I’ve been working on Pages 11 through 20, and I figured I’d give you some stats on the overall progress and the individual progress of each page.

Overall Progress.
█ Ready, █ Finished, █ Not completed

Outline:
Page 11██████████ Page 20

Final render:
Page 11██████████ Page 20

Page Layout:
Page 11██████████ Page 20

Progress: Individual Pages.
█ Completed, █ Not Completed

Page 11 ██████████ 80% done. Final rendering started. What’s left: Complete final rendering and page layout.

Page 12 ██████████ 70% done. What’s left: Final rendering and page layout.

Page 13 ██████████ 90% done. What’s left: Page layout.

Pages 14 through 20 ██████████ 5% done. Page have already been set up. What’s left: Changing material settings, pose adjustment, final render, and page layout.

Don’t know if that helps but I’m thinking I should have a solid update sometime in the next week or so.

Well, first off, I’m happy to announce that I’ve finished Page 13 and started Pages 11 and 12. I’m still working on the outline as I go; I’ve got up to Page 16 outlined. There are going to be some changes with the way Issue 1.1 ends—actually, I made a mistake—its Issue 1.2—which should have started with Page 8 but I made a mistake with the numbering. I’ve gone back and corrected that mistake. The permalinks will still have the old numbers, I didn’t feel like chancing 404 errors. Anyway Pages 8 thru 20 is Issue 1.2. Issue 1.3 will be the last chapter for Hawk & Wolf, and if I can keep up the pace, maybe I’ll have it finished by October.

At anyrate, the next pages are going to utilize a newer version of the cel shaders I’ve been developing since last summer. I will say that adding Ambient Occlusion and removing Edge Blend makes these new shaders positively sing when it comes to night-time renders. You’ll see when the new pages roll out, though

While I’m on the subject of revisions, I’m also going to announce that I’ve made some revisions to Pages 6 and 7. I didn’t really like what Illustrator did when I exported the files, and I’ve reworked the dialog for Page 7.

Also corrected a broken link in the Comic Guide section.

And, in my quest to help with the work-flow, I stumbled across a new tool that makes outlining a helluva lot easier. A very powerful script writing (as in Film/Comic/Stage play script—not JavaScript) and outlining tool called Celtx. Best of all, its free! I’ve been using it to outline the rest of Silent Shadow Issue 1, and I am very happy with the program. The program comes with six default templates: Film, A/V, Theatre, Audio Play, Comic, Storyboard and Text. The only problem, and maybe this is because I’m a Poser user, is that there is no really easy way to combine templates. Since I’m a Poser user and I’m using cameras, I’ve found that its very handy to have a shot list for each panel. However, I have found that there are workarounds in Celtx, and that I can have more than one template in each project file.

Alright, that’s pretty much it. I hope to have an update to the comic in the next week or so.

While I haven’t had much of a chance to work on the comic, I’ve been spending my time working on other parts of the site; namely the Comic Guide and FAQ pages. Neither page is complete but they both provide enough information for anyone venturing in for the first time, and are probably wondering what the comic is about and who the characters are.

I’m having some problems with Page 11, but instead of holding up the rest of the comic while I try to solve those problems, I’ve decided to take a rather novel approach and work on the other pages. Right now, I’m working on what will be either Page 12 or 13; depending on whether or not Page 11 extends into Page 12 or not, I’ll just call it Page 13, just to be on the safe side. All Page 13 consists of is changing materials to the new ones I’ve developed, I should say everything from Page 13 on will be nothing but material changes. It’ll be the same stuff that was posted last summer but just with the toon shaders added.

Now that I’ve gotten my PHP/Wordpress developer legs back, I’m going to start working on the Webcomic Publisher plug-in again. I’m looking for a beta release sometime next month. I think all I really had to do for the beta was finish up the documentation that is supposed to come with the plug-in.

That’s it for now. Keep an eye on the Comic Guide section, though. I’ll make a point to periodically update with new information; I’m actually thinking about switching that section over to a wiki; would make more sense that way, actually.