July 18, 2015
You’d think that a page with pretty much nothing but rocks and water would not take a long time to draw/ color. AND YOU WOULD BE WRONG
seriously, this page >:[
I’m also launching a Patreon next week, which would allow me to continue updating regularly… kinda nervous about it! Anyhow I’ll be posting about that more soon.
Today’s bonus image: Just a closeup panel, cuz I like the way it looks.
53 Comments
Oooooooh! A pocket of (non-liquid!) atmosphere! Hmmm, with all that weight of water above it, it might even have some pressure. Which doesn’t mean it’s breathable buuuuuuut… :D
Certainly no indications of some life that could be using or producing oxygen… Unless those glowing dots are something but I more figured they were just something being lit up by the helmet lights. Panel 2 is a little hard to figure out but I figure with the light gravity, up and down probably feel very similar when you’re submersed in water.
Beautiful!
Must’ve been a bitch and a half to get this page done.
It was annoying XD Fill in water color. Fill in rock color relative to water color. Make it light enough to see but dark enough to look cavey and subtle enough to fade for atmosphere. Paint rock details so you know where to add lighting. Paint figure. Add figure reflection and lighting fx to rocks. Repaint rock details that just got wiped out. Go back and add reflective lighting to figure. Add water texture and bubbles and floating junk. Then go back and randomize the colors so it doesn’t look so flat and boring. More texture. Adjust values forever. Then my favorite step: post and regret all of your life choices.
*takes notes to use for when I paint next time*
Well done!
why does this page feels so much like a metaphor for rebirth
Because the hole he goes throught has a certain shape, mayhaps.
Oh thank the gods, I thought I had my mind in the gutter
Oh trust me I’m not a good referential to know if yours isn’t.
“Yonic.”
There’s no way it’s a metaphor for rebirth because that hole doesn’t even…
Okay yeah, it totally looks like a vagina
In my experience Patreons tend to work best for creators with consistently high art quality (check) drawing in a large, established audience (?) captured through a reliable, regular update schedule (yeah, erm…). Although I’m just a humble patron – what do I know…?
There certainly are flukes though: for the life of me I can’t figure out WHY Sam Logan isn’t cashing in thousands a month by now for example. At any rate, do make sure you have a big honking impossible-to-miss link to your Patreon on the page once you launch it – best intentions come to naught if people don’t even realize you have one; I reckon not everyone is reading the small script…
…Now, did I mention yet how much I love that light shining through from below…?
My audience levels fluctuate a lot; the bulk of readers are/were on my other comic, which was fairly popular for a while. I had to take a big hiatus for a few years in order to save my property from a shitty situation and now I have to rebuild everything from rock bottom, so that’s fun and really awesome.
As for updates, I’ve been updating 2-3x a week pretty much every week except for June, since the comic started. Which at this level of art (and given that I have 2-3 freelance things going on simultaneously) is not that bad imo. Reader perception is a lot different from reality though. SO WE’LL SEE.
If my experiment fails then I’ll go back to my regular schedule of a job that actually pays a lot and gives me insurance and food and a shitton of benefits, and the comic will update at 2x a month or less because I can’t reasonably handle a fulltime art job, and 1.5+ hours of commute and 2 webcomics. Guess it will be up to the readers.
A random reader’s perception: it seems to me that you update fairly frequently at the moment, but not so much “regularly” (I don’t even know the update schedule for ME, if there is one; I just find the updates by checking your Twitter). Examples of webcomics I would say update regularly are Gunnerkrigg Court and Unsounded (the former updates one page MWF extremely consistently; the latter fairly often has month-long breaks from the update schedule or multi-page updates that take the place of several smaller updates, but the author tends to communicate how these deviate from the schedule).
The above comment is completely from the reading side of things; I’ve never made a webcomic. If I remember correctly, you don’t do a buffer for your comics, so having set update days might not be practical.
I see. Yeah, it is difficult for me to build buffers for a variety of reasons, mostly because I don’t have a lot of spare time to build one. Welp, the Patreon will give the option to override that.
Aaron Diaz/Dresden Codak has quite a hefty chunk of change (definitely a living wage, and then some) coming in through his Patreon despite an extremely erratic update schedule (and a history of being even more erratic). I think that the quality of the artwork and/or story can carry a Patreon just fine as long as updates *happen*, regardless of their regularity.
Absolutely agree, and Lackadaisy by Tracy Butler is another excellent example under similar conditions.
I’m guessing the Patreon will be for “shingworks” and not for the individual comics (not least because you mentioned at some point that MI “will run in its entirety” before Meek resumes)?
My point is that the largest potential mass of patrons are probably the people who love the Meek and want to see it continue; focussing too heavily (stretch-goal-wise) on MI might reduce the momentum somewhat (I’m not talking about myself, but I’m guessing that a substantial part of your former Meek-readers isn’t reading MI or has even heard about it).
On the other hand, what is sure to drive people towards donating is a stretch goal of a guaranteed update schedule for the Meek. Regardless of your choices regarding these details, I think your Patreon will do very well (but to avoid jinxing it, I’ll avoid putting a number on it). ;-)
Best of luck!
Is that a face on the roof of panel 5?
It”s megatron.
I’m wondering wether the light below on panel 1 comes from Beck’s suit.
It’s probably from the underwater alien civilization that will be introduced in the upcoming sequel, Mare Internum 2: The Reckoning
Mare Internum 2: Internum HARDER *extreme riffs start blasting*
It’s probably the only way they wouldn’t both die down there, so I’m tempted to believe it :|
Spooky giant Martian anglerfish?
Also, I’ve never been more excited to give a person money.
That think really gave me the creeps when I spotted it just after a second glance at the page.
They look like long vines crawling up a wall.. with lights on the end.
The Old Ones are supposed to live in the middle of the pacific, tho.
Well, this is the Martian Pacific. You think things like the Old Ones would discriminate between planets?
Fantastic work!
I both love and hate that I can’t tell exactly what is going on here haha
I am SO excited and hopeful about you getting a Patreon account! I’ve been wanting to throw money at you for years. Granted, I don’t have much to throw, but I’ll be so happy to help support your amazing art and storytelling.
Beautiful.
You kidding? I saw this page and was like “Damn, that must’ve taken like a week to do.”
Rocks are hard shit.
Sorta sometimes literally.
Mebbe a dumb question, but I’m a late arrival to this comic (although have enjoyed the Meek for a long time).. Is there a way to see the various bonus art that has been posted already? At this point every link in the past panels seems to show the same current art piece for me.
Not dumb at all :] all past incentives are stored at the Facebook page (link is over to the right) and are updated there on the first of the month.
This page looks fantastic. Best of luck with the patreon.
Thanks!
Mm, yes. Underwater cave scene complete with pretty lights! I like it. Reminds me of Atlantis.
To be honest, my first thought concerning Patreon was: “Oh no, not another one!”, because there are such a lot of fantastic artists online, and my finances are rather limited.
On the other hand it’s a fairly steady support system for the receiver, probably with less effort than the rather erratic and time- consuming kickstarter campaigns, and an unbeatable way of binding with the fans.
So I think I have simply to sift and sight, and you have to give us good reasons why to support you and no other.
As there are few series with such a high quality, finding those reasons won’t be hard!
Well, it mostly boils down to one thing, which is “do you want to keep reading these comics.” If you don’t have a buck or two to spare a month that is fine and understandable, I would never ever expect anyone to spend money something they can’t afford or don’t care very much about. But I will have to reprioritize my life appropriately too, and go back to full-time corporate work, and updates here will likely drop to 2x a month at that point.
We’ll see, I guess!
I so desperately need a job. Because I 100% understand reprioritization, but I totally love your art, and your storytelling.
Patreon’s up ! https://www.patreon.com/shingworks
Thanks. Now I can be an early contributor!
Oh no, I can believe this page took forever. This sequence of pages has been absolutely stunning!
This comic is speaking to me in a way not many have, and I’m going back to read The Meek, too, and *thoroughly* enjoying it.
Your drawing and attention to detail are spectacular :) I’m hooked.
I’m in a tight spot right now but when I’m more able financially you definitely deserve support and I’ll be a very willing patron. I would love to see more of this.
Thank you for all the work you’re putting into this, Shing.
You are amazeballs.
No problem! Thank you so much for reading! If you want to support the comic without using your $$, even something like recommending it to friends is like the best thing ever. Can’t wait to keep posting more~
You know, I just found this comic yesterday evening and the first thing I saw was this page. My first thought was: Oh no! This will NEVER update if pages are THIS beautiful.
I’ve read through the hole thing now (not that much yet) and my second thought was: I know that style! That’s “The Meek”, oh NO it really will never update.
Then I saw the dates on the comics and also that the Meek is back after your hiatus. AND NOW I’M SO HAPPY YOU ARE BACK!
Haha, yeah, I have been updating this comic about 2x a week since the beginning of the year. I know everyone is up my ass about my Meek hiatus (which I didn’t have much choice in taking) but… I mean, prior to it, I updated fairly regularly at 1x a week. I’ve been exceeding that since going off hiatus. So yeah XD Feel free to expect 2-3 updates per week between the two comics, and possibly more if people feel like supporting that via Patreon.
Thanks for reading!
My GODS the freaking LIGHTING…
*bowing* Art Guy Not Worthy…
I m so confused. This is my second or third time returning to the beginning, trying to get the story clear in my head. This time I m coming from chapter 4, page 40.
? We’re starting on Chapter 3 right now. Unless you mean The Meek, which is a different/ unrelated comic.