Old versions – Honestly Not A Robot!

Old versions

Click any image to see the notes and original page. Arrow keys can be used for navigation.

The first version of the prologue to the beginning of chapter 3 were made using Paint Tool Sai then lettered in Photoshop on a canvas size far too small for optimal quality.

This would also flatten text layers, rendering them unable to be edited when transferring between software. I would reletter and resize the pages when I switched to Clip Studio in 2019 but ultimately the files were so crusty I chose to redraw them.

Some files had hundreds of unnamed layers to sort out and it became easier (and more efficient) to redraw the whole lot, especially when I had received some amazing feedback on where I could add even more fun stuff in!

PROLOGUE

Please feel free to browse my Work In Progress: Prologue section where I go into the pros and cons of making the first version of my comic to what I learned by remaking it years later. AND WHY I did it!

CHAPTER 1 – 2018/2019 VERSION

New version was launched April 2022.

(I have not made nifty sections for this YET)

The lovely orange and white themes i have going on with the cover pages? Did not finalise that until 2019 with chapter 3! Before that I was just slapping colour around and trying out things, much like the chapter 3 cover was too! One thing to note is that my comic direction had a different direction of idea behind it when I drew this, where kevin WAS going to be sinister but as my notes later on will show, I would change my mind (for the better) and drastically tone down any "evil vibes" with subsequent redraws. I want us to be cautious of the traps of unhealthy work mindsets but not actually fear murder!!!

Top panel is from 2018 but the bottom panel was a 2019 addition when, as I was relettering the comic, I came to realise I had not mentioned Ash's name until way too late into the chapter, prompting comments asking for details often! I would then rewrite this in 2022 to organically have Ash tell the desk staff his name instead of a "title card."

There ya go! I was gonna just do a complete recreation of the previous versions but I felt dissatisfied with the remaining too much wasted space. At that point I just went "Nope, I need a better use of this page. Yes, lets make Ash MORE of a nervous wreck mwahahaha" The first panel has minor changes but hey, it's still good!

2019 page as I realised I never mentioned Kevin's name properly either so that was TWO characters off the bat I had to put title cards in for a year later. Just a lil writing thing to consider for yourselves!!!!!

I redrew a lot of this original page in 2019. The page format i used was too small, that coupled with very very large speech bubbles covering everything awkwardly made it impossible to scale to site/print formats. You have to make mistakes to learn from them and going forward I would plan colour pallettes and speech bubbles for entire sections in advance instead!

You can see the areas I redrew to compensate for smaller speech balloons and the font change. It also began to tone down the greens here too and overall, even though I redrew it in 2022, I still do think this page holds up ok. I just wanted to add more character moments!

I have been practicing trying to economise my pages as much as possible; so I can get things moving out of the room whilst still having everything the characters both want to and need to say to keep it all moving nicely. I hope I'm getting better at this!

I randomly picked greens from the previous page and decided to stick with it which in hindsight wasn't the greatest choice for what I wanted. The issue I took was that green is a "natural" colour, symbolises "go", positive action, life.... and while yes this is Ash's first job and "positivity" is a nice idea for a theme, i have shown Ash as being far too nervous in this set up. It doesn't match the mood for me especially since it's such an eye bleeding neon green which is absolutely artificial and offputting. It wasn't nescessary at all.

I edited out a lot of the eye strainy bright greens from 2018 to more flat greens a year later - but my disatisifaction remains. It's fine, it's a lot better than the NEON after all. Note how i added a lil nervous Ash here? Almsot like i subconciously knew there wasn't enough of him at this point... hence why i would split this page into two for the redraw.

There it is! That annoying gross neon green from the original! I don't know why I tried to make the video mysterious or weird but ok. The 2022 version saw me split this page up so that Kevin walking out was the conclusion of the previous page to show how much he either cannot be bothered to talk to Ash or just how much he is prioritising efficiency by walking out after he's done. The entire TV aspect can then be more focused on as a moment for getting inside Ash's brain and really hammer home that yes, this store is badly funded on the tech side. Feel it connects the whole "Kevin tellig him to get on with it" and "bare bones training tech" a lot better to me. I hope that comes across too in my newer version!

Neon greens be gone! You'll see this a lot over the course of my notes where i would have had one large panel in the past but now split it into smaller panels but have more things happening that have relevence. Ash is watching the TV in the previous version. That's it. Now he's grabbing his bag, his notepad, "holding" his pen, having thoughts and reactions all in that same page space. Feels good!

I was so unenthusiastic to draw a background or... any of this, so that i did a sketch I immediately went "this is fine, slap fake CRT lines and it'll be ok." If you don't wanna draw a page for any reason maybe you need to either take a break or examine WHY you don't want to draw it! For me, this page is a static image with text and really, reaaaaaly doesn't say much about Damnsons, Ash, the themes... it isn't great page economy for me OR for a reader. So now IT'S GONE!!!

Sneaky lil thing here ok this was around the time I was 60% sure I wasn't gonna do my original idea of this store being set in ACTUAL hell so I was like "hee hee foreshadowing freaky demon eyes in the video hee hee" When my writing and plans then became far faaaar more dramatic WITHOUT sudden demon reveal, I would stop putting these details in by chapter 3. Yes, 2018 Kevin had clawed gloves I AM SO SORRY I LEFT THAT IN THE PROLOGUE.

Everything feels a lot more "drab" with the cool grey blues and feels so much more on point for how ash must feel watching the videos. Heck, I remember how bored i certainly was doing it back in the day!

My dislike for the greens aside, I do miss this version of the page. I know the speech bubbles and lettering are hmmmMMMmmmmm but i did have fun drawing this at the time. The white space around the page was a 2019 addition as again, file size too small originally so it did not scale well for the website format later on.

Small note, I'd remove any sense of Ash talking to himself in the past tense in my revisions - originally I was planning to have present tense Ash be revealed at the end of chapter 3, 4 or maybe 5 (I had not decided, again showing my lack of overall foreplanning) he was retelling the events to IDK Damian or CJ or someone but that felt... it wasn't my style. So now it's all Ash's present time thoughts alongside you!

I did enjoy drawing this page in 2018 as I wanted to try new textured brushes and play with dramatic shadows of him opening the door and cool windows 95 fake screens and yeeeeaaaaaahhh woo art!!! As you know now, unified colour themeing is more of my style now so I didn't want to hop between pinks, purples and greens and neon greens like this page did in my 2022 version. You could argue it's more... drab? now in my newer version but again that's kind of the point when Ash is clearly bored! Also MMMMM I would learn a lot about fonts, lettering and balloon placements from clunky pages like this. You'll see on the next version from 2019!

Look at me, a year later from the original version, trying and somewhat failing to make smaller speech bubbles. I could not fill up the page with huge fonts anymore and it really showed to me what my growing pains were: panelling. It's a good learning curve though, don't get me wrong! I would also split this page up into multiple pages with my neweer version so we'd have more time to focus on the whole "no wrong answer" line a bit more and spend a bit more time with Ash before going downstairs.

CHAPTER 2 – 2018 VERSION

New version was launched July 2022.

Like before, he's the "horror" version of the old chapter 2 cover before I found my style in chapter 3. It's cool, I dig it still but I removed this and the chapter 1 cover with the new style art when I launched my site. This cover may have matched the previous pages tone more at the time but it definitely doesn't match my direction now.

This was the original cold opening of chapter 2. You'd see the lady in the chapter cover page an then BAM. I like the remake where you have her actively come to "get" you and Ash freezes up a lot more now! I used to use paint tool sai for pages and then text in photoshop so uh, the old files are all flat layers on a tiny canvas with brushes i can no longer use so... RIP scary colour version of the Angry Bag Lady.

Yup here it is, the 2022 version with colour changes off the bat. I wanted her to be harsh but more... realistic yet fantastical type of way, like the Weird Cookie Man would come to be in chapter 3. The deep purples were great but just a little too much in the realms of "looking evil." If you read the previous notes, then I'm glad i took out all of the demon reveal plots ane vil vibes, sticking to it being set on Earth because it would imply that the first customer was an outlier being a demon and that no one human acts that way which is... wrong. It literally happened to me as my first customer. Humans do this. That's the ENTIRE POINT IS THAT EVERYONE IS HUMAN. Writing advice: outline your themes in some form either before or as you start, not 3 chapters in ha ha haaaaa

I was and am still proud of this full page. It's sooo dramatic after all! Too bad moving files between photoshop and SAI meant all of the text is a flat layer and cannot be edited anymore to "just do touch ups." These past page set up errors is the main reason I came to redraw it though I do enjoy the more cascading feel of my new version a lot too!

Having Ash's safe little world invaded by the avalanching force of the lady still gets me to this day. Yikes. I hated going through that in real life and yet I drew it again, huh.

I got some very thorough feedback that pointed out how Ash repeated himself from the previous page. Again, it's all about page economy! Repeating himself unintentionally is not really needed when that page time could be used to say or show something else! So the 2022 version has more time spent on Ash and his reaction; this puts focus back onto the fact that Ash is a newbie in more detail through his behaviour and extended speech rather than he is just saying it again like here. On that note, I had already shown that she was scary so once again I was just showing the same thing twice! This is why I try to plan out sections of comic in advance now instead of drawing page by page like ye olde days.

I adored the cascading speech ballons as objects from the previous version so I chose to make it an imagined visual gag from Ash. I also realised i have a classic set up knowing that Kevin was going to be approaching so yeah, I'm chuffed with the remake version!

I remember I was still trying to grabble how to draw Kevin at the time! This was a page I spent tooooo long on mainly as I was still learning to use SAI brushes between Photoshop and aaaaaa I scream because I would hand draw panel borders using the shape tool (SAI/PS had no comic panel border feature like CSP has!!!) on one layer, then try to fit a background under it with a million single unnamed layers, then each character and their pile of colour layers painted on top and AAAAAAAAAAAAA Economise your workflow!!!! Please! Use folders for each character, minimise your layer if you want! Name folders at least!!! In 2022 I redrew the single bottom panel in a fraction of the time I did for this one whole page!!!

This took a fraction of the time compared to my old workflow between two softwares. I cannot stress enough how crucial it is to find a medium that suits you, whether it's traditionally, digitally, a certain pen or brush setting... it can do you wonders mentally if not time wise. Take your time and find out! (Took me two years after all to feel comfortable!)

The white space on this page annoys me. I cannot help it though as again the original file was too small for website/print so it had to be "fillled in" somehow. Especially as i also shrank down the speech bubbles a year after (YES that's right these are the SHRUNKEN VERSION and yet they are still HUGE) Yes the darkened eyes are harkening back to the "oooh demon heritage ooooh" idea I had before I started HNAR but NO MORE! His eyes are now completely and fully human in the redraw (GOOD. He should stay nerfed.) Again apologies for any past confusion on why Kevin was so sinister when he did not need to be; I was working things out on the fly!!!!!! (plot hole: He was being really helpful here to Ash so why is he now so sinister???)

I am so so SO much more happier with the pacing of the redraw! Even took some inspiration from some other great webcomics for the section where Kevin talks with his hands - something so simple that feels more dynamic than Kevin's single static "magic hands" panel. That panel took far too long at the time and I was never ever satisfied with it. I am more than satisfied with the remake though hee hee

Real talk, whilst relettering and editing files I thought "There's not really a moment where the Angry Bag Lady and Kevin have a moment where they fully react." Slapped this page together and plopped it in. The expressions of Kevin are still mmmm yessssss in my eyes so I'm a little sad it's been scrapped for good... that said, my feedback was helpful in pointing out just how jarringly different it is to every other page thus it doesn't really fit in. Pacing wise, it's nice to show the reaction but the white space makes it artificially drawn out rather then a flowing reading experience? idk I like my new pages better

So I may or may not have been a little.... loose with page layouts at times.... Layouts dictate where the reader "reads" on the page in tandem with where you place speech bubbles and posing which all affect the direction of action, emotion and pacing. Despite my best efforts to learn from tutorials, essays and other works on how to make interesting yet solid layouts, I would often overcomplicate speech bubble placements to the point of general incoherencey. I tried to course correct SOME of the worst offenders in later 2019 when I relettered the entire comic to that point however well... some were just too far gone. This one was one such page. Side note this is the first time I started drawing the comic in clip studio paint!!!! Hence why all the brush textures changed suddenly XD

I know the colours are less dynamic than the pinks and purples but overall, it shows just how "back to normal" Ash is beginning to feel after his ambush. The status quo of chapter 1 is back and makes me feel a little smug now i plan these things out with more thought.

On the previous notes of "fancy" layouts: I know now that Ash walking up the stairs from right to left whilst Kevin's speech goes from left to right is NOT FANCY, JUST CONFUSING. They are counter directions! Where is Ash going??? Into the speech bubbles??? Nice fun fact, the PHEW on the first panel was no intentional, my tablet driver broke and pen pressure disappeared on me as I wrote it. I'd do that stuff more intentionally now!

I took a lot more care in my 2022 version to not spent too much page on Ash simply going upstairs but also to allow more time for Ash to REACT. Ash not being given enough page time was some extremely good feedback and something I'll pass on too: Sometimes a character just HAS to be allowed to react to your event and you should let them, plot be damned. In comparison to the original version, I hope it's obvious now how resizing the pages and relettering my old crusty font changed the page! I also had to draw in more background as you know, I didn't draw under speechbubbles... sigh...

Now the 2022 version has a lot more packed into it, forcing me to NOT use the weird staircase layout like before. Trying to fit enough in to satisfy the purpose of the page whilst not being too overloaded is a balance I'm still tryin to crack even today (2022 as of writing this) and I can only hope I can tighten up the pacing balance on my chapters even further going forward. We shall see....

It's a crime I ended the chapter here originally. Yes it's a limitations of how I "wrote" at the time, going from page to page and writing as a I went rather than any long term script or loose set of dialogue notes. As such it has been rightly pointed out just how abrupt the end is. Ash STILL has not fully reacted too or thought about what he wanted to learn from Kevin or how rude the Lady was! Or his training materials! I was so pleased with the "readers will infer that this video is garbage and it's not helping Ash" and yes, true, that I chose to just leap right onto Ash now behind a counter... but WHO. IS. ASH? He barely spoke to Kevin at this point, leaving Kevin entirely to steal the show when really this moment is being viewed through Ash and thus Ash kiiiiind of needs to be there as a character too. I am so grateful for the feedback groups who helped me pointing this out. I had to do it, make the mistakes all that in order to learn UwU

There's another page after this one in the definitive 2022 version to fully show how Ash feels about his new job and the ambush. But this page itself I wanted to clarify what the training videos actually taught me at the time so it can become more explicit on how helpfully unhelpful the script can be - something I clearly remembered as a young adult at the time trying to gain confidence.

Little insight into why I mention the mess of layers on my old files so much! Please note on this images that there are MORE unnamed layers if you could scroll down . THIS was the nightmare that I had to sort out on every single page up until the end of chapter 5, though up to chapter 3 was worse being these were a different file type to the software I use now. Please do yourself a favour: If you have to have a million layers, name the important ones and use folders. It's so much easier to keep track of everything if you come back to it at any point!

Now look at this, there's only 3 or 4 layers per group: a lineart layer, a base flats, shadows and occasionally highlights. Named folders also mean if i need to move a character I can easy move the entire grouped layers now... it's super improved my drawing workflow so I can get pages out quicker in the evening after working the day job. Take every measure to work smarter for your mental stamina, energy levels and to maximise your art style and time! PLEASE!!!

Like before, he's the "horror" version of the old chapter 2 cover before I found my style in chapter 3. It's cool, I dig it still but I removed this and the chapter 1 cover with the new style art when I launched my site. This cover may have matched the previous pages tone more at the time but it definitely doesn't match my direction now.

CHAPTER 3 – 2018/2019 VERSION

New version was launched on September 2021

Old version of the cover art

I do still really like this colour scheme. I may have to use i later on! Shame I ditched it in the next page but again, I was only JUST starting to consider long term colour choices being planned instead of spur of the moment. Say goodbye to "randomly designed evening worker A" too.

I designed this customer randomly BEFORE I read Court of Roses, so the webcomic cameo in 2021 feels like it was made for her! Artist note this was the first time I considered that I could use the environment to show progression/movement and booooy did I NOT like backgrounds then (oof)

Redrawing this page took me a while as I was using feedback recieved about this 2019 page two years later to make the new pages read more in a more logical manner whilst not deviating from what I was trying to do here. I do like my 2021 version a lot more as I feel I squeezed more in yet it doesn't feel overcrowded -- whereas this feels empty by comparison!

Once again the relettering/edit pains show from changing canvas size from being too small to the site/print sizes I'd use now. So much white space... that said, the newer version uses most of the old art and panelling from this page! Put far more effort into this background then I had previously; the fact it STILL holds up shows you I was beginnig to learn how to work more efficiently in my style.

Another page that I had to brute force into my now standard page size. The negative space here is still very much apparent which sucks, something I would address with the 2021 version. I am still glad that even the remake has the vast majority of the original art yet is paced to fill the page in a much more satisfactionary way!

This was the original section stopping page! A wall of Ash's thoughts and a very speedy resolution. I was writing somewhat in the brisk bite sized style of mini stories at this point; it would be at chapter 5 when I realised the scope of what I wanted was longer, more character based stories than solely small "snacks" like the previous three pages. Each little section could have something to say, like how Ash deals (or rather, doesn't deal) with awkward customer moments on top of just retelling some really weird stories from when I worked retail. I hope the new version feels more satisfying even as it has the same outcome as here!

There it is, the narration style is there again. I am very much happier to have Ash think in real time with us all than narrate over like this. remember when I said i sometimes failed to properly introduce characters in chapter 1? WELL I did it here too! Just have two new people thrown in for this chapter to disappear until chapter 6. I always regretted doing this. It's why you see Darrell get his own chance to shine earlier in the remake so that CJ gets to shine her individual spotlight later!

I was going to have most character do puns for some classic punchline jokes but after drawing chapter 5 I realised "No. This is Damian's thing." Yes, I once again changed colours mind chapter and here mid PAGE. I was really trying to experiement and have fun using clip studio paint and as disjointed as I view it now with hindsight... I'm glad I had fun.

For the remake I split up this entire section into a longer passage of pages so that we can really see Ash and the others interact. CJ gets her own intro card and I can REALLy go wild with the chaos! You can tell I was concerned with a very brisk pace, craming lots into one page, which is good as it got "the job done" I suppose. My tastes and experiences have changed since then!

I am so sorry to anyone who liked the pun but... Damian gets to have those so i am revoking pun rights from the evening staff. Sorry it was a mandate from management. (It was me, I am the manager) I also got to say a lot more things in the new version - the version here is kinda sweet in that light "snack" way I mentioned earlier. But I have long form themes now and I gotta slap those down in those empty spaces to build up the juicy stuff later.

I did that one sweeping background panel a few pages back and wham bam copy pasted again here. I still like the idea behind the scene transtion between night to afternoon (Maybe I will reuse it another day) but it comes down to page economy again. It was a whole load of nothing to look at after all. After reusing the first panel's background a bunch, I realised that maybe i should stop putting off at least TRYING to draw backgrounds, like counters, shelving, the place they work at. Clip Studio was slowing allowing me to work a little faster at the time so I could spare the room to grow there too.

I love the top two panels so much and I miss them. Context here: CJ was originally meant to be written out very soon after this. My "point" was that you can get to know people in a job but ultimately retail is very temporary for a lot of people, so you'd see new faces every time I'd have a big scene in the evenings. BUT THEN PEOPLE LIKED CJ. And then I liked CJ. And then I had the perfect role for her. Thus this page was sacrified so that the remake allows her to be the gremlin child she always could be! hee hee

FANCY LAYOUT TIME! I was hoping to have a mostly quiet scene showing Kevin constantly being told no but not knowing why, so when he'd get to Ash he'd not know what to expect. It was... a lot of assumptions for the reader to pick up on maybe. Again feedback pointed out how Darrel and CJ are very distant in these old pages and as they know what Kevin is doing, surely they'd have something to say seeing Ash fall for it. I then had an oppotunity to show that Ash didn't know with the new present tense thought balloon narration. Rewriting this was so much fun!!!

A lot of the layout elements of this page were mostly reused in the new version. The biggest changes being the layout here was flipped as it's quuuuuiiittteeee obvious I did read some manga and manga inspired comics at one point... Speech ballons are quite manga styled as in vertically shaped and reading wise the main pose of Kevin dominates the right with the text to the left, where the Japanese text and panels would be read leaning right to left. It took for it to be pointed out to me in 2020 and I could see it everywhere. Influences are good, you cannot help gleam things subconciously, just feel that flipping the remakes layout to go right to left like my native language of English is a lot more logical to follow as a Western reader.

This was added in at the later half of 2019 as a temp fix to show Ash reacting more to the early 2019 fully finished chapter - it still stays in the comic to this day but I've definitely built up to it a lot more now!

This was a spur of the moment style choice to draw this page and yeah, glad I did. Sometimes the stuff I did on the fly during this time did actually land well and gets to stay, so not all "improvements" have to be drastic changes but can be the slow development into something even stronger as you go.

The expressions here are nice but I am so much happier with the remake's way more over the top faces.

I spent quite a while on this page at the time, using 3D models to get Kevin's pose down as I was still pratcicing how to draw Kevin himself. his hair and face are starting to take shape to how I'd continue to draw him into the remake years of 2021. Overall, it's still kind of static though, as it's just a bunch of faces and speech balloons. In the end condensing pages down helped with the pacing in the long run, I think.

I'm sliding this version here to highlight the flaws of my original font: It did not lend itself well to Kevin's unique balloons. I was proud of making my own custom font at first until it became apparent even I was struggling to read it after a while. So it was back to the templates to make a new font!

There you go, there's the font. As mentioned previously, when I came to reletter and edit the pages I would also resize as many speech balloons as I could. They're still huge though as again the backgrounds weren't completed underneath and I did not want to spend any more time redrawing what didn't need it at the time. And once again, an abrupt end to a chapter where Ash does not react to a single thing he just got swindled into. Hmmmph.

CHAPTER 4 – 2019

New version was launched between April and May 2023

The original cover art! I had started to design Flori on the side but never quite got the hair down so at this point I went "sod it" and just... drew the cover anyway! I do still like that Ash though hee hee

I had always wanted to try and do establishing shots of interiors like artists i like do, and I tried my best. Even though now with practice and hindsight I can see the technical "pains" in this page BUT!!! I did it, i made it, I lpracticed stuff and moved on. That's pretty dang good for me to not get stuck in perfectionist mode!

5 years later... what I learned is that sectioning off parts of an environment/background can give a stronger emotion or direction than a wide open "shot." It helps me feel less nervous and focus on smaller sections then "aaah big perspective space!!!" - by splitting those sections I also gave myself more room for a stronger Ash/Flori intro payoff with the dropped food.

I did not practice drawing hair and I uh... well. Please the huge speech balloons are back and causing havok again. This was the page where i was really starting to fight with my... choices.

I'm not sure if the set up for the "same cake description but two different cakes" joke is as strong as it could have been. Maybe it feels like a filler page, I don't know. Either way in hindsight, Ash hasn't talked to Flori, asked how she is, there's nothing! I know now that those interactions can mean a LOT in stories.

I hope I made the visual joke even more obvious now! Also means I can again set up that Flori doesn't pay attention to Ash which now (in my mind) justifies the page past just being something that annoyed me in my past job XD

I was really proud of the close up and counter glass details. Would be a shame if i were to slap big pink speech ballons all over it... (the original lettering was even bigger...) Additionally time scale wise, Flori's first full exchange is to yell at him, which feels WAY too aggressive now and not my actual intention.

And then i just.... moved on. Hindsight, Flori was meant to be a temportary character so I was just moving on ASAP to just show that "Ash is struggling" so I could bring in Damian quicker. And then feedback pointed out how i never really... built on or addressed Flori and the readers wanted MORE FLORI. So... live and learn!

Speech balloons.... sigh.

This is using the relettered version: originally Flori had a cursive style font for "Extra Personality" but I would come to scrap that for legibility issues. I would also scrap the coloured speech balloons as keeping colour pallettes cohesive to each balloon was just... ugh

AND THEN I JUST MOVED ON AGAIN. I know you don't have to resolve EVERY scene there and then but DANG, my reader feedback was spot on. I missed what makes drama... drama! The reaction and consequences. With no reaction build up, how can the consequences properly hit later? hmmMMMMmm

I am glad i tried to pull off this faux perspective "camera" trick, it really pushed me to try and do something "new" for me.

I split the old one page into two so I could build up more of Ash trying to softly challenge Flori so the stubborness can hit harder on the follow up. Maybe not quite as a dramatic full page walk away but it feels better to me in terms of pacing. I

Fun fact: This wasn't in my 2019 version but drawn later in 2020 when I started to reletter and resize the old canvas sizes. I had been intregrating myself into webcomic communities and I think I was asked what Ash thought about Flori and went "Shoot, I've never actually had a page about that uuuhhh" so I ... put this together with duct tape!

This is why the 2023 version now has CJ in the mix! Now that Cj and Flori are no longer "temporary characters" from my 2019 plans, I knew I'd want more of them both in this chapter as counters to Ash's passive nature. AND show more of CJ's opinions too! Gives me things to work with later hee hee hee

I had so much fun making this page at the time. I was trying to preplan colour schemes in advance now, finding out how clip studio worked in more detail, trying out layout pacing... chatting to other creators was really helping me try out more things to develop my """style"""

I AM SO SORRY KHARA! She has been moved from her intro here because quite frankly, she is a side character and Verity is a support character, so I felt she would have a stronger presence at this point now. I have a stronger opening and use for her in upcoming scenes to compliment her careful, methodical nature but for now, well meaning chaotic Verity feels more natural to me in this scene.

The 2023 version I chose to really SHOW that crowd anxiety that Ash is dealing with!

Like the old prologue, I though the VISUAL representation of having a wall of text would give the exact emotion of "too much information, cannot absorb" I wanted to represent. However helpful feedback was that actually, I SAID it was busy, but never show it to be (where's the crowds?) and again... readers read every single line. I AM SO SORRY

I still chose an "info dump" but i also chose to have more follow up on how ash just cannot absorb everything going on. Tried to make it WAY more chaotic and how Verity fits into it too.

The speech ballons were actually intention because yeah, this is how my first shift on the counter felt like: it was actually really busy, the person helping me was overworked and just had to info dump on me. I kept up ok I think at the time for myself, but I don't think I conveyed strongly how ASH reacts. Ash is not me. He deserves his own reaction. AND YES AGAIN, PEOPLE STARTED TO READ THE TEXT (sorry to the one commenter who got frustrated at me. I understand the effect did not work)

I was so proud of this page at the time! It focuses on character expressions, isn't *too8 cluttered and SHOWS the crowd. Solid. Not bad.

Again I can see why I was proud of this page at the time! I was having fun trying out style things and it is solid. This is why i don't get mad at my past self when it comes to my old comic cause it wasn't a "waste of time" because I redrew it all: It was a learning experience.

This has remained unchanged but in the original this was the LAST PAGE of chapter 4. Chapter 5 would start with my intro to Damian (my sad blorbo) after Ash having a panic - but again, extremely helpful feedback from friends/creators in the webcomic community pointed out I can BUILD more hype by showing a bitmore. Therefore Damian getting ready to jump on is now the end of the chapter. There's consequences to Verity leaving and the next chapter is now gonna be about them. Mmm good brain juice.

CHAPTER 5 – 2019/20

New version was scripted and slowly remade in 2024 to start building “volume 2”

2020 started with my trying my hand at using 3D models - this was before I figured out I wanted dramatic daydreams to be in black and white though, so it reads as being "real" when in fact, it's a daydream from Ash.

I was really dramatic about this ha ha - I do miss this style of daydream, but my rewrite to have Ash daydream wings on Damian feels much less aggressive and much more in character for both parties.

I still had not figured out how to un-anime his rooster fringe until pages later. Took a lot of drawing him to figure it, which is a lovely thing about comics online. You get to practice this stuff in real time!

Hindsight tells me there are too many colour pallettes going on here. This was also when my scripts were still having Ash narrate in kiiiind of past tense. I'd change that to present tense later just to stop me having an absolute headache writing scripts.

Originally Verity joined here, which was also overwhelming as you just had two characters come from nowhere in only a few pages. My latest version I chose to zoom out the "camera" more to really show that yes verity, you turned up when everyone had gone. Just adds to the moment a little more. lets it breathe.

I thought the zig zag dialogue boxes were the coolest at the time but now it's uh, a little cluttered still. Bye bye pink and blue balloons! You weren't as cool as i thought you were~

I wanted to test a new brush on the congrats image and it just looks even more out of place. I am so happy that I toned down all the pinks and noise when I rewrote it!

I like a speech balloon but that's some chunky balloons...

My plan was the transition from down to upstairs and from the counters to Damian's supervision would mark an "outfit change." These days I decided that it's one colour per "shift" or day so it feels more consistant it's the same period of time. I hope that becomes noticable from chapter 7.

If you look at my original chapter 3, I only had these two panels. It was always planned as a joke, but redrawing it meant I could make it WORSE. I also redraw Damian to face us to show more emotion, as well as burst out from the panels instead.

The art at the bottom is the same, it's just sometimes how you use the space that can make a page feel more satisfying to draw. C:

ok as of april 2024 I am still redrawing these pages so uh, I WILL BE BACK

2020 - page from Honestly not a Robot

2020 - page from Honestly not a Robot

2020 - chapter 5 page

2020 - page from Honestly not a Robot

hello shiza my tech support queen