Page 4-17 is now up, but also, I completely forgot to post that Page 4-16 also went up last week 😬
4-18 will be going up next week, though I do have a bit of frustrating news to share…There may or may not be a hiatus in the coming weeks due to how bad this summer has been for comic creation. I’ll try to stave it off for as long as I can, and even try to get multiple pages done to have a steady stream of content. Apologies in advance!
I’ve taken on a lot of new responsibilities at work, so this aspect of my life has taken something of a hit, but we’ll see things through.
Page 4-14 is up, and this one is a bit light on the humor, but for good reason. Healing takes time. This page shows us a more affectionate and introspective side to Ronan. Lee’s not much for talking about her feelings, but her emotions speak volumes.
Page 4-12, in which I wanted an excuse to draw anime food. A nice way to cap off Elliott nursing a slice of cake for 12 weeks.
There have been some weird outages on the site as of late, but we’re working on a solution to that. Sincerest apologies if you’ve been trying to visit the site lately and it’s been down 🙇♂️
Also, I’d like to take this time to thank everyone who not only reads Electric Fencer, but goes the extra mile to react to or leave comments on their favorite pages. Things have been really hectic as of late with my day job situation being in flux, among other things, so checking in to respond to or upvote messages has been the the little kick of dopamine I needed to tell me that we’ve still got a good thing going here. Thanks!
Issue 4 launched yesterday, but because of work obligations and generally running around, I didn’t get around to posting about it. Here’s my attempt to rectify that. With the launch, we had a couple of changes this issue:
We got a second writer for this issue! In an attempt to tighten up some of the frayed ends of the writing due to having to split, recombine, and re-split Issues 3 and 4, I enlisted some additional help. Issue 4 is sure to tug at the heartstrings a bit. Also…I changed the logo again. The reason why is this:
As a fun little side project, I’ve started an official Japanese translation of Electric Fencer, with help native from speakers, even! You might remember I have a shirt in the merch store (which you should check out among our other things). When talking to my fellow translators, we decided that Dengeki Fencer (電撃フェンサー) would be a more fitting name for the series in Japanese than Denki Fencer (電 気フェンサー). So that entire line’s probably gonna be discontinued at some point in the near future 🙃 I actually tried to recreate the original logo in Japanese, but it turned out to be a giant headache, so I figured some more minimalistic branding was in order. Once this design ☝ finally shook out, so did this one 👇 :
The branding around the site will also be changing as well, once I get around to finally redoing the character portraits around the site.
Finally, I added a new page to the Extras section in the menu: Fan Works! Currently, we’ve got one piece of fan art over there by WVGrizzly!
It’s Elliott! This was actually part of an art trade. Here’s my half, as per their request:
With all these new changes, I’m hoping Issue 4 will really be one for the books. I’ve got a buffer built, but still more pages to go, so it’s back to the salt mines for me!
A lot’s been happening with the comic in the background (and that’s the part that’s relevant!) as of late and for those of you still reading, I’ve figured that instead of simply telling you about it, I should probably show you:
There are still a lot of warm colors and outlines, but now I’ve also opted for punchier colors and hatch shading, giving the visuals some volume while also cutting down on how long it takes to illustrate each page. Ironically, with the time saved, I’ve started going in on more diverse and flashier visual effects, so it’s still taking me some time to get Issue 3 done. Currently, the plan is still for this to be a 36-page issue, but I’m considering posting again once I’m about halfway through the issue and posting one page a week, giving me time to finish the remaining pages, while also scheduling them to go up as they are completed.
It’s been nearly a year since Issue 2 finished, but I feel that the time taken to go back and reevaluate the direction I was going with Issue 3 was definitely the best call, as this really gave me the opportunity flesh out the pacing a lot more and give everyone a chance to really shine.
I’ll be back with another update soon…ish, but until then, please enjoy the new screens!
