Good day readers!

Well, we're about halfway through 2019, and I figure it's about time to roll out and update from my January 2019 goals. Some I mentioned here, some I didn't. But...let's review what all has been accomplished so far for Dark Horse and the Crystal Lotus Chronicles.

• Converted Comic Fury Dark Horse website to HTML and added affiliate links/Patreon/etc buttons to my site (hurray! I don't need to put them in my Author's comment anymore!)
• Created a home website for Dark Horse! And it's nearly complete (I still want to add a "shop" to it, and have a few small updates to make.)
• Created and added my own background to Comic Fury and my main website.
• Created a YouTube account and have updated it every week.
• Participated in several contests and exchanges (on Comic Fury.)
• Reached the end of Act Five!!! HURRAY!
• Flipped Act One AND got it printed for conventions! Also, starting with the Act 3 revamp and Act 6, Dark Horse now reads left to right.
• Worked on improving backgrounds and using more detail in my comic.
• Created my own font and started drawing my own bubbles to fit the style of the comic.

I am always open for suggestions! If you think there's something I can do to improve, please let me know! If there's something you want to see on this site, or on my website, let me know! I love interacting with my readers, and while I of course want to stay true to my story and vision, I am happy to take and review suggestions (constructive) in order to create a better story and improve my own skills. I want to of course please myself with my story, but I want to also to share and add enjoyment and free entertainment for others. Yes, my craft needs improvement. But even looking at pages from earlier this year, I can see where I've definitely improved in some aspects. I've still got  a long way to go! And I'm looking forward to getting better and better.

Okay, let's see what goals I haven't reached, and hopefully I can attain them before the end of the year!

• Create a year's worth of buffer for both the revamp and the Comic Fury version of Dark Horse.
• Taking Whimper in the Dark off hiatus.
• Interacting with more anime/manga related sites.
• Continue building my audience.
• Attend a convention (I've applied for a small one, but I won't hear if I'm in until late August.)
• Get 1000 subscribers on YouTube (this is a long term goal: I know it's not happening the first year I created it. XD)
• Continue improving on backgrounds, details, proportions; work on panel and page layouts to make them more dynamic, interesting, and clearer.
• Work on my storytelling: both visually and  through dialogue.

Thanks to anyone who reads Dark Horse! And thank you to those who support the comic either by reading, donating, advertising, watching my vids (I usually talk about Dark Horse), or all of the above! You guys keep me going, and I greatly appreciate your readership and support!

Take care, and keep on truckin'!

~Blue Dragon

Here's a picture for reading all this XD


 

Hey there! 

I've decided to make this "blog" area more of an "update" section, seeing as I already have a blog on Word Press. By and By, feel free to visit my blog, Cerulean Dreams Graphics.

I am in the process of updating both the layout of this site, and creating my own home for Dark Horse and the rest of the Crystal Lotus Chronicles. I haven't really discussed Dark Horse  much aside from what updates are coming and such, but a comment from one of my readers got me thinking...maybe I should go into more detail XD

Dark Horse is the first in a four to five part series known as the Crystal Lotus Chronicles (CLC): it's the introduction to our main characters and the world they live in. That said...it is going to be a complete story that can stand on it's own two (four?) legs, but continues into the rest of the series. The website home for my series is still under construction, so please be patient as I have a lot of projects going at the same time. When all's said and done, the main site for Dark Horse, and the CLC will update on a regurlar weekly basis--I may have it update a day ahead of my mirror sites, BUT Comic Fury, Tapas, and Smack Jeeves will all continue to up date regularly. That said, the main site will be updating at REVAMP speed, so Comic Fury will still be the most up to date story wise. This is because I want the main site to reflect what will be available in e-book and in print. 

So Comic Fury is going no where, and will always (in the foreseeable future) be an important site I update. It's become my replacement forum for the now defunct Manga Tutorials site (a place I held very dear, and was super upset when the creator just let it fall to the wayside and didn't even give the community a chance to take up the financial ​burden of keeping it running. Perhaps something happened to her...or maybe she just got too busy. But I remember a lot of moderators stepping up trying to reach her so we could keep the site from disappearing...) ~Le sigh. But...all things must pass. 

Anywho! You guys can look forward to a better...designed Comic Fury Dark Horse page coming soon as I work on the background. If you have any comments or suggestions, I certainly invite you start a conversation here :D 

And thank you for sticking with me on this bumpy road. I'm trying to improve my art and story telling, and I hope you are enjoying it as much as I've enjoyed creating this comic :D

Take care,

~Blue

Hola everyone! 

 

We're getting super close to the end of Act 4, in about seven pages! Only seven pages left to go!! So I thought it was time to post another blog. Also, I have a super exciting announcement to make! Brad and I finally have gotten ourselves together and began work on a comic he'd been kicking around surrounding his dog (and now my dog, since we live together  now.) It's call The Whimper in the Dark, and you can read it here on Comic Fury :D  You can view it here: http://wind.webcomic.ws/. 

Here's a look at how this comic will be be drawn:

If I can get a bit of a buffer going again, I'd really like to start posting twice a week again. I've been working more hours lately, though, and I'm working on a second comic (and planning to redo another comic I'd started on years back,) so I'm not certain I'll have a chance to do that anytime soon. Also...working on re-vamp doesn't help. I need to get back to that! Sorry I'm so slow!! But, there's always a lot going on, so please be sure to stop by now and then to check things out!

I'm not sure that I ever posted this here, but I redid an old image of Rhina a few years back. I intend to redo this again, as I am not happy with her hair. Her eyes are a little off, too. But here's a comparrison for your enjoyment!

 

Until next time, best wishes everyone!

 

Ashleen 

Hey everybody!

 

Thanks for holding in there while I was gone! It's crazy how over whelming things can be when you're moving, adjusting to a new job, and just trying to get your life organized! It also didn't help that since the move, Brad's been using his entire desk a lot...so I couldn't use his glass top desk as my own personal light box anymore (though I do say, I liked the space!) 

 

Well, for my birthday (the 1st of Feb.) he got me a new light box! Er...light pad. It's super cool! I already tried it out with  my technical pens, and hope to do some India inking this week! I really need to anyway, as I just omited a page and reworked some panels that are coming up. 

Since I edited out a page, I thought I'd share it with you all, so my efforts will not have been in vain :) 

Super excited about next week's post! I worked really hard on it, and that's why I ended up scrapping this page here: I just wanted to omit some boring bickering and get more into the action.

 

Hope you're still  enjoying Dark Horse, and have a great rest of your week everyone!

 

~Blue Dragon

Hello, hello!

So a while back, I promised I was working on revamping Act 1. And now I've finally gotten a bit of time to do so! I was so excited, that I've been up til 4 in the morning working on page 2 (the "prophecy" page is pg. 1). 

I wanted to share a little sneak peek of what's to come. I hope you all enjoy it!!!

 

I am going to keep things a bit parallel by making the first page or so colored...depending on what looks best. Here you'll get to see what some of the characters look like a little better early on :D I think a *few* pages will be left as they are, but most of Act 1 is going to be re-drawn. The story will not change, just the layout and of course the drawing style. I am really proud of what I've got done so far, so you can check out the sketches for Act 1 in my previous blog ---> http://darkhorse.webcomic.ws/blogarchive/22181

Thanks so much for your patience! And keep on truckin'!

 

~Blue Dragon~

Hey everyone! 

I am so sorry for the loooong delay. I've been going through a lot of stuff which took me away from working on this, as well as not having Internet access. I have finally gotten moved and will begin completing Act 4 as soon as I can. The good news is that I do have some new pages scanned and saved: so I'll be able to tone them and post them. I am hoping to have my desk and scanner soon so I can get to work on finishing the rest of Act 4. 

 

Again, I apologize for being away so long! I have missed being here and look forward to catching up on all the fantastic comics I'm subscibed to, and updating for my readers!!!

 

Here's a picture I did while I was house sitting: I need to fix the eyes before I ink it. This is no one in particular, just a drawing. 

 

Thank you for your patience!!

 

~Blue Dragon

 

Greetings readers! And visitors! And anyone who accidentally stumbled upon my blog!

 

So I've been meaning to revamp Act One for a while now...it's sooooooo old! And it really is kinda an embarassment. I was experimenting and still trying to improve my drawing. I still am, but I feel my proportions have improved, and definitely my screentoning, so it was time to begin this project. 

 

Now I'm going to go very slooooooow with this, because with all the stuff I'm involved in, school and unionizing (we get certified Oct. 6!!!! YAY! We did it) I don't want to get bogged down and mess up my regular updates with this (anymore than it already gets messed up from all the crap I'm doing.) So I'll give you a sample of what I've been working on here, and just work on this here and there when I have time. 

 

So Oisin in Act One doesn't look like someone who's been fighting a demoness overlady in a post-apocolyptic Northwest. So I gave his clothes a little change and added holes and stuff, which would be a little more realistic. Here's an idea of what he'll look like: 

 

And the following are some of the old pages that I've started sketching out:

 

 

 

 

 

I hope these will end up looking good :) And I hope everyone is enjoying the comic thus far.

 

Thanks and have a super great evening!!!

 

~The Blue Dragon~

Ashleen

Okay, I haven't done a bloggy thing in a while...particularly since I have an actual art blog on WordPress. But I thought I would just update that there are a few more site tweeks coming in the future. I discovered you can change the progression arrows!! So I fully intend to utilize this little perk by making some arrow buttons. But, I'm not sure when I will have a chance to do this, since I'm dog-sitting (no 2005 MAC...though in hind site, I could have brought it) and knee deep in a commission I need to finish. I HATE not having time to art (it's a verb now!) But summer's coming, and I'll be on a 3 day weekend soon. So maybe sometime in June expect that change :D

I plan on cleaning up somethings on site, too. Like...the home page...yeah...junking that or uploading something else there. What do you all think? Is there something you'd personally like to see the 'home" page be? Something to muse over. I am open to suggestions!

Okay...and Act 3 is the last of the kinda older drawings, but not so old? Not as new as Act 4 which I'm working on now :D 

That's something else. Sometime in the future I intend to redo some of Act 1...not right now, but in the future. They were too experimental and I really didn't know what I was doing. As in, the trees look TERRIBLE and I have a lot of awkward "toning" because I didn't have any screentones at the time. I just did grayscale...really. I mean, I seriously colored some of the things, then gray scaled it. 

But those changes are kind of stewing in my mind right now, and I'm pre-occupied with many other things at the moment. It might not really effect up-to-date readers, but new people will see the difference. I'll make an announcement when those changes come, but they won't be part of any updates: I'm just going to exchange images. Whatever act I'm on will still be uploaded regularly :D 

So, I ripped ya'll off last blog! No image! What!? I'm sorry! So here's a finished Odysseus.

He could never dream of being so smarvelous (channelling some Palahniuk there.)

As always, thanks for visiting!

And in the words of my favorite Beatle, Ringo Starr, "Peace and Love!"

~*The Blue Dragon*~