Paul Caggegi

Tag: homebased

  • 2017 in review

    2017 in review

    In hindsight, everything looks impressive, even if you’ve only managed to get a couple of quality projects off the ground and up to a modest level of success. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy that I got a few things out. 2018 looks to be a pretty good year in terms of focusing those projects into something more.

    So here’s a short list what I’ve been most proud of getting done this year:

    Homebased

    Back in 2015, I had just completed a short scifi comic for an anthology titled Gwan all about the migrant experience. I was pleased with this piece, and that the book has achieved a level of worldwide success makes me honoured to have been a part of it. As projects go, however, I felt it was a conscious effort on my part to take a break from Pandeia in the hope of picking the story up again once Dear Giang had been completed.

    But a little soul-searching, and a couple of kooky ideas later, I decided that the next project needed to get back to something simpler. I had made an epic n00b mistake with Pandeia: a huge, sprawling saga in full colour told as a potential series of comics spanning some 26-30 issues bound in 5 books. As a first project, it was all wrong. Also, I was a stay-at-home dad (for the most part – I still took on the occasional class at JMC one day a week) and any project had to fit into a schedule which revolved around the kids. It was serendipitous, then, that these facts should also be my inspiration for what came next.

    I had mused on writing a web comic about being a stay-at-home dad, and it was not without trepidation that I stepped into the web comic fray. The subject had been done before, and well by the likes of Fowl Language and Lunar Baboon – to name two. I also only had a handful of ideas, and to really make a go of it, I needed at least 30. So I collected ideas over the next couple of months and set myself a goal of reaching 21 solid ideas before I bought a web domain, and released the comic to the world on a 3-day-a-week release schedule.

    The project went live on 27th of March this year with the first strip titled Stay At Home Dad setting up the mood and style of the comic right out the gate. I released it on its own website, as well as on Webtoons and Tapas – to varying success. I re-posted the strip on social media like Facebook and Instagram, and even posted each strip to comic threads on Reddit. Around October, I got in contact with an old friend Jason Badower who admitted to being a rabid Homebased fan. After chewing the fat over a few emails, he offered his editing skills to any future comics I might have in the pipeline. To butcher a quote from Ghostbusters “When a successful comic, storyboard and commercial artist offers to edit your humble comic, you say YES!” I took on his suggestions and found my comics became a lot stronger – even if the changes were just a couple of tweaks from an expert eye. In just a few short exchanges, I found a working balance which was a little like jazz – he offered a backbone of no-nonsense feedback and adjustments to panel structure, direction and dialogue, and I’d riff off these for a final polish.

    One strip even got rendered in color for a new issue of Reverie.

    I smashed my humble goal of 30 comics reaching a total of 65 posts this year. The overall response has been pretty good. To date, the website alone has received over 32K views, with the highest record for a single day hitting 2,429. Webtoons has gotten over 17K, and has an average rating of 8.89 (out of 10. In comparison, Lunarbaboon has a rating of 9.6).

    Youtube and Adsense

    I had an existing youtube account which was eligible for earning ad revenue, and thanks to a couple of very popular videos, I had been receiving cheques from Google to the tune of $122AUD a quarter. The problem was these videos were outdated, and needed a revamp. I also wanted to create a youtube account more in line with this website, as well my overall brand. So I set up a new youtube channel and basically began from scratch. I was determined to get back to earning advertising dollars, and it seemed a little crazy, but this was to be a long term goal. In order to hit the much-needed 10K, I revamped my tutorials on using Blender to edit video, then posted a news article on Blendernation – a popular Blender blog. This garnered a few thousand views pushing me closer to my goal, and with a couple more videos promoted on that blog, I managed to hit 10K views in just a couple of months. I immediately enabled AdSense and now Youtube is once again generating revenue.

    In conjunction with this, I also wanted to take advantage of the visits to Homebased (and also to this site) so I researched how to use AdSense on select pages and posts, hoping to turn some of that traffic into revenue. My one mistake was that by the time I was up and running, Homebased was coming to a close for the year. The upside is that in 2018, when I release the new buffer of work three times a week, the traffic should hit a respectable pace and I’ll have better metrics on ad revenue.

    The key lesson I learned here was how to promote posts. Instead of just making a blanket update on facebook, I’d make a post here, or promote a specific Homebased cartoon then link that to the facebook post or blog post. The traffic would funnel back to the website and I’d get stats on ad impressions.

    [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=UUEhYWUp3jRKQF7GHjhpcI_g&layout=gallery[/embedyt]

    Patreon (UPDATE – unplublished)

    So I had initially been skeptical of Patreon – asking people to contribute an on-going monthly donation indefinitely so that you could support your art-making seemed a little crazy. I mean, everything is subscription these days: Netflix, Audible, Heck – even software has gone subscription. What you get for those subscriptions however is a great deal of content and you can justify the value for your money. Subscribing to a few artists at potentially alot more cost to you in return for little to no content seemed… well nuts.

    But in conjunction with my Youtube plans, I thought I’d give it a go, and devised a strategy which would make it worth the while of a potential patron. I decided to create exclusive tutorial content focused on producing illustrations and assets in Blender.

    I kicked it off in late June this year and my goal was to hit $100USD per month. Initial interest was not that high, because I had only told a handful of people. I figured that the way forward was to amass enough content to make it appealing to a future patron before I announced it more publicly. My chance came around September, and with a couple of strategic posts to Blendernation and a few free videos on Youtube, I saw a spike in patrons over the next couple of months which now places me at just shy of $80.

    Going Forward in 2018:

    So the goals for next year have been planned for at least the first few months. I’ve got several Homebased strips ready for production, and these should round out the goal of hitting 100 by March. My plan is then to compile the first Homebased book release. It will either be a best of, or a complete 100 strip release with forward, and a small section outlining some concepts, behind-the-scenes comparisons of work, etc.

    Patreon content has been produced for January, and there is an outline to incorporate upcoming features in Blender’s anticipated 2.80 version release. I’m aiming to hit that initial goal of $100USD by February. I also plan to release some content to Youtube for free, with ads, but the downloadable working files will remain Patreon exclusive.

    Ultimately I am hoping that in 2018 these projects will begin to pay for themselves – from web-hosting costs to software needed to produce them, I’m aiming to create an income stream which utilizes the tools currently available to creatives everywhere, and by producing content which gives something back to the larger community, I also hope to aid others in their creative endeavors.

  • Using Blender for Webcomics

    Using Blender for Webcomics

    I’ve now wrapped on Homebased for 2017 – my webcomic about being a stay-at-home dad. In more than one occasion, I’ve relied on Blender to create some of the sets, or props in order to streamline my creative process and keep up with an on-going three-strips-per-week schedule. Over the years, I’ve refined the process, and to date, I have a pretty simple technique from modelling and lighting assets, to compositing.

    I’d like to share some of the recent examples where using 3D backgrounds has helped create some quality results:

    Blending them into the style has always been a challenge. I needed to model assets which would render good line-work and that can be composited to produce high contrast images to match the line drawing as closely as possible. Sometimes, I needed to tweak the compositor to brighten up the shadows:

    In this example, I used a 3D model because the camera angles were going to change dramatically. I modeled the main set, as well as a modified version with cracks and damage, then rendered line-work which was later edited inside of Clip Studio Pro.

    The bigger the asset library gets, the more I can draw from existing props, too, and this is a huge win for getting comics out faster. Assets like cars, buildings, floors, doors, etc all get reused, imported and appended to new set files, as do the compositing noodles which I set up to achieve certain looks.

    In the months to come, I’ll be utilizing the Cycles renderer, which opens up some interesting possibilities for better effects, and the incorporation of lighting and shading effects and overlays that should produce some exciting new results.

  • Colour Homebased strip appearing in Reverie relaunch

    Colour Homebased strip appearing in Reverie relaunch

    A Kickstarter campaign for the Reverie Comics Anthology has just been launched. Reverie was one of Australia’s most wide reaching magazines to showcase our comic talent. It ran from 1983 to 1987, and helped launch such talent as Michal Dutkiewicz (DC Comics) and Fil Barlow (Real Ghostbusters) onto the international stage. I was lucky enough to be contacted by Gary Dellar, and he asked if I would like to contribute a Homebased strip to the anthology.

    I couldn’t pass up such a unique opportunity, but at the time I had a lot on my plate. So I asked if he would accept an existing strip, but in colour, re-edited to fit his format. I chose this strip titled Super Train as it was fitting for the anthology, having a bit of fun with convention culture and cosplaying of beloved characters.

    This colour version appears in this new anthology along with some amazing new work from some of Australia’s best comic talent including Darren Koziol (Decay), Ben Slabak (Exilium) and many more. If you’d like to know more, and maybe contribute so you can get a sweet print edition for yourself, go check out the Kickstarter page for Reverie now!

  • Talking stats on webcomic

    Talking stats on webcomic

    I began Homebased as a personal project, but also as an experiment in marketing an idea via the internet. As most of you are aware, things are always changing. New ways to distribute, share and promote your work are always cropping up, and older ways become obsolete. I’d like to share a few preliminary results on the handful of comics I’ve so far released, how they’ve been received, and where most of the traffic is coming from.

    Where I’ve posted:

    I judiciously chose social media and platforms that would target my base audience, as well as reach out to people who read comics. The results have been surprising, but also encouraging. I use Facebook as a communication tool to share with other artists and friends I know and trust, and who are eager to see what I am working on. Naturally, a large number of page hits comes from here. What has surprised me is the number of friends who are not into comics at all (but who relate with the content) who are not only reading it, but also sharing the posts.

    I decided to try Reddit – even though I hear it’s a bit harsh and competitive, especially for comics. While the votes fluctuate, and the numbers really don’t peak above 10 up-votes, despite the odd down-vote I actually get a few good comments. I’m also getting almost as much traffic clicking through from the two Sub-Reddits I’ve reposted on – R/Comics and R/Webcomics. This only encourages me to keep posting to Reddit and weather the storm.

    Instagram has an interesting new function which allows you to post a series of pictures, and for the shorter comics that are all square panels, I’ve re-edited the comic to post to this format. While not all the comics get re-posted, I’ve gotten a really good response over there. I also happen to like Instagram as a platform for sharing select photos and sketches.

    Finally, the two social media platforms I’ve tried but have not cracked are LinkedIn (fairly obvious that it’s possibly the least suited to post to) and Tumblr. Getting crickets on Tumblr is surprising, as I thought a focused, webcomic microblog with popular hashtags would do well there. I’m getting virtually zero activity on Tumblr.

    Comic Apps:

    Two apps/platforms that were not around several years ago when I first tried releasing a webcomic were Tapastic and Webtoons. I’ve found these platforms to be surprisingly easy to post to, and the audience response – much like Reddit – has been over-all pretty good and made up of virtually no overlap with my usual base audience. These apps are free to download, easy to navigate on mobile devices, and comics can be bookmarked and enjoyed on the fly. At first I thought the resolution would be a bit too low for my comic, but I tried it out. I only had to adjust the text size up a point or two, and was pretty happy with how it looks on a phone.

    Stats:

    Keep in mind, I only told the base audience about the comic (these are people who’ve followed me for years, since Pandeia and some even before that). These are preliminary stats for the first 6 weeks based on click-throughs from Facebook and Reddit mainly.

    Now Tapastic and Webtoons log their stats separately. Unlike Reddit, they seem to be more positive environments where artists and fans alike are on the whole nicer. If they don’t like something, they just ignore it and move on. So these numbers are pretty much complete strangers using the app, and finding me through the platform alone (the overlap exists, but is negligible).

    They’re modest, preliminary, and it’s certainly no “Lunar Baboon” or “The Oatmeal”, but it’s probably worth pushing a little further with this.

    Where next?

    I wanted to see how this would be initially received. the surprising thing is that the comic has gotten people who don’t normally read comics looking at it; strangers have discovered it via Reddit, Webtoons and Tapastic, and the reactions I’ve received have been largely positive. It was a good idea to put up a substantial buffer of 21 strips, and since those initial comics were drawn, I’ve been keeping a running list of ideas that I shape into strips as I go. I’m pushing slowly towards 50 ideas jotted down, and in various states of script development – which I will be very happy with, but if I hit 100, then that would be a substantial book for this.

    I’m considering marketing and promotion options, but much like the release and distribution in today’s internet environment, it’s something I’ll have to research before going ahead. I’m always open to ideas – does a video preview work? Where do targeted ads come in, and what is a worthwhile ad-spend? Where are people seeking new content? How do I get on the front pages of Tapastic and Webtoons? All these questions are what I’m now seeking answers to, so in the meantime, while more comics get queued and released online, it’s what I’ll be busy working on.

  • Homebased

    Homebased

    After months of planning, I’ve finally released a new project entitled Homebased. This comic is loosely based on my own experiences of being a stay-at-home parent, but has become more about the little absurd moments in a day-to-day home-based life.

    Over the past few years, I’ve collected a few funny anecdotes about my kids, doing chores, things we argue over, and by sharing some of them on social media, I could see if these things resonated with others. Some did, some didn’t; so I picked some of the best, and turned them into short strips for this webcomic.

    Keeping a lid on it was perhaps the hardest thing to do, since I’m so open about my process – and this has been almost a year in the making. So much had to come together for this to work correctly. I decided to go back to basics: keep it simple; be concise; maybe do it in black-and-white; write what I know. Artistically, I wanted it to be of a certain standard, so I did loads of concept sketches and practiced until I got a style I was comfortable with drawing, to the point where I really didn’t have to think about it. I also wanted a decent buffer of work ready to roll out before publishing, and I wanted it to be released on a few choice platforms that bring maximum traffic to the comic.

    My overall goal was to see if there was an audience for this sort of thing. I know a few dads my age going through the same thing – not to mention mums. My generation is one that grew up with comics and pop-culture, and watched the internet give rise to the podcast, the web-comic, and most recently social media. So parents who are obsessed with phones, share stuff about their kids, and are trying to figure out how to be good at this gig – they’re my target.

    Researching everything from which program to use (I’ve settled on Clip Studio Paint) to which platform to release it on (I’ve created a dedicated WordPress blog running Comic Easel, and Jetpack handles the mobile theme, sharing and feedback apps, and I will post updates on Facebook, Reddit and Instagram when appropriate. It’s been a monumental task, but once I got all my ducks in a row, I felt ready.

    The response in this first week has been overwhelmingly positive considering I’ve only released a few strips, and already I’m hearing calls of “When will this be a book?” and “more please!” which is very flattering, but I don’t wish to put the cart before the horse just yet. I have a plan of sorts, and it all depends on a couple of things. Firstly, will this amass an audience that would potentially support the project financially? Secondly, will I generate enough content to create a solid enough book?

    Currently, I have about 30 strips that I feel are solid ideas. In the coming weeks, as these comics are drip-fed to the internet, I’ll be collecting more notes for future strips, and should I hit about 100 good ones, I’ll be considering putting together a book of these.