This is embarrassing… I left the comic in my pants pocket, and it went through the wash, and all the color washed out…

Ok, no, that’s obviously not what happened. By the way, did you know we have a Facebook page? I bring it up because I sometimes use to to discuss events and news for which I’d like semi-instant feedback… like everything I’m about to tell you.

So anyway, I’m really digging working on The Starcaster Chronicles. I think it’s got legs, I’m excited about some of the story ideas I have for it, and I’m enjoying working on the pages. They are more complex and detailed though, which means more work. Not just more work to draw, but more work to color as well.

In fact, it’s typically taking me longer color them as it does to pencil and ink them. And I’m still having to cut corners/stop before I’d like to in order to have them up every other day. I don’t like that. So I figured I have two options here… spend an extra day on coloring, which means fewer updates, which sucks… OR… division of labor.

So I’ve decided to hire a colorist to work with me on The Starcaster Chronicles. This will accomplish a few things. First, the pages will be colored better than I could do by myself with the time I have available (likely even better than I could do period). Better colors, better pages, better product in the end for us all to enjoy. That’s good.

I’ll also be able to take the time I would have spent coloring and spend that putting more work into the lineart/layouts, and even finishing additional pages in the same amount of time. Under the right circumstances (I’ll get to those in a sec), this means the opportunity for more pages in a given week. Four or maybe five. More pages means the story moves along faster. That’s good.

However it also means that I have a person that can only start their job once I’ve finished mine. So in order to maintain the update schedule, I’ll be uploading pages sans-color. This way we can keep moving along with the story and the choices. When I get the finished colors I’ll then go back and update the pages. This is less than good, but it’s a necessary concession to get the best overall product in the end.

Once the colorist is underway and caught up, I expect colored pages will only be a day or two behind.

If I were doing a different type of project, obviously I could work way far ahead, and have the colorist working ahead, and you’d never see an uncolored page. But since you guys have to vote on what actions to take, I can often only work as far ahead as the next fork in the road.

Whether I can release extra pages in a given week will also depend on when and where the choices fall, and what days I have available to work (I take care of my son by myself on the days my wife works, and as readers with babies will understand, I can get NO work done on those days). But the overall goal is definitely towards producing more content.

I always do everything myself… pencils, inks, colors, etc. So this is not a decision I made lightly. But I want The Starcaster Chronicles to be the best project it can be, and this is the way to accomplish that.

And to be clear, this arrangement is only for the Starcaster stuff. When we take a break from this story and I go back to gaming one-shots, it will be business as usual.

TL;DR: The black and white pages are temporary, I’m hiring a colorist, the pages will be updated with color, and you’ll probably get extra pages out of the whole deal as a result.

I’ll have some more information in the next day or two, either here and/or on the Facebook page.