Back from the dead!Creator's Diary: Monday, May 10 2021
Chapter the Third

Chapter 3 of Outsider begins with page 200.

Some time ago, when it was suggested that perhaps I should change the format of the comic to something simpler to increase the pace of updates, I said that I was committed to completing at least the second chapter in the current format, and then at that time I would make a judgement whether a change should be made.

One suggestion that comes up regularly is to switch the pages to black and white. Outsider was always conceived of as a color comic, and the designs depend fairly heavily on color, so I would be reluctant to do that. Over the last few years I have adapted my coloring process to be a lot more efficient, and so currently the time spent on each panel is roughly one-third pencils, one-third linework, and one-third flatting and shading. Changing to black and white would really only save time in terms of shading, and not by much if I'm still adding grayscale shadows. I'm also not sure what I would do with the backgrounds... I could probably find some kind of rendering shader that looked appropriate, but that would not be much of a time saver either.

So, here I am at the end of Chapter 2, and I feel that the right thing to do is to stick with the current format, and continue to work to improve the frequency and regularity of updates. Things have been getting better -- the comic has nearly doubled in length over the last four years -- and I have reason to be optimistic that they will continue to improve. Barring the sudden end of the world, of course... which is perhaps not as strange a thought today as it might have been at the beginning of last year. There will inevitably be bumps in the road going forward, but that's life.

Thanks for reading, thanks for your feedback and suggestions, and extra special thanks to the patrons whose generous support makes doing what I do possible.

- Arioch

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