CIEA chapter 8.1 status report (Patreon)

---------------------- [post ch. 8.1 thoughts & plans]

i just wrapped up writing and drawing the last thumbnail for ch. 8.1.

i'll be writing the rough outline for chapter 8.5 next, so i hope you'll enjoy reading that in the future too. and of course, once i'm done with that i'll be doing the rough script and thumbnails too. no rest for the wicked. (lol)for now im focusing on finishing the next 3 installments for LW. i just finished and posted LW 53. i hope to finish the other 2 in the next 2 days. once that's done, it's back to CIEA.

when i finish drawing 8.1 properly i'll showcase some of the thumbnails and the entire rough script & outline i wrote down (after i clean it up a bit) so you can see how it looks.i'd show the old scripts for the previous chapters but i have this habit of clearing out each completed page section of the script when i finish drawing a set of pages. less clutter and scrolling, you see.

i made it a point to keep chapter 8.1's rough script intact, so...yeah. it's nothing too interesting; but i figured some BTS production stuff after a while would be welcome. i'll also post some settings and quick character sketches for this chapter (and any previous ones i missed) too.

---------------------- [production/editing notes & tidbits]

for chapter 8.5, i hope to keep it more concise and better paced than previous chapters. for the recent previous chapters, if i didn't split them, they would frequently go over 100+ pages which doesn't seem very economic.i've made it a point after the chapter 7 series to try and compress & edit down pages and plot beats...treating it more like a proper comic/manga and less like a storyboard for an animation. (less reaction shots and more concise choreography/panel composition) i've seen some success. chapter's 7 - 7.2 were originally 1 whole chapter, before i broke it up for the sake of my sanity and production. breaking it down, it looks like this:

ch. 7 - 53 pgsch. 7.1 - 48 - 49 pgsch. 7.2 - 55 pgs

...for a grand total of around a whopping 159 pages. (if i counted that correctly) sheesh. conversely, the chapter 8 series (8 - 8.1) was originally one chapter as well, but this time around i cut it in half for the sake of pacing...and production again. it looks like this:

ch. 8 - 57 pgsch. 8.1 - 40 pgs

....coming out at ~97 pgs or so if i counted correctly. (lol) i felt a little better seeing that; that's 62 pages less than last time, so whatever pacing/editing/compressing im trying is working to some extent. statistically, i finished the chapter 8 series faster than the chapter 7 series. yippee (ignoring the extended hiatuses for both of them)

my aim for chapter 8.5 (which is separate from ch. 8 & 8.1) is a cool and concise 30+ pages or less. i hope this trend of better pacing continues in this sense.and if THAT keeps up maybe we'll be able to see the end of arc 1 before 2030, and i can move on to arc 2. lol

thanks for the support.