Sami's Dojo Official Release this Friday!

It's the countdown until the official release of Sami's Dojo on Friday! I will be publishing it on Webtoons, Tapas, Tublr, and on SamisDojo.blogspot.com.

So far, I've probably put 20 hours or more into Sami's Dojo. From fresh character designs, plot outlines, scripts, sketching, inking, and shading, I've done it all for the first three comics. As the special launch of Sami's Dojo, I will be release all three on Friday at midnight!

Until then, you can read the predecessor of Sami's Dojo here (warning: may or may not suck). Here are the character descriptions I've written for the comic:

Sami-sensei, short for Saeminoru

The unwilling Sensei of the Dojo, Sami was left temporarily in charge when her master left to fight a Great Evil. Many years later, Sami has become the permanent Sensei. As she waits patiently for her Master to return, she does her best to prepare her young pupils for combat.

Goropo

The second oldest of the Dojo, Goropo trains under Sami, but mostly unwillingly. If left to his own devices, he would be follow every whim and ignore the interactions of those around him. As disinterested as he is, however, he somehow manages to have solutions to difficult problems.

Pagi

Third oldest, Pagi would rather read than train. He is easily startled and flustered. While his is intelligent, he is the weakest of Sami's ninja.

Kita

Kita is the youngest of Sami's ninja. She looks up to Sami and constantly begs Sami for attention. She has a hard time focusing, but still a skilled ninja. Her best friend is Shichi.

Shichi

Shichi is the second youngest and best friend of Kita. She is competent, but as easily distractable as Kita. She constantly harasses Pagi and makes fun of his lack of skill. While always desiring Sami's attention, she bugs her less than Kita. Shichi loves dressing up and being pretty.

Sokara

Sokara is neither the youngest nor the oldest. She is not one of Sami's original ninja, but showed up to the Dojo a few years ago. Since then, Sami has taken her in as one of her own. Sokara seems to be haunted by the darkness of her past, as darkness seems to be the only thing she can talk about.

Assembling Comic 1

I recently discovered that I actually have a lot of applications available to me through my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Lightroom and Bridge being among them. So I tried to figure out how to use Bridge to get the scans of my first comic panel of of one computer on to my other computer into Photoshop.
Sadly, I couldn't figured it out. Fortunately, though, that didn't stop me from assembling the panels into pages and getting the shading added! I've decided to draw and ink the panels on paper, then scan them into Photoshop to do the page assembly and textures.
Here's a glimpse of one of my inked panels! I'm hoping to get the comic up and published by the end of next week.

Sneak Peek at Chapter 1

I'm still working on chapter 1 of Sami's Dojo, but until I finish it, here's a sneak peek of my script sketches:

Making the Bad Guy

I've spent about a year contemplating the main villian for Sami's Dojo. Since I first conceived of them, I've gone through several character design ideas while her overall concept has remained the same.

It's pretty hard designing a truly scary bad guy, since it's so easy to go clichéd. Spikey teeth, pointy hair, it's just so over done. I'm working on making a character that's scary because they're not clichéd, but almost look like a normal character. Sometimes, it's hard for me to judge if something is scary or not, since I'm very into horror and so fairly immune to a lot.

I think what I've decided on is to make the character more realistic than the other characters. My husband suggested doing a look of abnormal close-ups of the character, which I think I could pull off pretty well.

I've posted some of my early character design sketches for my main bad guy on my Patreon page. Patreon is a site that allows me to offer special rewards and attention to my fans that have decided to monetarily support me. You can contribute $1 or $5 a month, if you so choose. If you don't, that's fine! I still greatly appreciate your support in reading my posts and comic!