Weird to think about. Well, okay, maybe not so much so after doing Wright as Rayne's 10th back in October, but still thrown me for a loop. I've spent all day thinking about what to say.
I was once asked by a co-worker if I keep a journal, and I said, "No, I live my life in a stream of consciousness." I don't record signposts or milestones. But looking back on the last ten years, flipping through the pages, I see my life in the comics. I see the hurricanes, the rushing to class after drawing all night, the elation of graduation, the drawing on the clock at my first job, the depression over unemployment, the ideas that got mulled over shelving books at a bookstore....
I can see the people in my life who impacted characters and events, my outlook on the world reflected in the kids and Jake and their adventures....
I think of all the feedback from all the fans over the years ('Sup Wolfintina?~), and how much it makes us smile whenever a page gets a big grasp or laugh or burst of excitement.
I see all the nights I spent joking with my best friend, shooting and refining ideas.... All the countless hours spent honing the god-awful art style into something workable... Something that just continues to evolve and get better. Heck, that picture of Val up there? That's us experimenting with getting a more refined skull and torso shape. We never stop on this, always pushing for the next huge improvement.
It's my life reflected in a beautiful blue mirror.
.....
Heh. Yeah, feeling pretty good about now. ^^
..... That said, if you haven't already, please join our Discord.
https://discord.com/invite/yP9ECdN
Heh. Damn, now I kind of feel like anything I have to say is going to feel insubstantial by comparison. Sort of funny considering Adam and I were talking earlier and at the time there was a bit of a, "Well, we did WaR's anniversary," feeling that made this one feel comparatively pedestrian. Guess things have a way of feeling more impactful as you really reach them, huh? Granted, we are doing this a day early to fit it into the usual update schedule buuuuut I assume nothing's going to cause everything to fall apart in the next 24 hours so we're probably fine.
I remember when Blues first started being drawn, we were up to a backlog of something like seven or eight pages sitting and I just blitzed through them all at once in one day. Excessive workload even at the time, but nowadays that would be flat out impossible with how much more complex things have gotten and how much more care I put into my work. I think that's kind of what stands out to me right now looking back, how much this whole thing's kind of ballooned and morphed into something a lot more than it used to be and how though I'm always kind of pushing for us to find some new angle to explore with the art or some new thing to check out I'm pretty continually pleased to see how we've stepped forward over the years.
Even if there is a certain level of embarrassment about looking back at early art. But hey, just look at how it used to be before we even actually started, that makes even the days of doing multiple pages at once and initially forgetting to color Andy's skin look a lot better in comparison, eh?
That picture of Val is kind of where we're presently working toward on some changes we've been wanting to make to the art, so input on that would be especially appreciated. We wanted to try it with all of the kids, but between everything else we just didn't really have the time for it. To at least get us something extra to show off I did most of that Lore pony picture of my own accord and then left the mane to Adam. Sure she'd be happy that this is her contribution to the anniversary, eh?
Of course then we've got the actual year 11 preview in its own right to talk about. There is a lot to unpack there; the two of us actually talked through laying it out and throwing around ideas on what all to include, with most everything there meaning something and a lot of hooks for future storylines being placed throughout in there. People who read Wright as Rayne might recognize that there's a lock among the objects present, but the rest is kind of hard to comment on without really going into specifics.
All I've really got offhand I think - kind of awkwardly woke up after not enough sleep just in time to get my comments out in a speedy fashion for this so I'm probably missing a lot, but I do really hope everyone enjoys all of this and thanks to everyone who's been reading over the years!
What's up, I got the first dose of vaccine yesterday and that dull ache in my shoulder still hasn't gone away, very interesting, looking forward to learning what everything means.
Wolfintina, over the years, your comments have always meant a lot to us. Thanks a lot for all the support you've been giving us. ^^