Pages 201, 202 - September 1, 2012

Oh my, it's already the start of a brand new month, and it aligned so very nicely with the start of another hundred pages of this comic. Speaking of which: why couldn't this spread have been nr 200!?? That would have been way cooler, but I comletely stopped paying attention to page numbers when I was drawing these and that sneaky number 200 suddenly just leaped out of nowehere with absolutely no forewarning. One page too early. ;_;

Pretty cool page though, don't you think? Yet one of my personal favourites, and I think the top panel is the panel I've put the most work into so far. And it's got that cool blur effect going on too. But no sound effects, that was a tricky decision to make. It really does look like the kind of panel that typically would have some kind of "ka-TSUNK!" plastered all over it, but...eh, I just didn't want to cover up all my hark work, and the panel could even have turned out too busy with yet another power effect added on top off all the stuff that's already going on there.. I dunno, what do you guys think? Sound effect or no sound effect?

By the way, that wasn't just an empty question asked straight out into thin air with no hope of an answer this time, because: there's finally a comment system in place! Look! Look, look, look, down there! Eee! *Excitement* About time, huh? Well, I did have my reason for putting that off for so long. My main reason has simply been that I've tried to cut out absolutely everything in my daily routine that could end up distracting me from actually working on the pages during the last year, since I've been a bit worried about my ability to finish this thing in time. But now that I'm over half way through and I've gotten a good look at my scedchule for the next year, I think I should be able to manage. And one of the main points with putting this comic up on the net is to get some direct feedback, so... now is a good time to start with that, I guess. Especially since I'm starting to feel more confident in my (thankfully still improving) comicking-skills I'm not as terrified of receiving some of that feedback, hehe. x3

One last thing for today, then I'm done writing, I promise! Well, since it's a brand new month the ranking on TopWebComics has been reset once again, and I'll do that slightly embarrassing thing that so many other webcomic artists on that list are doing today, and that thing is this:Oh PLEEASE please please pleea§se, won't you cast a vote for A Redtail's Dream? *Points to link above and makes terrifyingly insane anime puppy-eyes with stars and sparkles and stuff*. Of course there's a fun little incentive up for you lovelies who do. You see, it is not only time to celebrate passing that magical 200 page mark of posted pages, last week I also drew page 300! Yup, even with the crazy school work these past couple of weeks I still managed to draw enough pages in the evenings to keep my page buffer above 100 pages. Anyway, the vote incentive is a large panel from page 298 (I think?), it's the closest one to page 300 that had a nice non-spoilerish panel to offer. Any other panel would have had Ville's very spoleriffic face plastered all over the place, grr! I've even kept the speech bubbles un-translated to keep the panel extra mystical and safe to view. Al,ost forgot: the raw ink linearts for these two pages are up there too, fresh from the scanner. So yaay and hugs and extra panels and linearts to everyone who votes today! (Oh, and I have a little 200-page-celebration mini-comic strip in store as tomorrow's vote incentive, so don't miss that one. :3)

Before I wrap up here I also want to sincerely thank everyone who kept voting for aRTD last month. We managed to close off the month on rank 29(!), which has got to be at least 20 steps up from the month before and is a new end-of-the-month high! I can't even express how happy that has made me, I've only barely been able to keep myself from ending each update with a repetitive stream of tearful "thank you"s, accompanied by sickeningly pink and flowery gushing. Especially since aRTD is still a rather young and unknown comic, with less than a year on its back and about 1500-2000 visitors a day, which is merely a fraction of what most of the more popular comics on the list get, even on the days that they don't update. So keeping a position that high is nothing short of bewildering to me, as I've always viewed the upper end of the TWC list as some kind of virtually static deal that newcomers simply couldn't break into. I guess I just have the most amazing group of readers possible, and that really is the greatest asset a webcomic artist could hope for. Now, time for some of those joyful tears-> ;__;

Okay, that's enough word diarrhea and feelings-sharing for today, let's save some for tomorrow. x_x