At least here, anyways...

The day has finally arrived. I will no longer be updating this blog.

Now you can find me at:

Arcadiacomics.blogspot.com

There are no blog posts there yet. I will be making my first blog post next week.

This new blog is super exciting to me because it's very focused on what I like to make. I don't feel like I'm doing double duty, making a comic and writing blog posts. I can update my blog with comic pages, art, and blog posts.

Speaking of comics, Mandy & Molly is now live.

Start reading it now on my new blog, arcadiacomics.blogspot.com, Tapastic, or Smackjeeves.

So this really isn't an end, but a new beginning. Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you over at my new site.

Lately I've been seeing the comic progress sheets of other artists going around, and everytime I see one, I'm like,  "I really need one of those!"

Beyond keeping organized, having a comic page progress sheet is motivating. With every page crossed out and marked as done, that's another step towards finishing a chapter.

So I took some time and created a sheet of my own on Canva. I really like it and I'm looking forward to using it to keep motivated.

And if you would like a copy of the Comic Page Progress Tracker, you can download the PDF here from my Google drive. For some reason it looks a little weird in Adobe Reader, but it prints perfectly.

In the PDF is a link to a version of the sheet that can be edited with Canva. There you can change the colors and even the workflow to fit the way you operate.

One note about Canva, when moving the squares from one page from another, they may show up without dividing lines. Simply move the square back a layer and the lines will reappear.

I think something like this would be great for novel and stories too.

How I almost got totally side-tracked by looking at other people's work...

Screen shot of my page in progress.

I know that seems obvious.

But I still think it's interesting.

Awhile ago my husband and I were talking about our ideas for characters, and he mentioned how all of his characters remind him of himself.

In a story, all of the different personality traits can make seperate characters. But in real life, a bunch of different traits can be found in one person.

I know with my current project, Mandy & Molly, both characters are exaggerations of traits that I find in myself.

I think the reason why characters are simpler than real people is because they need to be understood. It takes a long time to get to know a person well. A storyteller on the other hand has a limited time to get the reader to connect with the characters.

Of course as the story goes on they can slowly reveal more subtle sides of a character. But at the start, writers usually make it very clear who the main character is and conveys the overall tone of their personality.

I think it's neat how writers work hard to mimic life on paper, but still there is only so much that can be shown to the audience.

And a side note about something totally different:

If you use Friend Connect to follow this blog, and you've signed in with a non-Google Account, you may want to read this post by Google. Basically, they are stopping support for non-Google accounts using Friend Connect. So if you want to continue following this blog, please create a Google Account and resubscribe.

And if you don't want to go through all of that trouble, simply sign up for my email list!

One of the reasons why I have an email list is because although online blogging services may change, email does not. Signing up for emails is the most stable way of keeping up with what I'm working on, especially since I now send out emails regularly like I should.

Creating a long comic is like having a baby. It has to grow inside you for awhile, and there are a lot of preparations to make before it pops out into the world!

And it's painful.

Sometimes when I look at a page I need to work on, I get morning sickness.

Just kidding. But the nerves I feel are real.

Starting up a long comic is like taking a leap. And it's more daunting since I've done it before. I want to do better than last time. Although I like the pages I'm creating, I keep thinking about everyone who is going to read it. Will they enjoy it?
I wish there was some way to see ahead of time how things are going to go, but there isn't. If there was, every story published would be loved by everyone.

It's like how parents hope that they have a beautiful baby, but in the back of their mind there's that scary what-if...

What if my baby is UGLY?!

No one wants to have an ugly baby, and I don't want to give birth to an ugly story. However, it can and does happen.

I just felt like drawing something relaxing. Right now my go-to activity for break time is a hot cup of tea. My flavor of choice is vanilla camomile. It does make me a little drowsy, but in a good way.

I've always liked the idea of needing very little to get by. It's freeing.

I would love to be like, "This is all I need, and that's it," all the time. But when I think about it, it's not really possible to be that way all the time. I do reach moments when I'm totally satisfied with what I have, but then clothes wear out, things get old--and then I have a valid reason for not being satisfied. I'm okay with that, but I just miss that contentment that I had for a moment.

Like finding a nice pair of shoes to replace my ratty old ones stresses me out because there are so many to choose from. The over abundance of choices makes choosing new things difficult. And the temptation to overspend is so strong! I'd prefer not dealing with it.

About this comic page: It's one of my favorites so far. Also it's a good introduction to the new font that I will be using. It's called Mandy Regular, and I created it myself.

I like reading about what other comic artists do, and some of them make a font based on their handwriting because they feel like their own handwriting fits the drawing style of their comic the best. I decided to give it a try, and I'm thrilled over how it looks.

At first I used MyScriptFont.com, and I wasn't really a fan of how it came out. The boxes to write the letters in were tiny, and I was having a hard time creating a uniform look. I wasn't able to create an all caps font that looked good enough.

I ended up going with PaintFont.com, and the font came out just right. It's is a little quirky here and there, but not in a bad way. What I like about PaintFont.com is that the boxes to write the letters in on the font creation sheets are huge. Also the lowercase letters and the capital letters are on separate sheets, so if I wanted to make an all uppercase font, all I need to do was fill out the sheet of capital letters first and then trace them on to the sheet with the lowercase letters.

Now I have a uniform all-caps font that still has personality.

In case you're wondering, I haven't written any new posts for the last week and a half because I've been enjoying working on my current projects.

Small Projects

It took some work to get the Smashwords meatgrinder to accept my novella, but after fixing all of the errors, it's finally published.  The Blue Room Café can now be found at the iBooks store, Barnes & Noble, and many other ebook publishers. Here's the Smashwords page for The Blue Room Café. 

Between Kindle and Smashwords, I like Smashwords more. I feel like they give me more control over promoting my book, the wider distribution is nice, and I don't I have to lock myself into using them only to set my book at a certain price.


It's not that I won't stop publishing to Kindle, but I think in the future, I'm going to publish to Smashwords first and not give Kindle exclusivity to my work for 6 months.


Medium Projects

Lately I've been obsessed with planners. I think it comes from a strong inner desire to feel organized. I'm not really an organized person, but I like to imagine that I am.

I've created some printable planner pages that give my doodles new life. Some of these designs actually come from the Post-it note sketches I was drawing. It makes me smile to see how art can be turned into something useful.






The Strawberry Doughnut planner pages are now available on Etsy, and I will be gradually adding the other three sets that I created.

Big Projects

Right now, I only have one big project, and that's working on my manga. I'm still getting over jumping from one story to another, but seeing the difference in how motivated I feel, I'm glad that I did. I'm excited about it. And when I'm excited about a story, it always shows in the energy of the story itself.

The artwork is different from my other stuff, but I like it.

And note to adventurous artists who are Linux users: Medibang Paint works well with Wine. The only thing I miss is the pressure sensitivity from my tablet, but it's not a deal breaker for me. 

With sketch layer.

And without it...

Those clouds look like lumpy flying saucers...

It's not easy! I'm over halfway done with this sticky note art challenge. Sometimes it's hard to sit back and aimlessly draw something.I look at what I draw and think,"That's kind of ugly" or "That makes no sense." But then all of these judgments go against why I'm drawing aimlessly in the first place.

I'm not drawing like this for precision. I'm doing this for fun and to give my mind a chance to play with images. Playing is simply messy sometimes.

The sticky note art challenge continues! With 17 more days to go, I'm almost half way to drawing a little sketch everyday for a month.

I wish I had more days to spend in New York City, but I don't. It was fun, and I really enjoyed it. While I was there, I made sure to do some things that satisfied my nerdy interests and hobbies.

Kinokuniya

If I had time to visit only one store in NYC, this would be it. Not only is it a book store, but the top floor is manga only and the sub-level floor is full of journals, inkpens, some artist supplies, Japanese office products, and all kinds of kawaii stuff. I could have easily spent a whole day there. And the whole bank account.

They also have a huge section of Japanese only books and manga, so for Japanese speakers and learners, this store will hit the spot.

Tokyo Rebel/Baby, The Stars Shine Bright



I don't dress or cosplay in lolita style, but I love looking at it, and I like certain items in that style. The girl who ran the store was dressed in lolita gear from head to toe. She looked like a super cute doll.  I'm feeling the warm and fuzzies just writing this. I became attached to a pair of shoes while I was there, but I was disappointed to learn that the cost of them was outside of the budget my husband and I had set for this trip. Sigh...

Toy Tokyo

This is a store full of cartoon/anime related collectable items. Kinokunya had some of the same items, but this store has more variety.

Sakagura


This is a restaurant with a very traditional Japanese feel to it. The food was awesome and satisfying. The waitresses were all like, "Arigatoo!" when my husband and I were leaving. Sakagura is a little hard to find, but it's worth the extra effort.

Also their bathrooms are equipped with those mind-boggling multifunction toilets. I almost didn't know which button to push to flush...I felt like a tourist in Japan for a moment.

Other

The Uncommons

I'm not a board gaming geek--my husband is. But I enjoyed this board game café. For a fee, we could play as many games as we wanted for as long as we wanted for that day. We could even leave the café and come back later to play more games without having to pay again. I really appreciated the environment there. There's a game store in our area where we can go to test out games, but it's usually full of teenage boys and men.

This café attracted not only guys, but women and children too. And the kids were too busy playing board games to be distracting. I liked the variety of people there, and it made the experience enjoyable instead of awkward.


I'm happy that I was able to discover some great places during my stay in New York City, and I'm going to be looking back on this trip with a huge smile on my face for a long time.

I'm taking a break from my comic and spending some time with family in New York City this week. I've traveled through NYC before,  but this is my first time getting to explore it. I loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And sadly, I had to ride on the subway at rush hour. I understand the "Don't lean on the door" signs, but at rush hour, there's no where else to stand! It's impossible not to.

Interacting with people here isn't intimidating to me, because the majority of  people in the part of Florida where I live are from New York. The people are the same. What's intimidating is the pace of everything. People walk fast down the street and run to the subway.

New Yorkers in Florida are in suspended motion. Everything here is full speed. The best way I've found to adapt is to watch how everyone else is walking, and copy it. Then I feel more in sync with everything.

Overall, I like it here. I just wish that sometimes that people would show more respect for the city they live in, and not hide how great it is with litter.

This is the cover of one of my notebooks. I wish that I had drawn it. The art so beautiful.

For me, making pixel art is also strangely relaxing. It's like dot, dot, dot...

Follow Arcadia Page's board Printables on Pinterest.

Typically I'm surrounded by so much noise. I have music going. I'm checking social updates and eating. Then my brain is putting out a steady stream of thoughts and opinions. Mental chatter. It's like a social gathering is taking place in side of my head.


It's like attempting to read a book at a noisy party. It can be done, but it's hard. I find all of the mental noise to be tiring sometimes. So there are times when I just turn it off. Turn off the music, get away from the phone, and say silence to the mental chatter.

These past three posts cover how my notebook has evolved from simple to-do lists to a place where I can express myself visually: