No New Comic - It's Been A While! Here's A Quick Progress Update!

 Hey folks,

I hope you've been doing well.  It's been a while since I posted Frosty's take on King Gurubunder challenging Prince Darius, but I wanted to give you a little update.

Basically, I've just been having a hard time getting outside to take pictures.  It's been, you know, kind of very hot.  And I've been unfortunately busy with family issues, and while everything is okay it's just been time consuming and draining.

So here's where we stand:

I have a bunch of pictures taken.  I plan to make them into a chapter as soon as I can, but this may take a bit.  It should be a little longer than previous ones, and it should work through some worldbuilding as well as character development.

We'll see how it goes!

No New Chapter - Project Update & New Short Story

Hey friends,

First a project update, then an offering!

I'm really, truly sorry I haven't been able to update the comic in a while.  I ran into some GIF issues with the final image of the last chapter, and between that and other technical nonsense (as well as re-starting the day job) I just haven't had the willpower to sit down and film out more comics, not even small ones.  I'm sure I will, but among other things I'm considering where to post new comics.  I've discovered that this Blogger page is not cooperating with Adsense, for example - so the idea of a "trickle revenue" for all of these comics is nil.  Between that and the GIF issues, I'm fairly decided on posting future comics to my personal website.  I have no idea how I'd migrate the old ones over, but...It's not like I didn't already do that once with this project, long ago.

Now for an offering; I'm putting out my first short story in a long time over on Amazon.com.  It's a fantasy romp set in the Kingdom of Emor (from my Pillars Of The Kingdom franchise), and it's hopefully gonna be about an hour-or-two of reading a fantastic little journey that's relatively straight-forward, but enjoyable due to its relative simplicity.

I hope you'll check it out, and I'm sorry I don't have more for you, here.  It's just been tough times all around, y'know?

Chapter 45 - Samuel's Struggle

Previously:  Chapter 44:  The Skirmish, The Melee | Next: Chapter 46 - The Tides Turn

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Thank you for reading!

When going through confusing times, sometimes it helps to have a fun thing come out every once in a while to help spirit along the days.  With the way that plants have grown in my little garden area (where I set up the shoot for Chapter 44), there's little chance of me being able to set up another full-scale outdoor shoot again.

I'm pretty sure there's some Day-Lillies growing where the Goblin Castle goes, for starters.

That means that next chapter is going to involve indoor shoots; so the terrain will look much less awesome, but on the upside I won't be damaging nature, which is kind of important to me.  On the other hand, the ability to leave stuff out (assuming my cats don't mess with them...) means I can set up a scene and shoot it, produce the comic with visual effects (I have a long way to go), then go back and have the Legos still in the same place.  That tells me we can expect significantly improved continuity with chapters, as opposed to this one (can ya believe it's been 45?) where I had to use the excuse that the wounded were Gated out to justify not having a raging battle in the background.

Pretty soon, I'll have information about my next new prosaic release - stay tuned!

Well, that's about it for me.  We're holding up well with CoVID, and I hope you are, too!

Previously:  Chapter 44:  The Skirmish, The Melee | Next Episode (Coming Some Day!)

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Episode 39: The Earth's Voice, Obeyed

Previously:  Chapter 38:  Calm During The Storm | Next:  Chapter 40:  Why So Serious?

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Chronicles of Alleron is a Lego-based webcomic/webmanga by Jesse Pohlman, all rights reserved under fair use.

Previously:  Chapter 38:  Calm During The Storm | Next:  Chapter 40:  Why So Serious?

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Episode 25: Listen Close...

Previous Comic #24:  "Earthen Bones" | Next Comic #26:  "Candlelight Conversations."

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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So!  This completes the entirety of my first outdoor shoot!  I hope you all liked it.  I guess it also means Season 2 is complete!  Don't worry, we'll get back to Goldhook and Habbo.  And I promise we'll get back to outdoor shooting.

However, for my next few episodes, I need to return to using - ugh - the floor.  I know that's kind of regressive, but it seems to be the only place I can get the lighting I desire.  I contemplated bringing in, like, a box of dirt, but that's taking something which is already playing with fire and putting kindling around it.  At least carpets are flame-retardant, and any small fire could be contained.  Boxes go up much more quickly.

On the upside, you'll get to meet Samuel, Biran, and Victoria in more detail!  Three characters who you will need to know, because they're all pretty damned important to the plot.  And then we go back to Goldhook and Habbo, and what becomes of them.  Sounds fair?

Awesome!

Previous Comic #24:  "Earthen Bones" | Next Comic #26:  "Candlelight Conversations."

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Strip 19: Heed Thy Own Advice!

Previous Strip #18 | Next Strip #20

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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No special comments, really.  I love the outdoorsy look.  You can even physically tell that Habbo and Goldhook are behind a hill!  It's a blast.  I hope you enjoy!

Previous Strip #18 | Next Strip #20

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Strip #9: Fire!

Previous Comic #8 | Next Comic #10

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Strip 9 was another of those "effects-heavy" strips, and I feel it came out a lot better than 8.  Something I've learned (sadly, I hadn't learned yet) is that blur effects to indicate motion are good, but in moderation.  The cannon-ball, for example, streaks wayyyy too much in panel four.  I think the same applies to the bow of the Bobcat, which is crashing into the ocean.  The smoke also looks kinda blah.

On the upside, hey!  It's strip #9!  I also improved the dialogue a bit.

I also did about seven or eight strips worth of filming, outside, today.  I wanna include sort of a comparison/teaser.  This'll highlight both the new camera (in relation to the old one, used above) as well as the difference that shooting outdoors makes to the realism and atmosphere.

Filmed indoors.  Not bad, no real focus, definitely looks artificial.

Filmed outdoors.  Focus effects increase the magnitude of what's going on, while the hill looks real.  Expect to see this shot a lot!

Previous Comic #8 | Next Comic #10

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Chapter #5: My Kingdom For An Antivirus!

Previous Chapter, Privateer Point #4 | Next Chapter, First The Good News  #6

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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So.  This is that fifth strip that really was ugly.  It was all five panels arranged left-to-right.  The text was much harder to read.  I say "harder" because this is still not the best, ahh, example of text embedding.  It has to do with the camera I took these shots with.  It was a huge, huge pixel image.  I dunno.

On the other hand, this is the first episode where the plot actually starts to take shape.  To offer some "it's been a few years" explanation:  Goldhook and his crew hit up an Alleronian facility involved in building their newest boat, the "Panther."  Swiftshank and Ricardo refer to Alleron's navy as their former employer.  That ought to make pretty obvious their importance.

So it's shaping up!

Previous Chapter, Privateer Point #4 | Next Chapter, First The Good News  #6

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Strip #2: Sea Sickness

Previous Chapter, Habbo & Goldhook, #1 | Next Strip Habbo Has Skills, #3

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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Again, I touched up the dialogue texts.  Can you believe that I originally made this in 2010?  Life was so different, then.  I'm going to perform some minor touch-ups to all of the original strips (15, I believe?).  But major overhauls may be really hard.  Some of the cameras I experimented with are no longer available, while others provided some really, genuinely crappy originals that I really can't re-shoot.  I think there's one strip that's five-panels long and it just extends in a line, and I might try to break that up.

Well, until tomorrow, perhaps!  If you really want to read the un-fixed versions, don't forget - the original page is still available on my website.  Which, itself, needs to be fixed!

Previous Chapter, Habbo & Goldhook, #1 | Next Strip Habbo Has Skills, #3

Start Over:  Episode #1, Habbo and Goldhook.

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