Hiatus ends 9/17

by on September 10, 2018 at 11:30 am
Posted In: Antares Complex, Uncategorized, Updates, Website

Hey all, I’ve been hard at work trying to get things ready and it’s taken a bit longer than I expected due to a change in art style and formatting, also …ya know, work. I think things should be moving smoothly from now on.

I was up for like 52 hours trying to get stuff sorted out for my job, nothing I feel like chatting about just know that it made things a lot more tedious than it needed to be…. BAH anyway,

Here’s a look:

Boom! Shit gets real in issue 14!!

As you can see the style has taken a large turn and I think it’s for the better. I honestly fought against this change internally for a long time because… Well I was crap. I wasn’t doing things 100% digitally and I, for the life of me, couldn’t figure out how to get nice, clean, lines on traditional. I’d scan pages in and paint them in photoshop and I thought that the painting style that I did in previous issues fit the more traditional inks in those pages. I did used to make comics like this with more crisp lines and such …but I made all of that in vector/flash/illustrator and that’s a story for ANOTHER day…

What do I mean by formatting change, I looked this up ages ago for a standard comic page size and there were a few options. What I decided here was to go with what I found with Comixology. I’d like to one day get these comics up there and sold with some extras so it’s good to future-proof  I s’pose.

For now;

It’s time to move on to a style that suits me and I think, the series better. Hopefully you’ll all enjoy this and I’ll see you on 9/17 for Issue 14: Electric Bill

If you want to support this comic and get:
-Early access to 2 pages from two different comics a week
-Early access to various comic art/fanart
-Live stream recordings.
-Exclusive artwork.
-Status updates and more!

You’ll also get your name on the donator wall and in the comic on the supporter page where it will STAY even if the book gets printed!

Hit my Patreon for all these bonuses:
https://www.patreon.com/Gx3RComics

 

 

 

 

After issue hiatus, don’t panic!

by on July 30, 2018 at 7:44 pm
Posted In: Antares Complex, Updates, Website

I know I already said this in a description of the last page but since I know most don’t read that kinda stuff on youtube it’s safe to assume the same here. Maybe.

Okay, so issue 13 is complete, so I’m going to take a month off or so- that’s not a holiday, I’m working on getting pages ready for posting. There’s a lot to be done with a full page comic. If you keep an eye on my deviant art stuff, you might see some other art to keep you busy. OR if you want to check out my NEW COMIC that I haven’t made any post on here yet, you can check out Journey to the Skyline who’s first issue is still going strong, updating every thursday. I’ll probably have a more formal post soon- I totally don’t have a draft just sitting around that I haven’t posted because of anxiety, nooo that’d be absurd.

And, as usual if you want to support and get to see stuff early, check out my patreon where I’m posting all sorts of stuff early. Throw me a tip to help support my work, you’ll get your name on the current running issue and on the donator wall. My patreon or ko-fi for tips.

As I say every hiatus I take, no this isn’t the update that ends the comic, I have a buffer of pages but they need some finalizing and this lets me catch up and have more pages at the ready.

 

No update this week. Sick.

by on July 14, 2018 at 12:39 pm
Posted In: Antares Complex, Life, Updates

Not sick as like “Nice work man, that’s sick!” no I mean my nose is leaking into my throat, which is now sore because of that. Taking something for it but it’s drying me up and making me lose focus on what I’m trying to do.

I worked on the comic for a bit and only managed 2 panels in pencils in the time it should have been probably the whole thing. I can’t keep focused to the point where I started trying to remake the background for the site and I was like “what, am, I, doing??”. There’s other things site-wise I’d like to get done, new character profile images, finishing character bio’s that aren’t on the damned site as it is. Or just filling out more info in the database.

Annoying that I also feel pretty okay then suddenly 0 energy. Go lay down for an hour. Okay, better, then randomly later egh 0 energy. I’ve already had a similar (but far, far worse) experience with mono years ago-so it’s a familiar annoyance.

Egh. Either way, I’m sorry but I’m not getting an update out this week. I know some might be thinking “But Mike, why don’t you just shut up, relax and play a game?!” because I’m a workahaulic. I played an hour of Tales of Xillia, is that good enough for relaxing?…. Probably not.

Also, I managed to smash my freeze-y mug. You know those cups that have water in the lining? Bloody smashed it on my fridge on accident. There’s one xmas gift in the bin. Two bins actually. :\

Anyway, some good news is … Sonic Mania’s expansion is coming out soon and I’m eagerly awaiting it!

 

New comic series starting soon!

by on April 21, 2018 at 5:44 pm
Posted In: Artwork, Other Projects

Ah-ah! Don’t panic! Nothing is happening to Antares Complex! I’m still making pages for this comic…as we speak in fact I’m making a planet for a new page.

It’s wildly different from Antares Complex, so I’m not sure how much interest is there for you. BUT, I don’t see the harm in letting you know what it is, what’s up with it and how it effects Antares Complex (it doesn’t! that easy).

Journey to the Skyline is the new comic, it’s launching withing a week or two. (ideally monday) It’s a light hearted cartoon adventure following cartoon animals…think old Disney cartoons I guess? Sonic the Hedgehog? Stuff like that, they’re on a quest which will be revealed in the story.

 

poster for comic

On a world filled with floating islands, the planet itself long told to be uninhabitable and space running out, the future is uncertain. Cora looks to the stars and sees the future, the only answer to the growing population. So, her and her robot friend Blip work on inventions trying to get that to that dream …between making cars for the city.

Things all go wrong when her latest prototype of a mech goes out of control and well, we’ll see what happens!

Why make a new comic? :
That’s a good question. Thing is I’ve been hearing for …years, that I should be making a cartoon-style comic. “Your cartoon stuff always stands out to me!” is what I hear when trying to get a critique for an Antares Complex page and they spot something I doodled around with. It’s something I wanted to try a few years ago but, another friend with ..eh fairly negative views put me off the idea.

But, that kinda got rekindled when I met some new friends in a comic group (Webcomic Underdogs) and despite knowing them a short while they pretty much started telling me the same thing I was hearing before. OKAY, FINE! You win, I’ll try it. I spent about a year developing the characters, story and here we are, soon to launching a new series.

Also, don’t think I’m doing this just because of peer pressure or whatever. I do like drawing and creating cartoon characters! Otherwise I wouldn’t have a deviantart that has plenty of that sprinkled in the way of fanart. I just wasn’t sure if I could swing it, anxiety is fun right? Either way, I’ll announce here, on my twitter and deviant art when the comic is going live, where you can see it.

Leave a comment by the way, I’m curious what you think about this!

“The most memorable gaming moment”

by on April 14, 2018 at 12:46 pm
Posted In: Life, Video Games

So, on Facebook which I’ve been frequenting less and less for, oh, a number of reasons  which we’ll ignore, I saw a question on a group I follow and it made me think back to an amusing time…In retrospect.

This takes a bit of an explanation before I get to it, but it’s not directly the game that made it memorable…

Okay, so this is years ago. My brother and I were planning on getting an Xbox 360 when it was still pretty new. Dead Rising was just out and we were plenty eager to get it. But we kinda kept putting it off. Why? Well … One was it was expensive and the other I guess was, there wasn’t much else at the time out for it.

I dunno what year it was but, I got sick, really sick. I had mononucleosis and it was baaaaaad, I was exhausted all day, pretty much was in and out of sleeping randomly through out the day. I dunno how long I had it but I struggled to even drink and talk, nevermind eat. My throat was sore, my limbs were sore, I was in pain and it was awful. I had to drop out of college because they had some BS policy about only 2 days of absence were allowed, even with a doctors note. Infact I had to get a doctors note to NOT have to pay for the semester and – …AHEM …That’s another story.

So, yes, VERY sick. To the point where the doctor very concerned and insisting I get put into a hospital soon if I don’t get any better.  My brother, who’s normally has a kinda tough guy/confident attitude is on the phone and hanging/pacing around outside my room one day. Pokes his head in every so often then, walks away keeps talking, does the same. I was fairly delirious at this point from the pain, fading in and out of being awake and such but, he was checking up on me, so I didn’t really get that (till after the fact) Finally he walks in, puts the phone away;


“Hey man uh…I was thinking about getting the Xbox 360. How’s that sound? It’d give you something to do.” All I could do was give a thumbs up, but just laid there “looking like death” according to him. So “Yeah cool, alright, I’ll be back!” he leaves, comes back half an hour later”Hey bro! I got it and the game but, I gotta go to work, you can set it up right? Doesn’t matter just you know, we got it! Cool. See you!” he set the bag down with the new system in it, pointed it toward me and walked out.

It probably took me 5 minutes to get out of bed and over to the chair it was on, 20 minutes to set it up…or more. But I had this unbridled, insane excitement that was buried under fatigue, soreness and all that. I’m a huge tech nerd so the new hardware had me thrilled, nevermind the zombie massacre to come later (the game is actually really hard so, it was more ME being massacred). I didn’t get to play much, didn’t have the energy. But it was a nice gesture…

It only really occurred to me, thinking back on it that it’s the only real time he’s ever SHOWN that level of concern and care. I don’t mean that he’s not cared or been concerned for me. He’s always had my back and I’ve always had his, he literally saved my life when I was a baby from drowning and when I got injured as a kid and was covered in blood head to toe, he ran me to the local store looking for a medkit. So, he’s always had my back but …I dunno if I’m being clear here, it’s just I’ve never seen or felt that kinda thing from him. Usually it’s been more direct and instant. Despite it being a god awful week+ for me, I really do remember that whole thing in a positive way. Everything is a bit hazy about that but I think when he got home he wound up playing a bit for me, finally getting to play the game we were hyped for so long.

But that day he made my week. Is it the best gaming day? I can’t say, but it was pretty memorable for me.