Blog ⋆ Mage Punk Archives

Happy Monday née Sunday!

by Tables on May 2, 2022

Hello Dear Readers,

Just chiming in to try and keep a habit alive. ~~Kudos to me if I managed to hit publish before midnight!~~ To get the stressful stuff outta the way; we had to take our beautiful baby potato Bakugo to the vet for what may be an upper respiratory infection.

I’m happy to say he was the most well behaved boy to ever exist at the vet even though I’m sure he hated every minute of it. I’ll keep you posted on his progress.

A good lad with a big appetite (who needs to go on a diet now)

Now, Sundays are usually my favorite day of the week. Not for any reason in particular but if I had to pick one, it’s that Sundays kinda feel like a pleasant void in time between the end of one week and the start of another.

But for most of this past week I’ve been feeling a little burnout from the weeks before and it’s been difficult mustering up the strength to really dive into working on stuff.

But that’s okay!

On Saturday we went and did a few cuts for a pair of Navi earrings we’re putting together. I’m in LOVE with the detail on those wings. Products aside, I had a bit of nervous energy which I was able to channel into organizing our studio some more.

Once there was enough desk space available I was able to launch into a little production work on the Fire Tulips. Hopefully I can hop into cranking these delicate little flowers out and stocking them in the shop in the near future.

Well, that’s all for now. Some weeks can be rough but I’ll keep chipping away til I get where I need to be.

I hope you’ll cheer me on 😅.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Tuesday (Wednesday now)~

by Tables on April 26, 2022

Hello Readers,

The rest of the week since my last post proved to be quite a challenge in terms of content creation. We needed to organize our studio to accommodate the influx of acrylic sheets we currently have in our inventory. As such, my work area became a colossal mess and my adult responsibilities made working on anything else a little bit difficult.

You can see the aftermath of the following cleaning storm below.

Still needs some work. But hey! It’s actually neater now than it was before.

I share a studio space with my partner, Banana Planet Co. As of present, we’ve been living together for almost two years now ❤️❤️❤️. However, we’ve only been sharing a studio space for about half that time and we’re still figuring out how to organize everything for maximum productivity.

But fear not! Ches Star Shoppe did not return from this chaotic weekend empty handed!

Currently, we’re only able to work on these gems using the laser cutter that’s at the shop where I work. I’m grateful that The Boss is kind enough to let us make use of it for this kind of thing.

The caveat, unfortunately, is that we can only really use it on the weekends or during our off hours which adds a ton more time to our already long 40-50 hour work weeks. But that’s alright! It’s a lot of work but I’m excited for all the goodies we’re making for you.

Thank you for reading! Stay tuned!

Hello Readers. Please Pardon the Dust

by Tables on April 20, 2022

Also please excuse the lack of consistent timely updates. It’s not that I’m not working on anything; but rather that I’m working on a lot while balancing a frick ton of responsibilities and unfortunately, posting on the Internet was easily lowest on my priority list until recent.

Currently working on getting ChesStar Shoppe up and running again. I’m so excited to show off the new products I’m working on. Here’s a few teaser images.

Showing off, being excited, and talking about it all are all important parts of creation. I’ve reached a point in my development as a creator where I’ve always got the first two down pat; but I have a long way to go for the last.

Alrighty, that’s it for this brief post. I’ll try to post again soon with something. Not necessarily substantial, but something.

Thank you for reading~

A Little Sneak Peek at “Mage Punk and the Final Flame!” Now in the Works

by Tables on January 5, 2021

Between regular daily tasks, teaching myself UI/UX, and just being an adult in general, I’ve been taking the time to work on Mage Punk Archives in piecemeal here and there. I just wanted to take a quick moment to give you guys a little peek at the next comic that I’m working on.

Mage Punk and the Final Flame! Part 1

If you browse through the blog, you’ll find evidence of my trying to start this one years ago; then it never happened. At the time, I wanted Mage Punk to be this long, ongoing comic series; but I think maybe that was a little too ambitious for past-me. There’s a lot of story I want to tell; but I think it’s best if I tell it in shorter segments than originally planned. I also want these comics to read as their narratives that can be independent of the whole. Interstellar Mage Punk: Epilogue x Prologue was a way for me to experiment with said shorter format. Beginning with the end of the world is my way of saying that nothing in Mage Punk Archives is a spoiler; it’s all a part of one big story and now you know how it ends.

There’s already a lot of work that I did in the past for Mage Punk and the Final Flame; when it was being written as a longer project. Rather than being wasteful and abandoning it, I’m going to break it down into something more manageable. I do have to change a few things around so that it can standalone. as its own narrative.

Unfortunately, the amount of previously finished work combined with the new work I have to do would mean a much longer comic than the format I’m aiming for. To that end, I have to break Mage Punk and the Final Flame up into parts. If I can mange it, I’d like to keep it to just two parts but I can’t promise anything. The first part is going to be 12 pages long; the next part after could be as long as 16 pages depending on rewrites, but I don’t want to think that far ahead yet; lest I psyche myself out.

I’ll try to dedicate a future post to outlining the specific work that needs be done; complete with work-in-progress pics and examples of old work that needs redoing. As with Epilogue x Prologue, I’ll be holding off on posting any finished pages until they’re all complete. Until then, you can keep up with updates by subscribing to email notifications and following me and/or Mage Punk Archives on Twitter!

MPA’s Homepage isn’t living up to its full potential

by Tables on January 5, 2021

In my previous post, I mentioned wanting to learn more about UI/UX Design. I’m actually in the process writing up another post on some it. The topic of that particular post is concerned with the overlaps between UI/UX design and graphic design as whole. It covers what I already know about design and how it can easily translate over to UI/UX. One thing that’s glaringly obvious as I study examples of good UI/UX design is that this site’s homepage is a mess.

In my humble defense, this website is built on a rather antiquated model of how most webcomic sites are designed. It’s something I’m definitely planning on addressing in the near future. Since my last post, I’ve made a few minor changes to the look of the site. For one I’ve changed how post titles look; added my gravatar and some non-menacing rounded corners. I’ve also decreased the number of blog pages on the homepage from 3 posts to only one; having a home page blog while there’s a perfectly good dedicated blog page just seems a little redundant.

It’s possible that I’m working with the hammer and chisel equivalent of modern web design tools; but I’m proud of the progress I’ve since beginning this site and everything I’ve learned so far. I’ve been messing around with site building since the dawn of Angelfire in some of the earlier days of the internet. I think this is as close to having a real hobby as I’m gonna get since playing Magic the Gathering in high school.

I’ve thought of taking this hobby to a more ridiculous levels by building satellite Mage Punk sites on other web builders. Maybe I’ll construct a whole site in Notepad using all the HTML and CSS I’ve learned until now.

New Year’s Wishes from the Mage Punk Archives

by Tables on January 2, 2021

If Mage Punk Archives is anything, it's an archive of humanity's potential.

An Archive Off-topic

I’m dreadfully aware that a lot of the stuff I blog about here isn’t very relevant to the themes of Mage Punk Archives as a whole. There’s a lot of me ranting into the void and not enough actual content. Some of that is due in part to my personal and work life; the struggle to keep a roof over my head makes creating the aforementioned content a bit difficult. Rather than virtually thinning myself out by posting on various platforms, I find it easier to stay focused by keeping everything I do in one archive. Unfortunately, this means the lines between my goals for this site, my personal life, and my professional life will need to stay blurred a little longer as I continue to navigate through life.

Tying it all together

Eventually, I’ll do my best to tie it all back into the themes of Mage Punk Archives; but I won’t make any promises. At the time of writing this post, I’m certain that I’m mainly chatting into the void by myself; but that’s okay! I want this site to continue as a learning experience for myself; and any curious souls that may one day find themselves clicking through and browsing the more pointless stuff that I’ve put up here.

I think one lesson that I want Mage Punk Archives to impart is that one never stops finding their voice. The World around us is ever changing and one way or another we ourselves change along with it. It’s important that we never quit striving to reach our Maximum Potential; the best way to achieve that is by always aiming to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be.

Thank you kindly to anyone that has taken the time to read this or any other post on this site. I know the new decade of this millennium got off to a rough start; but every year, month, day is a new opportunity to make it incredible. There’s nothing humanity can’t achieve when it works together.

♥ Happy New Year ♥

Some New Art and a Quick Update

by Tables on October 11, 2020

Hello all~

I just wanted to chime in real quick to say I’m still very much alive and working on stuff. I’ve created some art and put work into other things that aren’t yet ready to go out into cyber world; (But I’ll give you a little preview in this post~)

First, Some New Fan Art: The Eighth Holder of ONE FOR ALL; All Might!

I’ve been wanting to catch All Might in my style for a while now. I have strong feelings about the dichotomy of his two designs; and how they’re portrayed throughout the story of My Hero Academia. Eventually, I want to create a new piece that portrays Strong Might in the same mood and tone as Skele-Might.

Then, A Quick Look at the Things I’m Working On…

Finally finished the back cover; and and finishing inside back cover illustrations for Interstellar Mage Punk. While I was at it, I finished the inside front cover; I may go back and fill the rocks in.

I want to give my comics the feeling of being like short individual books. With that in mind, I think I should put something on the “insides” of my covers. Something similar to manga publishers put certain panel art for the filler pages they use to ensure chapter covers start on the correct side of the book. I guess that makes these one page comics?

I also went back and organized some earlier pages that I’ve already begun work on into separate shorter books. The goal, is to tell to tell the story in smaller chunks. I want each comic to stand on it’s own as an individual narrative while still being part of a larger sequence. For anyone who happens upon my site, I want their time here to be a small adventure for them. When I have far more stories up than I currently do, I want them to read my comic without feeling like they’re behind in some way.

To that end, I was originally gonna try to set stories to an eight page minimum; but it doesn’t feel like I can easily break this next part into smaller sections that can stand up well on their own in a satisfying way. At the time, I created this part of the story with the idea of trying to build up momentum for a larger story. Now, splitting it up into parts doesn’t feel right; so my goal here is to figure out how to gracefully slam the breaks on this one and bring it to a satisfying conclusion. This one’s probably going to take a while but I’ll keep you posted.

I created a Twitch avatar and some color variants commissioned by my best friend! Go check our her Twitch channel, RhiLimePie!

Also, I’ve revisited my old tumblr.

It’s not important, but if you wanna check it out, here is link.

That’s about it.

I have a few more small commissions to work on and then I can get to the other stuff. I’ve been having a lot of fun making the things that I have this year and I’m so happy that I’ve been able to make as much progress as I have despite everything that’s going on The most important thing is keeping up the momentum while trudging through the thick plagued jelly that is 2020. But I believe in us.