Take a little trip to the Isle of Tranquility, a wealthy little neighborhood in the Channel that splits Northern Serenity. How has growing up here affected Madeline's beliefs and fears?
As per usual, this chapter will be located in the One-Shots section until it is fully completed. Once complete, the remastered Sassy Steel will move into the Heroine Rises section and the original version will make its way to the One-Shots archive.
https://www.ezequielespinoza.com/one-shots/6/0
The Island
In the original Sassy Steel, I tried to show the Isle of Tranquility as a quiet and watchful neighborhood. Serene. Tranquil. I managed to do that and nothing more. The Isle was left bland and soulless. Now, I've reworked the ideas I had for the Isle. In the first part of the new chapter, I really tried to give this neighborhood some character ... and the means to develop our main character.
Madeline wanders home but stops at a small park that forms a small section of the Governess Gardens. Here we see the beauty and quiet nature of the Isle while we get some insight into what Madeline really feels about her upcoming adventure. Both her fears and hopes are awakened after seeing the statue of a certain Governess. We also meet a fun little character in Norma Langdon. She gives us insight into the people of the Isle and what they really think of our aspiring heroine.
Development Drivel
Every chapter, I try to focus on one thing I'd like to improve from the previous. Chapter 2 was all about embracing crosshatching and really refining my hair rendering style. Sassy Steel, I figured, would really challenge my background drawing ability. I couldn't skimp on the background and setting for this chapter if I really wanted to give the Isle the aura I wanted. I got to practice drawing mobs, rendering trees (don't know if this style will stick around) and poked a toe out of my comfort zone in regards to panel angles. I feel that I did pretty well and feel confident that these pages of Sassy Steel are my best pages yet. There's still lots of room for improvement but every chapter is a step.
With the week hiatus I took after the completion of Chapter 2: To Become a Heroine, it took me around a month to make these nine pages. Not a huge amount of progress but then again, the development process landed right in the midst of the final stretch of the school semester.
Deadlines and the Future
In the final week of development, I pulled out a calendar and forced myself to stick to it. It isn't the most demanding schedule but it gave me a deadline and progress markers I had to reach every day. Some were hard but behold the results! We finished a week ahead of what I thought it'd take! We stuck to our schedule and managed to pull ahead by a whole week! The workload is heavy, but I feel that I can draw more efficiently and perhaps make the schedule a bit more demanding in the summer. It all depends on the following month. The schedule to finish Part 2 of Sassy Steel is a workload I haven't done since going digital but I'm going to try. I feel that I get distracted too easily and don't work as fast as I could. Lots of wasted time. If I manage to get Part 2 by next month - the 27th of May (without feeling burnt out), things bode well for the future of Heroine Rises and there will be substantial progress towards one of my major goals of the year - a full physical volume publication of the first few chapters of Heroine Rises.
So this is goodbye, enjoy the chapter and I'll hopefully see you on the 27th with a fresh new chapter in hand.