Hey guys,
I know things have been really quiet here for a long time. I'm really sorry about that! It's been getting a little better for me lately so I've been working, and things should be right back to normal on Wednesday. Well, as normal as things get around Gator Creek. ;)

The page is about 1/3rd of the way sketched out, all that I need to do is to streamline the dialogue, sketch the last two panels, and then clean up the art and it'll be good to go. I'll post a preview later when I get sufficient work done on this page.

Edit: Also, sometime later today I'm going to see about making the file size on some of the older pages smaller, by saving them in .png format instead of .jpg to make the comic kinder to those on slower connections. I'll make a post when this kind of renovation is done! It shouldn't affect image quality, if anything it might make it look better. Stay tuned!

Something I whipped up in about an hour, it's obviously not finished but it's going to be the cover of a side project to the comic I've been wanting to do for a long time. It was mostly me farting around trying to get the banner right and messing with text/fonts, and I'm still not sure if it's to my satisfaction.

But basically when this is done it's gonna be 8 pages of porno, just for the fun of it. :) I have no idea when it's going to be done... I'll be posting teasers as I go along. ;D If I enjoy doing these I may start doing Tijuana Bibles as a monthly or bi-monthly donation incentive if I can pick the update schedule back up again. I've been on the track to feeling better so my productivity will be higher I hope... how much would you pay for something like this?

Anyway, just something I wanted to share before going to bed. :) I'll be working on this alongside page 26 over the course of the next week, hopefully, primarily focusing on the comic first.

Who wants to draw with me for a bit tonight? I wanna knock around some sketches with someone and can host OC sessions. Drop me an IM at Keatonology!

If you do not have OpenCanvas and have a Windows computer (or a Mac that can run Windows software), you can download it here! It is a bitchin' program that allows you to draw with other people in real time.

I am very out of practice but I drew this anyway because I miss drawing. 8C

Can't you just feel the love oozing from their pores? Or maybe that's the infected mosquito bites. ♥ ♥ ♥

...although I certainly feel like it, these days.

I wanted to give you guys a little update, I've been very scarce at the computer lately so no time or space to draw. I know there's a lot of things that I owe and I will get them done soon I hope. I have just had a very rough week with no real downtime or good solid rest so it's been making me very weary, and I've been out of the house a lot as a result, not to mention not getting a lot of sleep.

I've been looking for a new place to stay (my current place has become really really unhealthy for my well being right now -- I'll still be in Olympia though). So with luck I may be moving soon and then I'll be feeling well enough to draw again. I may try to do a raffle or something before/after I move to help give me a little financial boost, like raffling off a sketchbook or something. And as always the donation sketches are still available, nobody's bitten on that at all and it's a heckuva deal (see the previous entry)!

I haven't forgotten you awesome loyal readers and the comic, but life decided to take a huge shit on me lately. I will be back in the saddle soon but I have no ETA on when. Hopefully things will improve for the month of May because the last few weeks of April have been shitty shit shit.

Sorry for the dumb personal Livejournal crap. If anyone wants to talk to me I usually get home after midnight PST and log on AIM, though I may be spotted rarely and briefly in the morning too before I escape the house for the day.

Thanks for reading. I started the next comic page last night but I have no idea when I'll actually have it out. All I've done so far is lay out the panels. Hopefully I'll have the energy to sketch it out soon, it's been scripted in my head for a few days now...

Okay, to keep my mind off recent events and get back to drawing again, I am going to do a nifty little deal for today since I don't wanna mope around all day.

If you donate 5 bucks or more to the tip jar on BruisedOranges.com, I will do a custom sketch request for you!

I will sketch anything you want as long as it's one character, rated G through PG-13 in any style/colors/program/etc of my choosing, kind of like an artistic grab bag. Give me a reference for your character (or a description of what you want me to draw will work just as well) and then let me do the rest. If you want two characters drawn I would like to see $2-3 more depending on complexity of design, but two characters in a single sketch is the maximum that I am willing to do right now given my current state. I haven't slept very well in the past 48 hours so the sketches will probably be on the simpler side of things like busts, chibis, waist ups, etc... just little things to jog my brain and play with. They might be in color, or they might not be, it really depends on what I feel like drawing.

I will be trying to get some sleep here in a few minutes here but I will try to get sketches done today if I see that anyone's donated when I wake up. And examples of my sketching can be found all throughout this blog, yes even the Flash drawings are considered sketches. :) I will email you the sketch when I am done, and then probably do a big sketchdump in the journal when I finish a block of them.

Thank you all very much and thank you for the kind words on the previous entry. I hope to be back in the saddle soon.

I usually don't like putting any personal posts in my public journal, but I thought I would share this here so everyone knows what's going on.

Earlier today I learned that one of my mother's cats, a small and young cat that's not even three years old, has tested positive for a fatal respiratory infection. The vet said that she probably has 6-8 weeks left to live. Another of the cats, an older one who has been having kidney stone problems for all of his life, has also stopped eating, can't keep any food down, and hasn't been going to the bathroom lately.

It's especially depressing considering that the younger cat, aside from the runny eyes which I thought was just a breed thing, seems so healthy. She's fat and she plays and acts like a normal kitten. It just seems so unexpected and wrong that she might die within the next few months, when she's so young and active with no outward problems at all aside from a cold she got (and recovered from) a month or so ago.

This is really hard to deal with because the cats were so sweet and amazing. They were both rescue cats and required lots of love and care to get to where they are today. And even if the cats aren't technically "mine" I still consider them a part of my family and admire my mom for doing a great job taking care of them and rehabilitating them. She loves her cats more than anything.

I'm pretty heartbroken about this, to add to the depression I'd been facing already. It's been very hard to draw lately and I know I owe people stuff and update the comic this week but I haven't had it in me to draw anything at all.

I really don't know what else to say. I just want to cry.

The comic's been updated! Go look! :D

I've also added the tip jar, you'll see the little "spare change" drawing next to the calendar. :)

I've been so out of it lately that I didn't realize that the close date passed for the HTML contest, but since there was only one entry I'm going to extend it or possibly even rework the post a little. If it helps anybody, I'll do some mock-ups in Photoshop or something. I'm really not confident about the site's current design, nevermind the frame-within-a-frame glitch. 9_6 I'll figure something out.

Tonight I just want to paint after finishing this page. Maybe I'll have something to post here for once. XD

Hey dudes and ladies--

By any chance have any of you heard of (or have gone to!) the Olympia Comics Festival?

I'm thinking after I finish commissions and assorted owed stuff I'm going to start preparing for this. Look for local print shops around town, re-draw the first 8 pages for consistency and improved writing, do cover art, finish up the first chapter and compile it all in a neat little .pdf package. Should be about ~30 pages when done. I may be getting a little too ambitious to think I can get any of this done within a month's time... considering I only found out about the 'fest all of a few days ago and have trouble even coming out with new pages lately (only two panels left to finish on page 25, argh). Haha... :C

Can anyone tell me about printing, and how long it might take me if I got it printed professionally, and what it might cost? Even if it's just ghetto Kinko's printing or something. I'll probably see if I can't wrap up all the pages in a neat little .pdf file to send to the printing company if they do that kinda stuff. All the pages will be black and white (dur), and maybe the cover too. Even if I don't print now it's good information to know later, and even if I don't get a table or sell print versions of the comic I'll probably go anyway just to see what it's like and meet other people in the area just to make sure I'm not going to look like a complete idiot (not to mention a total stranger) moseying on in being all "HURR DURR LOOK AT MY COMIC U GUYZ."

Would anyone buy the first chapter of Bruised Oranges if I made it in print format? Since it's starting to wrap up (the end of the church arc = the end of chapter one), and has just a few pages left before I move on to the next chapter. Plus if I make it in print format the first eight pages will be updated for consistency, so there's that... :) It'll still always be free online but I dunno, some people like their comics in dead tree format and I'll probably have some extra stuff in there. It'd probably be something like 5 bucks including shipping or something, depending on how much the printing costs (theoretically: $3 for the comic, $2 for shipping).

I'm also kind of wondering if I'm being some big dumb delusional idiot for even thinking that people would buy my comic in the first place. 8U

I will also be adding a nifty little tip jar to the site on the next update just to see how that goes. Maybe I'll make donation incentives or something as a thank-you for those of you who do wanna show me some love. Wallpaper or sketches maybe? What would you guys want?

Also alongside the comic itself I kind of want to make something along the lines of a traditional Tijuana bible based on the comic, but I don't know how I'd want to distribute it. I sorta want to make it available in print only, and drawn with real media (ink on index cards) but I don't know when I'd get it started or anything. It would only be eight pages/panels so it shouldn't be too long. And since it'll be porno I gotta find a different means of selling it since I don't wanna cross Paypal's TOS. I've been wanting to make a Tijuana bible for a long time and now I finally have an excuse. XD
( And some personal junk. )
At least knowing about the festival has raised my spirits and given me some motivation to do stuff as well as give me more ideas, even if I don't accomplish all of the goals I want. I can accept that because I know my printing goals are unrealistic given the time frame that I have, but right now I have nothing better to do so I might as well get something done to keep me distracted.

Following page 25, there will be backstory coming up! Backstory that I think will be a nice way to wrap up this chapter and give a little insight on Abbie's character. I'm pretty excited about it because I have the panels and dialogue composed in my head, I just need to find my creative NES cartridge and blow the dust out of it again so I can kick-start my brain and get drawing.

And if you read all of this, thank you for reading. ♥ I tend to get very rambly under the wild influence of sleep deprivation. I wish I had some new sketch content to share.

Speaking of which, I do believe it's bedtime. I'll try to work on finishing up page 25 later today! Stay tuned!

Orange and vanilla flavored, of course. ;D Though Arthur's hair might be chocolate... nom. :9

The comic page is halfway done as of now. Maybe it'll be up tomorrow.

Also, because I like to know who reads my comic, I'm going to make mention of my AIM screenname for those of you who want to talk to me! :) All I ask is that you don't hit on me or ask me invasive personal questions if I don't know you too well. Please respect my boundaries.

If you can roll with that, we're groovy! Drop a message in the IM box to Keatonology if I'm online and distract me when I should be working on the comic and/or commissions! Feel free to shoot me any questions about the comic as long as you're not probing for spoiler content like "what's the plot?" or "how does it end?" (largely because I don't know the answers to some of these questions myself). Idle chatter is also welcome!

A small warning: My attention span is infamously short, so sometimes I will get distracted and wander off to some other part of the internet or art program and get sucked into it like a black hole. This may be why I don't respond to IMs sometimes.

Well, okay, okay, here's one spoiler: Rosebud is a sled.

I'm not really sure why I love drawing Arthur in bloomers so much. It's just too amusingly cute. c:

Alright, ladies and gents! There's an update in the box, go check it out! It should be up on all mirrors. :)

It's been brought to my attention that Bruised Oranges is just not cool with the kids these days. There are too many words, the black and white art is boring and the style isn't edgy or hip at all.

So, I did what any other artist would do when faced with this situation: Revamp the comic's style, and re-do the characters entirely. Abbie is now a chaste schoolgirl who likes flashing peace signs and blushing when the wind blows her skirt up, and Arthur is a silver-haired badass bishie catboi with a gun-arm and a giant sword. I am also going to start signing my artwork under the name 'Nekochanprincessbaka,' take note!!

I've uploaded some teaser sketches of the revamped characters. I hope you all enjoy them, I think they are very kawaii desu =^______^=


(Spoiler: Check your calendar, goofballs. ♥)

(I was going to do something a little more complex this year, but between the last page and starting this week's page I didn't have the time and didn't realize how soon AFD was going to be. D: Maybe next year though!)

New update's finally up, dudes and dudettes! 8D

Enjoy!!

First off, I really would like to apologize for not having any new pages or sketch content up lately. At the risk of sounding totally lame, I've been having a spate of anxiety lately coupled with related down feelings and poor sleeping patterns. This has been going on for a few weeks now, and while I've tried to update the comic consistently through this it's been hard to focus and concentrate on it like I used to due to invasive, distracting thoughts.

But:
The comic is not going on hiatus. Absolutely not and I hope I never will have to put it on hiatus for something like this. I'll probably have it set back to a sporadic, semi-regular update schedule until my moods stabilize again, because I am still going to work on the comic instead of putting it aside completely and tossing my beloved characters at the bottom of the well. It'll just be slower than usual for a little while. I apologize if this is a problem (believe me, I want to get this story written and finish this arc so I can move on to the next one which is guaranteed to be fun), but my personal well-being comes first. This could probably take a few days or so, depending on how things work out. I want to thank all of you for being patient with me.

For the record, there will be a new page coming up soon. I am almost done with it, I just have two panels left to clean up and then add finishing touches. I have been working on it, slowly, and it's building up to the end of the church arc. It will absolutely be done before the end of the month, in any case! I've been pulling out the relevant psd file every day and spending at least an hour on it, usually longer.

If I can finish this page in reasonable time, I'll have a, uh, 'special' page planned and drawn for the first of April. ;) I'm not going to say what it'll be about.

And now for something completely different:
( Big image under cut! )

BruisedOranges.com is working! Woo!

Happened sooner than I thought, but hey, I'm not complaining at all. :) If anything, it's more incentive for me to work on finishing up the site content and keep barking for HTML contest entries. ;D

I got one entry in so far, whoo! :D I'll go update the contest post with a list of entrants~ Thank you achenar for bein' the first to step up to the plate with a shiny lookin' entry. ♥

I'm gonna try not to get distracted by Warcraft today and finish the comic page. No, not World of Warcraft, Warcraft III. XD;; Though I love WoW too, I know not to touch it on "work days" when I'm supposed to be drawing my comic. It sure took me long enough to get around to playing it because I liked playing WoW and wanted to learn more about the lore, hurr. And it's actually a really fun game. And the units' talking animations look like they have peanut butter on the roofs of their mouths, especially Thrall's and the crow prophet guy's. 8B

I only just started yesterday and therefore only have access to the Alliance campaign right now, but I have to say that I love love love the Dwarven mortar team units. I just like Dwarves in general, dammit.

Oh, um, apologies for the off-topic rambling. I LIEK VIDYA GAYMES. Here, have a preview of the next page with the first two panels loosely sketched, so I don't feel guilty for completely wasting your time talking about Warcraft. What happens on the rest of the page is a secret for now! >:D
( I think the usher will be called Beauregard. )

Bruised Oranges on Comic Genesis is gonna be down for the next two days as the DNS servers update to BruisedOranges.com~ ♥ In the meantime if you need your citrus fix, all of the other mirrors are available for your perusal. XD

Chances are, it'll be back up and rolling on the new domain by the time the new comic page is posted!