Holy crap.
First thing's first. Once again for the second time in 2013, I'd like to apologize for not updating this damn blog. It sounds like an excuse but it does get hard to try and regularly maintain and update this website when you're working full time, training and wanting to play video games or/and have a semi-decent social life. On top of that, things just don't work out the way I want sometimes which I'm sure anyone can relate to.
Regardless, my brother and I have both been inspired to try and get back to work, ever since PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo came to Melbourne Australia just last weekend. We went to PAX AUS and it was a completely amazing experience and it was the most fun I've had all year aside from my trip to Disneyland. I won't dwell too much into it, as my brother and I are both working on a more in depth "our experience at PAX" kinda comic, which we will be uploading soon. We'll both be ranting about PAX then.
In the mean time, here's a strip based off true events from PAX AUS. It was really funny, Microsoft was there to show off the X-Box One and as everyone walked past the main theatre, the poor enforcer would be shouting "Come check out the X-Box One! Come on inside! Plenty of room!" etc. Most panels seemed so busy and it was tough to get in, for the X-Box One though it was almost as if no one at PAX wanted to see it. Maybe they thought inside the main theatre was a monster instead of an X-Box One, ready to eat them upon entry.
When the guys revealed that if you stayed to watch the X-Box One presentation, you didn't have to leave the panel room, meaning you could stay inside and wait for a short amount of time to see Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade for their Q&A panel. Naturally when we discovered this, we bolted inside to see the rather average X-Box presentation, but the wait to see Penny Arcade was worth it.
With this strip I wanted to try something new. I wanted to ignore shading and shadows. As I watched Gabe draw his strip live on stage, I noticed he didn't even bother with shading and shadow. I then read recently in a Penny Arcade book that I picked up from PAX that Gabe used to do shadow and shading in almost every comic, but now only does it if he feels it'll effect the quality of the joke in a positive manner. He believes if there's no need to put shadow and shading in, then don't bother, it's not going to change the joke unless you are using the visual to pull off the joke (e.g. lighting and such) and it's a lot faster and easier to draw the strip. It's so much faster. I am happy with this but at the same time, I know I have a lot of work and improvement to do.
Stay tuned and watch this space, we'll be bringing some more comics to you soon.
-Cr33g (Craig)