Katherine Managan is dead

So, a couple days ago I began to see a lot of hits from 8ch.net. I had to go see why. Now granted I know a thing or two about anon boards by now. To cut to the chase, they didn’t much like KM. But, as Kaz says, you can learn a lot from anons. They don’t beat around the bush, that’s for sure!

What I did finally wrangle out of them was that they thought it was pretty shitty borrowing someone else’s character. Katherine may not be Katia, but it’s no secret she might as well be. Well, I don’t want to be That Guy who tries to steal someone else’s character. And after (not much) consideration, it does make sense.

I don’t regret having done KM, I learned TONS! But they’ve definitely got a valid point. I’m still no artist, nor do I plan to ever become one. But if WHEN I venture into the Webcomic arena again, I’ll come armed with my own characters rather than borrow others’. So the Epilogue is off – I did some screenshots, but it was really just setup for the next arc. I’ve ended it pretty well though, I think.

Gave it a good shot, but it was flawed from the outset. Much as I like Prequel and Katia, I shouldn’t use them as the foundation of my own work or it will never be anything beyond a fanfic of a fanfic. I toyed around a bit with the thought of making a yellow-ish Skyrim khajiit rather than the Katia model and call HER Katherine. But, that would really be painting over the underlying problem of benevolent plagiarism. Best to start over from scratch with a solid foundation.

So my immediate focus will finally be on that Cloak of Grey Tomorrow mod that I’ve been promising. Thanks for the readers tho! I’ll make more, just not of KM – i’ve got the itch to tell more stories and take closeups of more Khajiit tails!

KM is winding down

I know some of you are following me for the Cloak of Grey Tomorrow mod, which I’ve not done ANYTHING of substance on yet. But I JUST finished a marathon screen shotting session for KM. I’ve enough for 3 posts, 2 easily. But it’s a kinda sad moment for me. I’ve got epilogue to do and setup for the next arc, but the climax is completed now. I’ve seen it. I like it, but it’s still kinda sad when I’ve spent months with these characters in my head and now some are gone.

Once I finish the Epilogue posts – probably 2 or 3 – I’ll get into the CoGT big time as I have PLANS for it in KM Arc 2. Which I can no longer resist doing. I’ve the major plot points for it already in my head. I’ll probably post the next KM on Friday, then Saturday, then Sunday for the 3 part conclusion you might say.

If you happen to read it, heres a spoiler. It’s what I plan to use for the final shot of the conclusion before the 2 or 3 epilogue posts after that. Seemed fitting.

Kaz spoke to me!

Ok, well – he replied to an email I sent. The very man who contains the soul of Katia within his demented and sadistic head deigned to reply to my humble email!!! I’ll never wash my monitor again.

Yes – THAT Kaz. The designer of such memorable characters as:

Happy Gator, your Customer Service Friend!

Evil Quill Weave, the sexiest Argonian you’d ever like to be tied up by!

Mikahail, the funloving, devil-may-care Assassin…

Furry Red Fox Guy… wait… Not him… go back to that sexy argonian…

Yeah, her. And he did some yellow cat girl too I think…

(You can’t really call it hero worship though – he’s the madmad who causes Katia such tears. More like villian worship?) Anyway – no, mostly I just wanted to see if he’s ok with Katherine Managan. I pretty much knew what his answer would be, but still it seemed the polite thing to do if I’m going to promote it out there first. Of course he said it was fine as long as I wasn’t looking to profit (I’m not), though he did ask me to be sure to make it clear that it’s a fanfic (of a fanfic) and not endorsed or associated with Prequel. And that it wasn’t for-profit. (Profit? Off my innocent version of Katia? Perish the thought!) So I stuck a little disclaimer on my banner.

But he also made one little comment – basically, “for god’s sake, get Blender and learn to MESH”. Ok, not quite in those terms, but that’s the gist of it. He’s right of course. But my problem is time – I know I could Learn To Mesh, but by the time I finished Katia will have long since lost her Cloak to Sigrid and I’ll be lucky to clothe her in Ectoplasm.

So, to quote a certain fox, “I understand what you’re saying, and your comments are valuable, but I’m gonna ignore your advice.” (How’d that turn out for him btw?)

And yet MORE KM delays? (sorry!)

Wow, I’m starting to feel like I understand Kaz a bit more. Sorry for the Katherine Managan delays. I always feel like its a bit of a cop-out though to try and explain way – it doesn’t matter really. But more to come soon. I finally got my privacy back and it’s kinda needed to do KM the way I want to do it.

Once this first cycle is complete, I think I will push it a bit in various places. Though I said last time I probably wouldn’t continue, I’m already starting to think of another plotline. Probably not a good idea when I’ve not finished this one yet. Problem is, >I< know the ending of this one so it’s a bit less interesting to ME. So never say never, I think there’ll be a KM Cycle 2 after all. But I would like to complete this first and hopefully get at least a couple more readers first.

Katherine Managan #20 delay

I didn’t mean to have such a delay. But life. And Fathers day. And a new game. Yeah, that too. I will finish this, but I probably won’t do any more. I guess it’s a bit of “If you build it, they will come” not happening. Yeah, I need the ego boost of some decent amount of people actually reading it to stay focused. For those who are, I sincerely thank you and I WILL finish it. And it has been fun too, but without some feedback I just feel like I’m pissing into the wind.

Oh well, like I said at first, it was just an experiment. Not all succeed – if they did, well, they would be pointless.

But I AM still looking forward to the Cloak of Gray Tomorrow! Hope Kaz is getting close to the next installment. Even if he picks a winner (or combo of them) it’s not official till it hits prequeladventure.com directly.

Maybe I’ll even come up with some explanation of why Katherine’s armor isn’t all bloody! 🙂

Cloak of Grey Tomorrow & KM

http://katherinemanagan.tumblr.com

I may take a (SHORT!) hiatus from KM updates in the near future. The
Cloak of Grey Tomorrow outfit in Prequel has me intrigued. When the
winner is decided, I’m going to go full steam ahead to design a Skyrim
mod for it and may get a chance to use it in KM once done. I’ve already
established that she’s left some “stuff” in the Whiterun inn. That may
include the CoGT outfit if so. Probably the enchantment may be worn
off so it might not DO anything, but it would be a great way to
introduce a new outfit to KM. (and maybe work as pajamas – sleeping in Arena armor can’t be comfortable – and Skyrim doesn’t allow for blankets apparently.)

I also have my own idea of what it
should look like. Since I can’t draw, I may try and create a mod and
screenshot that to the Fanart page as another entry. Mine will include a
catsuit underneath, probably based on this existing mod but with modified coloring:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12013/?

and one of these cloaks:

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/12092/?

Because… catsuits are appropriate in every conceivable way. 🙂

Also,
I’m finally going to reveal H with the next update. I need to NOT have
him offscreen all the time if he’s going to be a character. Maiq has a
twin brother (or maybe it actually IS Maiq! He must do SOMETHING
besides wandering around Skyrim all the time.)

If I can do this
next update as I intend, it will be the largest scene I’ve done yet so
it’s a bit intimidating. But I think it will work out OK.

More KM stuff mostly

http://katherinemanagan.tumblr.com

I got through most of the major character introductions needed. I’d like to throw some more in before the plot really gets moving, but I’m afraid they’d be tedious to shove them all in back to back, so I’ll forgo that and work them in after things get going.

Plot should become apparent after the next 2 updates, and perhaps then I’ll feel I’ve got enough going to hold an audience beyond “oh look, more furry ass and scaly tits!”.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to promote this thing? It’s a bit tricky with the Adult nature, but I do wish I could get some people to take a look at the thing.

I had the “Ask a question” turned on for a bit, but I didn’t realize it would post directly to the blog, and I don’t want them there. I also got Disqus working, but it wouldn’t hurt to make it more prominent.

So, I’m up to 7 characters now. A couple still mandatory to introduce to make the plot work, but they can come after it gets moving:

Katherine Managan – protagonist and only real connection to Prequel. H – Lord of the Manor and owner of “Tails of the …” monthly mags. Sabhira, mentor to Katherine. Udaran, friend of Sabhira. Milahme, bitchy argonian model. Red/Muz-Ra outspoken and oversexed Argonian model. Ubergard, giant Argonian guard.

Still to come, Lydia – the only human model and recent addition to modelling staff. Unnamed (as yet) human guard. Unnamed (as yet) khajiit.

And I have one small bit of plot I’ve yet to figure out exactly how to do. I need to see if I can call a Dragon on command. Guess I’ll find out if I can do that when I get there!

Oh, this IS fun. I just hope I can figure out some not-too-spammy way of promoting it. Oh, and KillerfishSG, I totally understand about not wanting to reblog it. It would take a certain kind of blogger to do that. But awfully glad to have you guys at least along for the ride!

Got Katherine moved last night

I managed to get KM moved over to katherinemanagan.tumblr.com successfully last night. I was worried – I’d deleted everything here and wasn’t sure I could recreate the text and pick the right images. (I have them all – but I have more that weren’t part of the series). I’m not a very religious guy, but when I got home from work, I found that my home PC still had the original page up and all the text and images were still cached there. So damn lucky!

I even had time to do some shots for the next one. And I think maybe I have a plan for the ongoing style of KM now. If not a full fledged plot, at least a good idea for how to keep it “different”. At some point I’ll want to promote it, but I feel I have to have a pretty good backlog of posts before I do that.

Using the SWC (Simple Web Comic) theme. I was concerned at first since mine doesn’t use a single image but multiple ones. However, turns out it works just fine. It’s a bit staid in it’s presentation right now, but those are just tweaks I can work on.

And then Prequel updates! Woohoo! ALWAYS a good day! Is it just me though, or does everyone think like I do:

“GREAT – AN UPDATE!”

(read, read, read)

COOL!

(reread, reread, reread).

(slight depression sets in…)

When’s the next one coming out?

Must just be human nature. Never satisfied for more than 5 minutes.

Katherine M. Moves On

After only 3 posts, don’t think I’m abandoning Katherine. She’s just getting her own tumblr blog. Setting it up over at katherinemanagan.tumblr.com now. I’ll leave commentaries here.

I INTENDED to move the 3 posts over there and delete them here. I managed to figure out how to reblog them to there, and then I deleted them here. But then I found out that if I delete them here, the reblog won’t display the whole blog and clicking doesn’t bring it back.

Sooo… now I’ve got to post them again over there.

Katherine M. Commentary

Had fun with this one. Saves SO much time not worrying about those silly balloons! (the speech bubbles. Get your mind out of the butts.)

One thing I really, really appreciate about Prequel – up until recently – was that it’s a lot more like real life (which is an odd thing to say about a web cartoon involving talking cats) than nearly anything out there. I have a fondness for characters that have more realistic lives. Never could get into superhero stuff, it just didn’t interest me. It wasn’t real. Prequel, as I said, was. Now, I fear, it may be leaving that behind – but stories have to have a climax and an end. I guess it couldn’t go on too long being about a regular cat with nothing special about her. Something had to give.

Long ago I used to be a little bit into Anime. Old stuff. My favorites were Maison Ikkoku and Kimagure Orange Road. Still are I guess. KOR had a bit of “magic” stuff, but only for comic relief really. And yeah, both sappy romantic story lines. (Though I REALLY appreciated the realistic split of the triangle at the end of KOR. People get hurt in life, even squeaky annoyingly cute people.)

So, after I finished the last one, I thought about that a bit. It was a bit of sexy humor to end the “strip” with, but it wasn’t real. What would REALLY happen if KM did that? Well, this is what would really happen. Or worse. Probably worse. And if I like stories that are a bit more real, I’d best haul this one back in a bit. With a bit of a teaser for “almost nobodies” since in real life, everything can change too.

Finally, I’m thinking seriously about if I should stop using the Katia/Prequel tags. Seems kind of blatantly coat-tailing on the back of Kaz’s hard work with my ridiculously easy work. If I do, I’ll just tag with Katherine Managan instead.

So if you like this, and want to promote it, and aren’t too embarrassed to do so, reblog it.

But I feel kinda like a leech, and Kaz probably already knows I’m doing this by now, and I do respect his wishes and his work so much I’d drop this in a heartbeat if he asked me to. But it sure is fun to do anyway. So, is this officially a fanfiction of a fanfiction now? How far down the rabbit hole does it go?