Monthly Archives: October 2016

Youmacon

The hard drive failed in Fred’s main computer a couple of weeks ago, but fortunately he was able to recover just about everything. In spite of that delay, Fred did manage to get a good bit of work done, including some good work on the visual novel.

largolacksbeer yanigasawa

For the visual novel, Fred got the Yanagisawa drawings done for book 1, as well as about half of the Largo drawings on the immediate To Do list. Largo is so expressive that he needs a lot of variations drawn. We also realized that we were not being as consistent with the heights of the characters as we wanted. So Fred did a lot of scaling and reorganizing of layers in photoshop to make that all work better going forward. We’re not done with the Piro canon route for book 1 yet, but we’re getting closer.

youmacontshirts

The folks at Youmacon asked Fred to draw the tshirts for this year’s con, with a pirates vs ninjas theme. They turned out really nice. It took Fred a good 2 weeks to do these, what with all the extra cleanup, coloring, and vectoring that he doesn’t normally have to do with his comic work. This is the main reason why the comic, visual novel, and other projects were delayed some.

Fred and Thomas Knapp (author of the Megatokyo:Endgames light novels) will be at Youmacon again this year. If you are in the Detroit area, stop by and say Hi. Fred will be doing 2 panels and will have some advance copies of the Megatokyo Omnibus 2 and a bunch of Fine Art Prints for sale.

omnibus2

The Megatokyo Omnibus 2 is scheduled for release on 15 November, but it is available for preorder on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The Omnibus 2 includes books 4 through 6 plus bonus material and clocks in at a massive 752 pages. If Fred has any leftover from Youmacon, he might offer them through the Megagear store, but he’s not going to stock them. So you can wait a couple of weeks for your local bookseller to have them, or you can preorder now from the big online sites.

mihoblankettest

Fred also got working on a design for a new Miho blanket. The design isn’t finalized yet — he wants to add a bit of color, but needs to talk to the blanket folks yet to see what would work best. He should have these available for preorder through the Megagear store before xmas, with delivery early next year.

Fred is planning to start on the next comic today. You can watch Fred draw the comic, work on the visual novel, and do other drawing work live on Twitch. Join us for the live draws. They’re a lot of fun.

Sorry this is taking so long. Thank you all very much for your patience and your support.

Ping-chan

Fred had another rough few weeks, including middle-of-the-night emergency dental surgery and other family medical issues, the continuing issues dealing with his parents’ failing health, and some struggles getting the art right for the latest comic. But he did still manage to get some good stuff done, including some visual novel work. Hopefully things are easing up for him now, and we’ll be back rolling on the visual novel.

pingstandby pingmaid

Fred did get the Pings finished, cleaned up, and integrated into the visual novel, which is a big step forward. It’s interesting. After 16 years of Megatokyo we’ve become used to Ping as a very sweet person, and it’s a bit shocking and sad to really look at her introduction again and how Tsubasa, Piro, and others treat her more as a thing than a person. The visual novel works really well in with things like that.

pingcgpencil

Fred got the CG event for Ping’s introduction drawn, though he still has to color it. And he also got started on the Yanagisawas. Next up will be a lot of photoshop work to make the different variations for Yanagisawa and Largo that are needed for the rest of the Book 1 Piro canon route. Not only are we getting to the point where we can reuse some existing artwork rather than Fred having to draw everything new for every scene, but he’s also able to modify some previous artwork to change outfits or expressions instead of having to draw completely new from scratch. This should help a lot with the upcoming Largo artwork. We’re hopeful that this will start to make a real difference in production speed going forward.

mihodrunk yakupingmegumipoker

Fred also did some more character development drawings. These are from the same alternate universe as last months drawing of the MT girls as the crew of the ‘Save Point’ bomber aircraft. Fred gets most of his story ideas by drawing, so this is kind of how he writes and develops.

Recent comic panels and development art like these are available at Fred’s Megagear store. Unfortunately, Fred’s t-shirt printer and dyesub are both broken, so the store only currently offers original arts and fine art prints. Fred is planning to outsource t-shirts and other swag, probably to Zazzle. But like with many other things, he is so overwhelmed with stuff to do that he hasn’t had time to get that done yet. Hopefully soon.

Fred and Thomas Knapp (author of the Megatokyo Endgames light novels) will once again be appearing at Youmacon in early November. If you are in the general Detroit area, stop by and say hi.

As always, you can watch Fred work on the visual novel, comic, and other stuff live on Twitch. Join us for the live draws. They’re a lot of fun.

Sorry this is taking so long. Thank you all very much for your patience and your support.