Wanted to do a long form post on this since it’s something I've been thinking about recently. When questions popped up on Discord today I felt it was time!
Here are a few comments from the Discord I will be addressing (as paraphrased by me). I want to add the conversation is still on Discord if you want to see it (patrons have Discord access)
- What about more character/story depth or different scenarios with the characters growing?
- Perhaps males grow as well in the animations?
- What about people with “non-sexual” motivations once grown?
- More or varied types of resistance to growth (as shown in the comics)?
- Scenarios ideas like a University, beach or even a couple having a growth spurt?
I will be adding in thoughts of my own to the discussion too!
Comics in general
One thing I’ve said before and I want to stress again is the comics are my laboratory, so to speak. They’re what I use to test ideas for animations as well as general drawing techniques. I’m not trying to downplay the stories, plot lines, or even characters but I want to stress I use the comics as a free-for-all when it comes to my work. This is probably why they seem so random at times and why storylines wrap up and ramp up so quickly. That’s all on me and I know it.
A lot of times what I’m doing in the comics translates directly into benefits for the animations. For instance, I started coloring comics long before I did color for the animations. After a few years of coloring comics, I felt more comfortable branching into coloring animations. A lot of little time saving techniques were learned doing comics that allowed a reasonable production of color animations. That kind of thinking and work apply to today’s animations and comics. I’m still trying things in the comics which translate directly into the animations. Clip Studio, at least for me, is an amazing program with so many ways to do things. I’ve been using it pretty much daily, 8 to 10 hours minimum, over the last 12 years. That’s a long time and you’re probably wondering why my art isn’t better! hahaha! Really, what I’m getting at is there are many ways to tackle problems in Clip Studio which makes experimenting and trying new ideas helpful.
Which brings me back to where we started. I’m open to trying new things with the comics but I need to stress if comics start to fall out of my Venn diagram of fun, I feel they will lose some of the spark they have for me. Basically, if the comics become work, I can’t imagine having the same level of motivation I do now. Is that a bad thing? Depends on which end of the equation you’re on. I guess if the comics head in the direction you personally like, you be okay with that. For me, probably less so.
I know this may sound like I’m making excuses to just do whatever and not care. That’s not the case, I do care about the comics. I do care about storylines and I do care about the characters. That may seem a little crazy on the face of things but it’s the truth.
So where are things going
This one’s been on my mind and here’s what I’m thinking. First off, I want to catch the comics up to where I am with drawing them. I’m currently drawing (effectively) Growth Lab 55. That’s 11 issues and roughly 2500 pages of art ahead of where were at with the releases. I’ve talked about this before and there’s a lot of reasons for that. I draw a very loose style when I lay out the comic books and then I go back and detail in the work. After this I letter, create cover art, binding work and then release it.
I’ve come up with an idea that might allow this to go faster. One thing I’m looking at is leaving some pages in storyboard form. These would be pages like basic set up scenes with buildings, less important set up scenes or just exposition scenes. I want to be clear some of you may be saying it already looks like I’m leaving my stuff rough! I can’t argue with that but this would be just another layer below that. You can see what that looks like right now by going to my main site Lifetime gallery. There are ton the of examples of my storyboard level work.
What I’m aiming to do is finish up what I consider the premier pages, leave the rougher pages if they still work for storytelling purposes, letter and finish the comic. For most people, they would not see much of a difference. For me, this is a potential gigantic timesaver. I can go more into this in another post but basically, I would be cutting out a major step and you the reader wouldn’t be losing much in terms of getting awesome pages. I still plan on drawing the awesome transformation sequences and coloring various interesting parts of the comic.
Comics featuring a different direction or focus
I get asked from time to time about doing different type of comic. This might be something outside the Growth Lab universe or outside the Growth Lab characters we normally interact with. Normally this involves something like a different type of transformation speed than I normally draw. Things like a much slower growth over time, maybe hours, days or longer. I get asked about doing more romantic stuff between a male and female couple.
That’s all possible and it’s something I may venture into. There’s nothing on the planning sheet about that right now. I have my hands full with animations and the comic work I do. Still, it’s something I’ve considered a few times. One thing I wonder, if something like that was to happen exactly how many people would be interested in it. For me, I’m already doing something I love. If I start making a comic like that and only a few people are interested then I’m not really maximizing my time. I don’t mean to sound crass because I’m sure the people that want this are very passionate about it. Realistically, I cannot satisfy every single person’s wishes. My goal is always to bring the maximum amount of fun and art to as many people as possible. If I drill down on very specific tastes and I’m hitting a few people’s interests than that’s really not hitting the goal. That said, you guys know I’ve dealt from time to time in specific fetishes and because I know you enjoy them.
Futanari and other directions
This one comes up from time to time and it’s not just about futanari. Basically, it’s about different types of transformations and ideas. Part of the reasons I enjoy the comics is I’m just free balling it for the most part. I’m going off in directions that interest me and I’m practicing on things I want to get better at. If something doesn’t fall inside my Venn diagram of interest it’s hard for me to be motivated to “just do it”. I work on this stuff all the time. I’m the guy that’s up at 2 AM, 3 AM, all night even. Drawing, animating, coloring and more. That doesn’t make any of these suggestions less awesome or bad or anything like that. It just means if I’m not interested it’s going to be a struggle to whip up passion to stay up all night working on it.
So yes, things are POSSIBLE but unless it's of direct interest to me it's not likely.
Patreon and comics
As a side note when I first started the Patreon it was only about the comics. This was right around issue 13 to 16. In other words, way back. The response at that time was pretty light in terms of Patreon support. I HIGHLY appreciate the people who DID support me during those times. It means a lot because they helped me get through that period of my Patreon. My point here is well before a lot of my tropes became super trope-y there didn’t seem to be a lot of interest in (financially) supporting the comics. I get it! I’m not blaming anybody because I’d probably done the same in your shoes. The animations were different story and the Patreon CLEARLY took off after they were introduced.
As I mentioned above, I do wonder if I was more focused on comics how much interest would there be. Especially if the comics were focused on various things people claim to be very interested in. My guess, and it’s only a guess based off history, I doubt the comics would ever equal the interest the animations have. With that being the case, I’m much better off by keeping the focus on the animations with the comics as an important supplementary project.
Males in the Animations
I will probably poll this one. Based off prior polls it's not of high interest but perhaps things have changed. I wouldn’t mind male growth but that’s just me.
Overall
So, the basics are this, I want to catch up the comics as much as possible this year. That will mean new ways to produce them. Beyond that I’m looking at possible story variations, this could include things like a slow growth over time comic, a relationship comic or something else. I’m not guaranteeing anything at this point because 2023 is going to be a busy year.
Something happening outside the comics but will definitely affect comic production is my goal to ramp up voice acting in the animations. I’ll create a separate post with updates later but this is going to take up time and affect the pace of the comics.
More to come for sure and I hope this addresses a few of the things my comics fans were wondering about!
Comments or questions welcome and THANK YOU ALL!
-Ready