I’m sorry for the continued absence! I guess White Noise has been on an unofficial hiatus. >_> Longest one yet, too. Bleck. Rest assured though, this is absolutely a FINITE hiatus. See, I managed to land a real comic book coloring job, on a title that happens to be MY FAVORITE THING. We’re entering crunch time next week, so I’m going to vanish again for another month, but I should be back after that.^^ Page 6 of WN is drawn and half colored, but I’ve decided several panels are crap, so that needs fixing. Don’t know if I’ll have a chance during crunch time, though…

~Madsniper

Luv ya

Okay, so, two or so months ago, my cat who I’ve had for 16 years got very sick, and we learned he has lung cancer. At 16, he’s really to old for any sort of treatment. Then, at Midwest Furfest, while wondering if he would die before I got back home, I get a phone call that my new job, the one I’d had for all of three months, had ceased to exist. I was already depressed about my cat and about not selling a single thing in artist alley, so you can see the spiral that got started. I spent the next month trying to do artwork for everybody I know for christmas (cuz you know, no job, no money), none of which I succeeded in finishing. Then the week before New Years I got the worst case of stomach flu I’ve had in years. One of those stay-up-all-night-vomiting deals. Finally, after New Years I developed acid reflux for the first time in my life and spent three days being strangled by invisible rope!!

Hehe, what a great story. But anyway, our large extended family Christmas party went off splendidly, New Years was great and I was recovered enough to enjoy it, my acid reflux has mostly gone away, and my cat is still miraculously alive. But over all, I just had a lot of shit to worry about these last several months. So, sorry I’ve been away, but you understand, right?

It’s a new year and I’m feeling pretty good. Let’s make it an awesome one!

~Snipes
*is actually happy her reflux is just enough to make her eat healthy*

Also, I have these t-shirts I can’t sell and can’t stand to look at anymore, so they’re going on sale now. The Death One, which is now $5, and the Kutner One, which is now $8, not counting shipping. This is how much these shirts cost to make, and I refuse to sell them for less. You see, I hate these shirts so much, I will gleefully burn them before I lose money on them.^^

Also also! Sorrel made WN this gorgeous fanart! I love it so much!! XD You all should check out her other art too, her fuzzy creatures are so great!

Thanks for reading!

~madsniper

… things to talk about, things to talk about… I KNOW! I have a job now! Yaaay, job. Uh… what else. What else, Mindy? There’s nothing else, I’m a boring person.

Okay, I DID break my toe recently. It was the 4th toe, so there’s nothing that could be done about it, and it was on my right foot, so driving to my new job has been AN ADVENTURE. But it’s about healed now. I was going to get a picture of it and put it online so everybody would have to look at my beautifully colored toe, but yeah. I forgot. And now it’s about healed. No pics, so I guess it didn’t happen. But, then… why does my toe hurt??

~madsniper

I would have had it up on Monday, but I was in a mad rush to get ready for Matsuricon which starts tomorrow! AAHHH! Some of you may remember this as the anime convention where I have been a guest at for five years running. Well, we’re back again this year! And this time with MORE PANELS. Well, actually, we combined our webcomic panels and added an oldschool anime one, so more topics, less panels. Which I am okay with.

The schedule goes as such: Friday at 1pm, we have the Last Airbender Panel You’ll Ever Need (with stuff about Korra, and prizes!), followed at 3pm by Storytelling 101, then at 10pm we have Flash 101 (which I’ll mostly be sitting in on while Joe from No Need For Bushido teaches.
Saturday starts for us at 2:30 with Making Webcomics, then at 5 we have Anime Excavation, where we show you our really old and obscure favorite titles (which you’ll have to guess from clips, mehehehe).
On Sunday, I join Alex at noon at Photoshop for Illustrators, and finally, at 2pm, Alex rants about the Clone Wars.^^

There’s also an autograph session at some point, but I don’t know when…

I hope to see some of you there! Wish me luck! XD

~Madsniper

I keep finding the same background items hold me up page after page. Bricks, grass, food items especially. If you’re looking for webcomic advice, here’s a good one I got from Pascalle over at Zap! Make stock art. By now I could have a hundred files with a hundred different food items, bricks, and grassy fields, and I’d never have to make a new one ever again. Just copy and friggin paste. Maybe skew a little.

I’m so brain-fried, I can’t think of anything else to say. Here’s hoping I spelled everything right.

As always, sorry for the wait, and thanks for reading.^^
~Madsniper

I went to Glass City con two weeks ago. Very nice con! Those of you I met there: I love you. You reminded me what I love about this.^^

The book is now being reprinted! I should have a stack of them for Matsuricon in August.

That’s all for now. Later!

~madsniper

So yeah, I went all over the place this month. Two anime conventions, one of which was the much beloved Anime Central. I also went to Mertle Beach with my family. The funny thing is, on the way back from both we drove through tornadoes!
Okay, so the one coming back from Acen wasn’t actually a tornado yet, but it was definitely a large, low, swirly dark mass over our heads on the highway, with little tendrilly bits pointing down. The sky just should not bulge down like that, it’s not right. It was kindof dissociative-break-inducing.
The one coming back from Mertle Beach was definitely a funnel cloud though. I was the only one in the car watching as the thing touch down about 50 yards from us, and I couldn’t quite get the words out to alert my family, but they got it eventually from the panicked pointing and ‘buh-buh-buh’s. The car was dead silent for the next 30 seconds while we watched the thing think about swirling, give up, and fade away. But holy shit, funnel cloud, like right there! It was pretty cool, after we were safe and done being horrified.

Anyway, so here’s the latest news about the printed books. I bought a small stack of them from my chosen printers, but most of them came with white edges on the pages (which confuses me, as all my pages had bleed). SOOOO I’m going to see about getting them reprinted. The printer’s working with me so I should get the replacements without trouble.^^ Though I have decided to go with offset printers after this. This means no buying them from the POD guys online, only me! Muahaha! Also, probably means I have to try a go at kickstarter to fund it… 0_o If any of you have any ideas on what I should offer to pledgers there, let me hear it!

~Snipes

Tried my copic markers for the first time on these arts…and I’m in love. They are so nice. X3 Using smooth bristol board (NOT vellum! I murdered a darling 1X2 picture because it was vellum!) gives it a vaguely watercolor look, and they blend beautifully. (There’s some epic tutorials on Deviantart, if you’re interested. Ecthelian’s is my favorite.) Anyway, as soon as I finish anything I’ll totally share here!

…I had to run away in the middle of writing this because there was an alarmingly long peal of thunder outside. You ever hear thunder or planes passing overhead and become convinced it’s the end times? Happens to me perhaps too much… Eh, someday I’ll be right! *still planning on having an ‘end of the world’ party Dec 20th, 2012, if for nothing else than the lulz*

Any suggestions on what I should draw/marker? I have all these sketch cards to fill. I did one of L. I did one of Light. GW is covered, of course. Aaaand that’s where my creativity ended! *mustn’t… succumb… to zutarian urges!* I have this feeling, like once, long ago, I may have been somewhat creative.

Eek, thunder! *runs*

~Madsniper
can’t end a blog post normally

Okay, general consensus on what I should put in my blogs was anything, thoughts on my kindle, and any comics I’m reading. Alas, I don’t read much in the way of webcomics because I am a HUGE child who can’t handle competition so I try to pretend there is none.
I loooove the kindle. But that’s not to say I think it’s better than the Nook, I have no clue about the nook. I have a very basic device here, but it feeds my addiction quite nicely and is quite easy to navigate. My main complaint is that the books for download cost at least as much as paperbacks do on the whole. Not saving any money here. There is a very short, very sad selection of free classics, but at least there are some. (Werewolfling, you say put fanfics on the kindle? Great Scott! Why didn’t I think of that?) Also, a lot of the time I find myself wanting the print version of whatever I’ve downloaded so I can flip through it at random.

Speaking of print versions! White Noise volume one is complete, but the files are still being assembled at the printer. I went with Ka-Blam because they have great prices and their quality is great (my darker pages which should have by all rights come out as black blobs on the test book printed beautifully!) so this means that the moment the files are ready, the book will be available for purchase from them as print-on-demand. I might still beat NNFB to print! 8D That’s my goal in webcomics, to beat NNFB to something, anything!

Thank you all for your kind words! I really don’t deserve this understanding fanbase. You guys deserve a much cooler webcomicker, who updates every other day, finishes things she starts, never maintains radio silence for more than ten seconds, and saves orphanages from runaway trains filled with explosive chemicals. I shall find this person and enslave them for you!

~Flakey McFlakerson