish you luck again. ^^;;;

[TRiPPY]

When the second or third issue comes around I'm either going to buy barcodes to sell online and in shops or pitch (hopefuly sucessfuly to a few places) and let them handle all that sales stuff for me. Whatever comes first :3

I FINISHED PAGE 24! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
Happy is i. Now I'm drawing page 25 which is probably one of my favourite pages. *counts on fingers*7 pages to go!

When he says 'sell off' i think DiGi means we sell off any remaining copies online, i mean we dont know for sure how many will sell at Auchi. We're starting small and printing more when we get the demand for them. I want to sell them ASAP. Though that'd be hard without my PC set up or no internet, lol. We'll see what happens when i move.

[Mitsuu]

Sleep is good -- good is sleep. How much of it do you get these days, two hours? And the lucid dreaming keeps your mind awake, so your body's getting the rest, but your brain isn't. If you're having trouble sleeping for more than two to four hours without waking up several times,

Spoiler

try 'Melatonin' -- it's a natural hormone that tells the body to sleep -- it'll give you a steadier sleep cycle. They use it for jet lag, and lucid dreamers use it to keep themselves asleep for longer periods of time. It's always placed beside the vitamins in a store.

Taking Melatonin is good, helps a lot. But if it's not a really serious problem, I don't see the need to buy the stuff. Do some exercises about 30 minutes before you go to bed, the rise and fall in body temp. signals your body it needs sleep and increases the production of Melatonin naturally.

I hadn't checked out the Imagni site in a while, so I did so today and I must say it looks utterly amazing(though, if you don't mind a little criticism, Digi's shirt and left arm were quite odd).

[Murasaki Doku]

(stuff)

Well, at the risk of sounding like a total jerk or whatever, I'm gonna say what I'm thinking, and that is:

The iMAGNi series has been in production, more or less, ever since TRiPPY came up with the colorful things known as "Gens". What was that? Years ago? Whatever the case is, ever since that fateful day, people have been supporting TRiP, either mentally or monetarily. And the majority of those supportive people have did their supporting through the internet.

...not Auchinawa.

Unless Auchinawa is a really "small world" kind of situation (everybody basically knows eachother already, either IRL or via internet), it feels kind of unfair to offer the convention extra early access to the comic, and not the internet...

I know this sounds greedy or something like that, but please know I mean nothing but good intention when I say this. After all, I would think that the creators would like to know what's on the customer's mind...

[TRiPPY]

No you're not being a jerk but let me explain something. I created the gens back in 1998 and at that time I'd only just got the internet and figured out how to use it. Since then and many gens after I'd been wanting it to be a lot bigger than it already was getting. The internet is GREAT for getting your work to a wider audience but at the same time it can blind you into thinking its all that matters. The downright BEST way you can advertise a product is in person and face to face with a potential new audience. I want the readerbase to branch out and not just be confined to people i know on these forums or through DA. It's nothing about disrespect, it's about the timeframe. Serious. Auchi is happening in November, I'll be lucky to have it finished for November, so we put it as a *ULTIMATE DEADLINE* because i know i will feel like a tool if i miss it and it's our first serious buisness sell. If Auchi had been happening in January or something of COURSE i would be selling them online first. Right now as it stands it will be a mad bet that they will be ready on time so i can't sell them ANYWHERE any earlier or they will look like poo XD
There are 300+ people attending Auchinawa this year, nearly all of them end up in the dealers room at some point. I really really REALLY want to show what a Scottish comicker can do. And Auchi is all about Scottish stuff. It makes me proud to be there and finaly get to represent myself with *actual work*. People really enjoyed my cosplay last time, so that in itself will garner interest to the comic, plus the fact i designed their mascots. It's all about making the fanbase bigger because right now as lovely and supportive as you guys are (and have been in the past) (which i totaly respect) I'd be shooting myself in the foot if i didn't sell at Auchi, and I've had about 30 people tops online say they want to buy a copy. 30 isn't that much when it comes to funding a large project (plus a lot of people tend to promise to buy and never do). SO Auchi is a simple meet and greet to get the word out there. You guys are getting a 10 page preview before they are anyway. (again provided i get it finished in time). The whole reason we are staying in Scotalnd right now and not in England is BECAUSE of Auchinawa, so you can kinda see why it's important. As a small buisness we've already seen how much we can make profit wise online, and by setting Auchi as our start date it gives us a month to get the comics printed.
(plus believe it or not i DO know a lot of people attending Auchinawa) >.> *ninjaninja*

[DiGi Valentine]

I'm not going to go into a long over-detailed explanation like TRiPPY has done because she's pretty much said everything important anyway.

In a nutshell, we are not leaving out people online. We're not playing favourites either. If we were playing favourites then we wouldn't have put merchandise up for sale already, for example. We would have kept that for the convention as well. Truth being told, we're really eager to start selling this thing online but that is going to be a bit bloody difficult when you're packing up your sh!t in boxes for the 50th hundred time this year and the last thing you want to do is miss someones order during the moving period. I'm not expecting you to understand how hectic things have been for us or how busier things are going to get. At the end of the day i'm trying to get everything done in the easiest way possible. Auchi just happened to come right before we decided to leave so i suggested to TRiP that since we're moving we should just sell a small batch of comics at Auchi to get the ball rolling so at least we can say we met a deadline. Once we are settled come late December/early January then we can start selling online.
If we didn't have to move right after the convention then you would probably see this going on sale online around the same time.

[TRiPPY]

Forgot to add the most important thing which is the fact we have to BUY the comics to SELL to you. This is bulk orders, not small 1 print per order. Therefore we need like £180 or something. Right now we don't have that sort of money to be able to offer anyone comics. We're saving up over the next few months and living a fun life of basics just to get this running. One meal a day if we're lucky, 100% tesco own brand and walking everywhere. Plus we have rent, bills, council tax and other home things to pay before leaving in December, so yeaaaaaaah, it's for a good reason

[Meggiemaccat]

You guys survive on one meal a day if you're lucky?!! 0-----0;;;

Yeah, and that just brings home what I wanted to add; selling online means you either have to wait for the cash to come through the mail or you end up only with PayPal money, whereas if you sell them in-person you get immediate cash in your hands you can use for groceries and things like that (although I have suspicions you're going to save whatever you make for further iMAGNi production instead, which in and of itself is a good idea since art supplies and - as you've said - printing costs are expensive).

I hope you guys can make enough that this thing starts becoming at least self-sufficient (i.e. it pays for its own production - art supplies and all).

[TRiPPY]

*LMAO* oh god keep me away from the keyboard before 9am i type like I'm on crack. Not one return XD haha

Anyway, sorry yeah i came in here to say something i might have already said earlier, I'm too knackered to read.
YEAH!

So yeah, Engelbaum 10 page preview will be happening at
http://imagni.deviantart.com (and afterwards at the imagni site when it opens to entice non DA ppl)

I'll be putting up a page a day after i finish the front cover. Full color and fun to read.

I'n happy cuz i gots a free hot chocolate at an office today because it was raining outside >:3

So i get to page 31- do cover- then color and put each page up on DA until i run out of pages in the preview I should get about 2 pages a day done, plus i already started coloring a few.

Today I'm inking page 25, should get it done before dinner.

And myes, Meggie, your thinking is correct, any profits go towards the production of the next issue of the comic. One day we might actualy make a profit XD though I'm just happy drawing for you guys and giving people something fun to read

[Meggiemaccat]

Speaking of dA... *kicks the dancing emoticon sitting in the dA category selector thing* It's keeping me from uploading my (sad) attempt at a ReeRee Redux, even though I've waited almost half an hour. --;;; I hope nobody else is having that problem - at least it's not happening to everyone else, as I'm still getting Deviation notices - and I hope it doesn't happen to the iMAGNi account.

<edit>Ah, apparently all I needed to do was press the 'submit' button regardless of not choosing a category, then choose a new one (either that or refresh the page, but I didn't want to do that since it took a little time for the image to load in the submission box, anyway).</edit>

Anyway!

Thought so (I already said that, I know), and I hope you get to the point where you don't have to go by on a meal a day soon. In fact, I dislike that you're doing that in the first place, but I guess that's the lengths you're both willing to go through for iMAGNi. It's appreciated, but it makes me want to force-feed you both protein shakes. ^^;;;

[Mitsuu]

It really does suck that you have to live like that 'till you start getting a profit. But hey, you're living the dream, or is that just mine?

[TRiPPY]

I think every buisness venture starts off like that unless you have like some miracle fund or are already rich XD We'd take a bank buisness loan, but loans are crappy and give you even less profits (and debt) so we're just going to start small and try our best to get bigger.
Nobody really ever makes giant profits from comics anyway, you hear really popular famous comic artists complaining all the time lol. As long as i can tell a story people can enjoy, I'm happy :3

[MidgitLD]

Most advisers will tell you to not except making true profits until about after your fifth year. So it's very common to be barely floating for the first few years. Plus, most people who do things like comics, books, and voice acting ALWAYS have a job to be their main income.

But we all know how stubborn you are, Scotbean. XD You hung onto the idea of making Imagni published for all these years, so those of us from back in the old days know that you'll hang through. *thumbs up*

Who knows, maybe, one day, you'll have a few street teams helping you promote your stuff.

[TRiPPY]

Oh trust me i wont be sitting on my arse for long, when we get to London i have a few things already figured out, a few possibilities and i hope they go well >:3 zohoho, But we'll see. I know it will be HELL to have a full time job AND do a comic however, but that was the reason DiGi and I agreed to spend time before moving on me just concentrating on the first issue. I guess I'll take it as it comes.

And myess Stubborn is my middle name.

We've already got a few very talented people willing to help out with promotion (which is exciting) so I'm hoping things will go really well

[Maki Izumii]

Eh, seems alright. Auchi's the 'premiere' of the comic, and it's not as if people are missing out if they all sell because there's always more that can be printed I plan on doing the same with my comic at a con next year, actually. If it's a premiere and not just 'oh hey you can buy these online anyway BUT HERE THEY ARE NOW' kind of thing, it's more attractive to the buyer, or something.

[Wolf]

Hey, guys, if you're having funding issues, and if people on the forums wouldn't object to it - I know I wouldn't - you could set up a mechanism to allow internet people to pre-order the comics, so you can get a bit of capital going and you can ensure that promises to purchase actually turn into purchases. I've got no doubt that you guys are going to get this finished, so I'd be perfectly willing to shell out the cash to pay for my issue up front (even if it doesn't come until January or February) so that you guys have the money to pay for the initial publishing run. What say you? D: <3

[TRiPPY]

It's a nice (and very good) idea Wolf but to be honest after all the crap that happened a few years ago i would much rather have the peace of mind knowing i have the product in my hands and I'm able to give them to people straight away rather than keep people hanging. I'm not doubting myself, just the printers or postage or SOMETHING that is bound to go wrong (lol knowing my luck!). I'll be able to take preorders in the future i think though, but first since this is the first time, we need to gauge how long they take to print and ship out (and what they look like quality wise).
I was talking to DiGi earlier before dinner saying it might be a good idea to set up an *orders* email account. Then I'd ask people to *register* just to see how many people are interested in buying online. It wouldn't be a queue or anything, just a count to see how many our second print should run at. When the actual orders and money exchanging get up and running it will be first come first served. And since you lot are always up to date with it all anyway i highly doubt you'll have probs getting a copy.

If i do decide to set up that rough count email I'll let you guys know about it first.

Just finished inking page 25 I'm working on the next page now... that leaves 6 pages. eee!

[Murasaki Doku]

WELL.

I must say my concerns were addressed, and very well I must say.

I suppose most of my disappointment is that I can't come to Auchinawa, and therefore, not be one of the first owners of the comic.

braggingrightslawl.