Shades of Gray

Author notes

150 - Leaving

avsaroke

on June 9, 2010

WHOO PAGE 150!

This is a pretty special page (in addition to being the 150th page of story) because Kiva's personality is really starting to come out a bit more (and is surprising even me!) I had planned for there to be at least a couple more pages where they were working out together, tension mounting, until Kiva finally snapped did something unpleasant. Instead, Kiva just got up and removed herself from the situation.

A while back Ten started doing this as well – surprising me by doing something I hadn't planned for him to do and didn't realize he was doing until I was mid-way through drawing it. And then it turned out it was more in line with his personality than what I had originally intended. Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but in a way it's not terribly surprising that some of my characters would stop being lifeless puppets I use to tell a story and start taking on some life of their own. I mean, hell, Ten's been bouncing around in my head for 7 or 8 years, Kiva for nearly 5. It was bound to happen someday.

Haha, and for those of you who aren't weirded out enough to leave yet, I need some help! On two fronts really.

First off, page 150 marks the end of immediate plot I have planned out. There's plenty more story to come, it's just that the next plot point isn't for a while, so I planned to fill the "dead space" with some more background and atmosphere-setting goodness.

Basically, I'm going to take a bit of a break from the type of continuous, multi-page story telling I've been doing and instead, do single page… pages for a while. Snapshots of Ten's life aboard the station, if you will. I've got some vague ideas, but what's important is IS THERE ANYTHING YOU GUYS WANT TO SEE? Any characters you like and want more of? Things you were wondering about? Funny situations you want to see someone get into? Seriously, let me know. If it's not something that goes against the story line (aka already planned/needs to happen later), and it can be done in 1 (maybe 2 or 3) page(s), I'll work it in. I've got lots of wiggle room before the next major plot point comes up.

Secondly, I'm taking a summer class in July in addition to the job I'm working now. Those of you who were around last summer probably remember that giant gap where I apparently dropped off the face of the Earth. Yeah, that was the job. I'm trying super hard not to let that happen again this year, but that class is gonna kill me. So, if anyone feels like helping out, I could really use some guest comics for those 5 weeks that I'll basically cease to exist. This is an awesome point in the story for it too because everything's so open and undefined right now. So yeah. Let me know if you're thinking about it or want to run an idea by me, or need something. Guest comics/fan art = ♥