Licked Clean

I’m working on a little bit more of a buffer before I post more comic updates, since I want the next few pages to appear closer together!

Meanwhile, I’ve put together a couple more Quake maps over the course of the past few months. One is yet to be released, since it is part of a larger map pack, but is complete. The other has been released over the weekend, as part of Dog Jam, a fun little project with a restriction on using just the rottweiler.

The map is titled Licked Clean. You are stripped of your weapons and fed to the dogs in a metal dungeon.

Screenshot of Quake, previewing the gateway (in the shape of a dog's mouth) and a green armor pick-up.

The custom models by Kebby really elevated this to something a little more fun and unique; however, I do think the concept was somewhat under-utilized, where I wish more people joined in. All-in-all, this was a neat piece to practice with.

You can find and download Dog Jam on Slipseer.

Lost in the Sauce

A view of the "market" from cs_italy, ported to Quake.
Aerial view of a “market.”

I had to let my drawing hand heal some after a small injury last week. Since I still wanted to do something creative with my time, I put together another map for Quake, this time for a speed mapping event. It’s titled Lost in the Sauce.

It’s a remake of cs_italy (Counter-Strike: Source), with some added Quake flavor for single player, along with some small extra added areas that I felt could exist within the original map. I ran right up to the wire with the time limit, so I had to rush a couple of sections, but I’m pretty happy overall with how this one turned out!

A more recognizable point of view from cs_italy, ported to Quake.
A more recognizable point of view for cs_italy.

You can download it with the Quad Run II map pack over on Slipseer.

A few of my personal favorites in the pack are Get Digging! by Pinchy, The Dissolution of Mind & Matter by Repator, and Dances with Quads by Mazu.

Rancid Retrofit

It’s been a while!

I mentioned this in the comments for my latest comic page: I’ve been busy! I’ve ended up with my own house, so my life’s been consumed with furniture shopping, rearranging things, and figuring out how things are supposed to work out. As a result, I’ve had to take a break from updating the comic. I’m slowly getting back to it, now that I’m settled in again, and I hope to post some new pages soon once I feel comfortable with a small buffer.

In between all of that, I’ve also taken to dabbling in some new things lately, including mapping for Quake after discovering Trenchbroom. This isn’t my first experience with game development or mapping, but it is my first experience doing anything like that in a true 3D space! The result is my first completed map, Rancid Retrofit, which was created as part of Sewer Jam 2.

It’s a Rubicon 2 themed map, and has a few fancy tricks going on, thanks to the Alkaline mod, such as working ladders and rising water. There are also new enemies that don’t exist in regular Quake.

If you’re not familiar with Alkaline, I definitely recommend checking out the page and playing the mod’s campaign. Of course, you’ll need a source port, and the .pak files in the id1 folder from the original Quake game to play.

Sewer Jam 2 on Slipseer.

Dead Light

Happy Halloween! This year, I have a story written by Di, featuring Iris & Phoenix, to present for the occasion.

Dead Light Paperback Cover

Sometimes things felt just plain wrong.

Not wrong like realizing too late that you answered incorrectly on the test, or say the wrong thing in front of your girlfriend’s parents. Wrong with a capital w, and it was persistent. Not constant, thank god, but close enough to it that it was starting to make everyone feel on edge. Iris was agitated, tapping the tips of her pointed fingers on the edge of the boat, while Phoenix kept himself busy leaning against the mast, flicking a lighter open and closed with his thumb. He should have retired below deck with Midnight, away from the churning visuals of the water around them, but neither spotwould lessen the misery brewing.

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Using the Affinity Graphics Suite

For quite a while now, I’ve been using the Affinity graphics suite in place of Adobe’s offerings. They don’t replace every function I use regularly, especially at my job, but they’ve proven to be good enough for my personal work. As these applications have been updated, and with the recent release of Affinity Publisher, they do seem to be quickly becoming complete replacements for some of Adobe’s offerings.

Below are some of my thoughts, from the perspective of someone who currently works in printing.

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A Send-Off To 2018

Hey there! It’s almost 2019!

Preview

2018 a wild roller-coaster of a year, and I’ve been kept incredibly busy outside of comics. I’m hoping I’ll have more time to devote to personal projects again next year. I still have a lot I’ve been planning to do.

In the meantime, here’s a special pin-up of Dana I’ve made for the end of this year:

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Center World’s Species

Since Labor Day was this week, I’m taking the opportunity to lighten my load a little and continue with my series of codex style entries on Center World’s universe. The previous one was a map of the Belten System. Today, I cover the currently known intelligent species that inhabit that star system.

Klexan

The klexans are an amphibious mammalian species capable of holding their breath for long periods of time underwater. They mastered space flight and established colonies on other worlds within their system before developing their first microprocessor.

One such planet they colonized was the Center World, the fourth of seven planets. Another intelligent species already inhabited this world, but they were technologically outmatched by the klexans.

Their home planet is still divided into many different states, with each colony on another world being owned by one nation or another. As as result, their outposts were often torn apart in the squabbles between the states as they desired more control.

Astakid

The astakid are crustaceans native to Center World, or Elben, as they know it. At the time of first contact with the klexans, they were building their first factories and mass producing their own tools.

They are born from egg clutches, with each one having as many as fifty siblings. A majority of them are female, and they live in large clans, as they watch over each other’s children.

Although they were initially outmatched by the invading klexans, they managed to take back lost territory through overwhelming numbers, while also taking advantage of the infighting between Yuket-Ko’s nations. Eventually, the astakid clans forced the aliens to sign a treaty, limiting their claim to a chain of islands in the northern hemisphere.

Human

The humans come from the far away planet of Earth, somewhere off in a distant galaxy called the Milky Way. While they didn’t develop space ships to the same degree that the klexans did, their information technologies were far beyond what any other species had even imagined possible.

Some years after the Astakid Rebellions, the klexans picked up on a mysterious signal originating from outside their star system. Seeing the potential in communicating with another species, the signal was reverse engineered and replied to. Now, humans are brought to the Belten system via cloning and memory transfer, the only space travel method that manages to be “faster than light” so far.

On Center World, the humans are allowed to inhabit the cities built on the island chain secured by the Klexan-Astakid Agreement.