I started this Tumblr last year around this time as a place to showcase some of my work. I had some other pursuits like my webcomic (El Cuervo) and my continued writing for my tutorial blog (idrawdigital.)

Over 365 days later, I’ve rebooted the comic and scaled down on the blog posts to the point where I send out link posts once a month showcasing various webcomics I like. One of these days I’ll get back to doing proper blogs, once my schedule for El Cuervo has reached a comfortable position. Right now, I’ve gone back and forth from periodic updates per week, to a single multi-page update, and now back to 3x a week.

The reboot came from my dissatisfaction with the art of the first chapter and parts of the second. I talked about how I wanted El Cuervo to be somewhat photorealistic, but it was far too time consuming. I settled on a more cartoony style, which looked visually appealing, but ended up not really creating the noir feeling I was hoping to capture.

Now, I’ve found a nice balance between quality and frequency of updates. I’ve also switched my workflow around, so everything is done completely in vector! That is an absolute bonus when it comes time for print. The main drawback is that I’m going back and redoing all 90+ pages, so it will be a while before any new El Cuervo moments happen on screen.

At the time of this writing, I am approximately 2 weeks ahead on my buffer of pages, something I haven’t had since I first started. I was playing catch up ever since March Break when I went to Florida with my wife, and I have never been able to get back to a comfortable comic buffer since. It got worse when I started with the 5 page weekly updates. There was no way I could ever get ahead, since I was making 5 pages each week which I barely had time for as it was.

This reboot gave me the excuse to tighten up the narrative and to really improve the visuals. I’m a lot happier with the way things are rolling now with the comic.

In about 2.5 days I’ll be on Christmas break - having dinners with family and friends, relaxing with my wife and our mutts and hopefully working on some more comic related stuff. I hope I’ll be able to get in some time to create a couple of blog posts for idrawdigital, as new content for that site has been sorely lacking. I really wanted to do a tutorial book, but I feel like I should probably cement myself as a credible webcomic artist first before I continue to harp on about how you should go about doing things.

Anyway - have a Merry Christmas and a relaxing holiday season. See you in a few.