Monday

An Update! Yay! Three updates this week providing my Website sticks around. Bah. It's frustrating. I know.

Thank you guys for your patience (again)

Wednesday

I have an update!

Sorry, sorry, sorry for all the website problems. :( That and general laziness and distraction for the past couple of weeks.

I was working on This animated mood theme for Were the World Mine if anybody is interested in the fruits of my distraction. :)

Wow! We're Back in Action Here! Real Bands Sorry, the Calendar Archive is gone. I have no idea how to recreate that. Oh, Well. I know some of the page #s don't jive with the new categories, but I can't spend any more time trying to figure out why that is. I'm pretty sure everything is in order! If it's not or if one of the pages has gotten looped let me know (Sometimes I stumble across an archive page that when I hit the Previous Entry button it just links me back to the same page over and over. This happens when I get impatient and click on the post entry button several times and it posts more than once at the same time somehow. Deleting the extraneous entry seems to fix it.)

Next on the Agenda: The writing website. Which is far less daunting, because there was only really two stories and I think I've got the Archive stuff figured out now. (I was freaking out because of all the archive pages being generated...2 for each page of the comic...but all 700 of them are pretty much the same size as one of the image files, so I'm not going to worry about space anymore!)

I don't think I'll be posting the Mark Briar Affair 1st person thingy because it's all in the main body now and then some! Hehe, He was kind of a douche in the first draft and somehow he ended up being really sweet in the rewrite. Which I like better! :-D

So, tic.manicdak.com will be back soon, and then I will see if I can get the Gallery plugin to work, so the plug-in will make all the sites match perfectly! (I like matching!)

Okay, that is all. I hope I didn't scare anybody too much with that sudden disappearance. (All my MT Entries are now backed up so I won't have to re-post hundreds of entries at a time if it ever happens again!)

Thank you so much for your patience everybody! I hope to get back to the fun stuff soon!

I know I posted something on the main page the other day, but since I've started working on it the post has disappeared.

Anyway, my site was 'compromised' and so all the data uploaded had to be wiped out and my account reinstated. That is why everything disappeared and you were getting the account suspended message (if you happened to browse by that day)

So, the short story is that I've had to start over, Movable type is now 4.0 and seems different from what I'm used to. The calendar archive code is...definitely not something I remember how to do, so I have to figure out the archive so it doesn't show you multiple entries on one page....because I will be reposting all 700+ entries this weekend hopefully and that will make for one monstrous archive page.

The good news is: All pages present and accounted for. Yay! I almost freaked out because I thought I lost some of the redos, but A. I didn't and B. Why am I freaking out...I have the originals anyway. ;)

Other good news: Made Up to Break up was not stored on Movabletype...just reposted there. Oh, man...that is one archive template I'm not looking forward to figuring out again. It took me forever the first time I did it...a couple months ago! :P (movable type archive templates make me want to punch kittens just so you know. The documentation doesn't make it any less confusing for people who only dabble. They need a movable type for dummies or something. Is there such a thing?)

bad news: I don't feel like writing style sheets right now. Sticking to movable type styles for now. I hope you enjoy the London Skyline. I thought it was fitting. :)

In other news: MT4 has a tag could function...thinking of adding it to the side bar and tagging the entries with the characters who appear in each installment...:D

Edit: Comic Navigation seems to be sorted. Now to posting all those files! I can do it!

What is up! I know, I know, I said last week, but I am lazy and easily distracted by playstation. I bow down to your patience!

TUESDAY:

In which Graeme and Becky chat. :-D (PS: I finished three pages this week!)

In other news I have a twitter now: Follow Me! I command you! Hehe, just note: this is not an exclusive realbands/mubu twitter. You will get all my inane pictures and musings. ;-)

That is all! See you on Thursday!

Chapter 17

Here's an update for Made up to Break Up, finally. Chapter 17! Yay! Cue the angst all around. :) Now I need to work on Real Bands.

I'm sorry for being so lame about updates lately! Please forgive me :(

Could it be! Yes!

Friday

So, I have returned from my forever long hiatus at least, but I only have one page for this week. It just is taking me a while to get back into the swing of things. It's like I've forgotten how to draw or something, so yeah. Hopefully I will have two next week and then back up to three. I will ease back into things.

I think I've finally gotten over my writers block re: MuBu. I know. It's frustrating to have writers block over something you've already written, but such is the life of a third draft that puts some much needed attention on an overlooked side character in Mesquite!

That is all for now I'm afraid, but I will return next week!

LJ cut for bigness!

( Mark, Richey, and Graeme w/ Tommy )

Hello! This is an unrelated to MuBu/RealBands Update, but I thought I'd let you know that I posted this year's Nanowrimo novel on the website.

I had posted it in another community in November, but I've worked on it since.

HERE it is, if you want to read it. It's called "Under a Blue Sun", and it is complete! (Yes, I finish things. Here is proof! ;))

Until the Next!

-M

Okay so, I know I've been MIA for a while, but bear with me! I will get back into the swing of things soon now that the new house is pretty much settled! I won't blather on in this post though, I'll just get right to it!:


Here is a link to a one off page that I did in black and white. Tommy and Richard's first kiss! I had it just randomly sketched out and I thought I would finish it off.

But, wait! There's more:

Chapter 16 of Made Up to Break Up is now available.

In which Tommy gets another Job, and Graeme gets drunk.

That is all for now! We'll see what this long weekend brings!

What??

Right so I am in house now! With internet and everything...the majority of stuff has been put in a home, but not all of it. As soon as we get it sorted I will be back in business and able to begin making artsicles once again. I wanted to see if I could find some cool old drawings to show you to tide you guys over, but there wasn't much that hadn't been already seen at one point or another. I did scrounge up a couple things and here they are:

( Click for Artlings )

There has been other drawings, but they're extreeeemly spoilery so I didn't want to post them to the com. I do post them in my own personal journal though, if you like to be spoiled. (and I've been generating updates like frozen molasses lately, I know. :( ) You'd have to friend me though and let me know so I can add you back. It's secretly friends only. OF course the downside is that you get my pointless ramblings (see above tangent) on a daily basis as well. haha!

I also post spoilery Made Up to Break Up stories there...future installments and spin-offy things. I'm not trolling for friends or asking for beta readers or anything. I just wanted to throw it out there in case anybody was interested in sneek peeking. :D

Speaking of MuBu...working on the next chapter now! Maybe I'll get to the point tomorrow where I can type it up this weekend? Cross fingers!

Edited because: a href and img src are NOT interchangeable tags. Haha!

Batten down the hatches! Here comes the next chapter, edited as best mine eyes can edit. If you catch any egregious errors, holler at me. I wasn't sure how this one worked, but I got tired of trying to figure it out, so here it is for better or for worse. I decided I was going to post it anyway, just so I can move on. I'll certainly let you know if I make any major changes to it, but I don't think I'm going to, so yeah.

So, we're through with what I have actually already posted of the Mark Briar affair. The first half of it is from Part 2, and the second half is from part 3, so it's got some new stuff. (And it's all new, if you've never any Mark Briar affair. ;) )

If anybody aside from me was worried about chapters becoming increasingly shorter...you'll be pleased to know that this is the longest one yet.

In this chapter: Graeme and Tom step in, around, on, and all over the line of friendship. ;) Tom has an unexpected confrontation, and the best date ever. Hint: it's not with Hope.

Chapter 15

I am still on Hiatus...hopefully we will be able to move into the new house next weekend so I can get back on track! I haven't gone anywhere or abandoned the project or anything. The new Chapter of MuBu is also forthcoming, it just needs to have the ending finished and go through a little tweaking, and it should be ready. It's a really long one, 7,000 or so words. Yay!

Since you guys are so patient (I don't know if that's true, but nobody's emailing me, demanding I get my butt in gear, so I'll assume ;)...) I thought I would post a redo I did over X-mas along with a little story about it (some of you may have heard it, I don't know!

Anyway, I haven't posted it yet, because it's out of order, and I'm going to try to post the redos of the early archives chronologically! I'm sure it's confusing enough to have it start with more recent drawings/final format of the pages back to the wildly erratic early stuff and then back again as it is. ;)

( Most offending page ever! )

I have random Site news for today ... You know how the archive is actually supposed to pull up a neat little calendar with thumbnails for each comic page when you click on each month (and then you can scroll through month by month if you wish)? Maybe not, because they haven't been working since I upgraded movable type.

When you clicked on a month it just linked you to the first page for that month! That has been rectified, so the calendars are back! Not only that, but I spent some time also updating the thumbnails! Now each comic has a cute little thumbnail to help you decide which archived page you would like to click on ;)

Also, as a bonus, though it may not look like it...(I had to resize the calendars when I did the new layout...) Each of the thumbnails is actually a 100 x 100 image. So, for what it's worth, you have my permission to snag the images and use them as LJ Icons if you so wish. You can even Modify them if you want. Feel free. I just ask that you share with the rest of the group if you do. ;)

Plus, a little nugget of trivia for you...since I had to go through EVERY darn page since 2005 to do the thumbnails last week, and I noticed something.

When Tom is explaining his nationality to Becky, and she doesn't believe he's from The US, he tells her that his father Drives a truck. It is so not clearly explained in the comic that he doesn't mean Truck as in his dad drives a regular old pick-up truck... His dad actually drives a Big-Rig. Driving a truck is his actual livelihood! :D

Also it is time for a new Soundtrack! I'm trying to not go a whole year without making a new one!

( Old Soundtrack for convenience: )

I'm still working on uploading stuff to the new one. Trying out a new player so I don't have to convert the songs into flash files. :) That is all. Still working on the next MuBu chapter too. It's kind of a tricky one to untangle out of first person perspective. So, that is all for now. Still haven't moved yet, all my arting supplies are in boxes. :(

The Soccer Team

In which Tommy meets Mark Briar. Yay! A Brand new chapter, sorta. Hehe, I hope I didn't crib too much from the Mark Briar Affair...just the dialog from that particular scene, and not too much else. Until the next time!

-M

Real Bands is on Hiatus until Mid-May! Due to the author moving house. While there is no space for art supplies to be strewn around the place whilst packing, there is plenty of time to type away at the computer, so on to the update portion of the post!

MuBu Update: Chapter 13: Don't Ever Fall in Love

Sound advice perhaps? In which, Tommy is cynical. Graeme has a bitchy ex girlfriend and a million brothers...but there's always a little Hope. (That was horrible pun, you'll see why. Forgive me? Hehe ;))

Anyway, on the MuBu news front: I have to add whole big chapters to the Nevada story arch, because a certain character was only mentioned in passing originally and his plotline deserves more than a cursory glance in the main story. There happens to be a big long side story about him if you want to read about it before it makes it into MuBu. *spoilers!* Hehe. Yes, I am talking about an exercise I took on at some point, which was to write short stories about these characters in first person point of view. I call them vignettes, even though they're longer than that implies. I added a lot of things about Nevada in one called "The Mark Briar Affair" (You can find the first two chapters in the stories section.) that I never went back and added... So I think it'll will fill things in a bit if I add that stuff in to the main story.

So, I'm sure you will be very disappointed to hear that the next chapter will not, in fact, be an edit, but a brand new chapter. It's kind of a rework of parts of the vignette, with some other stuff added in. Hopefully, I'll be able to work it up into a presentable state faster than Chapter 13 here...which I don't believe I even edited all that much.

Ah, well...on to the next!

Ah, well, I officially no longer have any space to draw since there are boxes here there and everywhere. At least I can write and edit, so here's the next MuBu installment for you:

A Coming Out

Well, I think this chapter's content is pretty self explanatory.

Hehe, anyway, there are some dialog changes. Most significantly...at the end, which originally ended very abruptly and didn't really make any sense. This conversation fits in much better I think.

Thick as Thieves

I promised two didn't I? :) Here it is!

Chapter 11

In which Tom turns into a grumpy teenager and meets Graeme Alexander! So this chapter actually turned out twice as long as its original incarnation! I don't know what to think of that, except it was needed. You get a little more insight into Tom's state of mind and more of the friction with the parents, which I think is actually pretty important.

That is all! Until the next!

the Mysteries of Mark Briar Part 2

In which Tommy, doesn't blab to the entire universe.

Ah, so sorry about the severe lack of updating lately. I'm super duper busy until I move at the end of the month and get settled, so please bear with me! I have at one more update this week and then after that, who knows. I probably should just take a chill until I'm in the new house, but I feel bad.

If it's any consolation chapter 11 of MuBu is fast approaching. :)