I wanted to get more intimate for the 'refrain,' which made this page easy to do. As such, I got two pages done today which never happens. I think it works well and gives a little break from the same angle of the other pages in this section.

 Got page 168 done. Dear gods, the layers and their interactions for the background might not look like much but I had to ponder for over a half hour trying to figure out just what the hell I'd done so I could keep the look consistent. Trying to be fancy, that's my problem. Still, I'm about halfway through the intermission and I think it will actually encapsulate the meaning behind the whole first half. Good for me. I wrote the lyrics over 6 years ago at this point, so I'm going on trust that I had half an idea what I wanted to do. Seems I did.

 Got a little start on the next page. Playing again with a bit of warping, nothing too extreme. The head was done freehand from a ref photo, the rest is me. Pretty happy with it so far, will try and get the page done tomorrow before I head off for home. Because when I'm away, I don't do art at all, though I will be looking to take more reference photos.

 Finished 167 easily enough. Looking at the four pages from this section, I think they're going pretty well and do echo the opening of the comic, as I wanted them to. Might or might not have a chance to work on the next page today. After that, forget it as the weekend is already shot. Progress.

 Got started on a page today and it's going well. It just needs the text which shouldn't take long. I'll have time to finish it tomorrow and maybe start on the next. Then, it's launch weekend for the next stupid phone. I am so over retail. Every time I go to work it's, "just have to get through this..." Drives me insane. But I still get real work done here and there.

 A little work yesterday, this morning and after work got this page done. The intermission's lyrics are a little longer than I thought, but totally vital. They more or less explain what's going on in the whole act. There won't be a ton of pages and the background's not going to change so I should be able to knock these out relatively quickly. Except I'll be going to Boston in a week and a half and all work will come to a stop at that point. Moving on while I can.

 Got these two done today. They were easy for obvious reasons. Howard enters, is about to do his bit for the intermission. This section will just be him in front of the curtain to, again, reinforce the idea of the comic as a stage show. I think, for the final final, Howard will be back in the coffee house. This section should come together fairly easily. We shall see.

 This will look like a lot of work, but it wasn't. First image, above, is page 161 redone with the proper stripes down the pants I forgot to wear during the shoot. So. That page is done.

Next is page 162, with the curtains falling, same ones used in previous acts, but with the lines turned off. They look a lot better. Which means I will be going back to the previous pages that use them, turning off the line layer and re-exporting them. No big deal. Here, I did draw a second version of Silas on the right so I could have the details that were missing when he was hugging Silas on the left. I reused the colors from page 161 and just dropped the opacity a bit. Worked like a charm.

The end of act page, 163 was next and all I did was do a couple paint over layers of the last curtain page, which was 89. Same things for 164, the intermission page. I suppose I could have a figure shown painting these things over the curtain but it's something that will wait for the final, final edit some years from now. If I remember it, it was worth doing. The final page, 17X, a page number I won't know for awhile, is, once again, the same as process as the above two pages, continuing the idea of just painting the curtain between acts. When Howard comes out for the intermission, he'll be spotlighted in front of the intermission curtain. It all makes sense in my head, anyway. Now, before going on to gather the whole first half, I have to decide where to insert Silas through the beginning of Act 2 as I think his reactions in his track at the end will make more sense and carry more weight if he's not absent but hiding in the shadows. Again, makes sense in my head. The whole thing is meant to be a stage show, not unlike moments in Tamino.

Worked all day but made one quick change that makes the curtains work better for me. Does this mean I'll have to go back and change them all? Probably. Now, it's done.

 A little tweak, a new curtain shot and I managed to finish 161. There will be the usual two curtain drop pages after this, but with a faded out red Silas. It makes sense in my head. Then a full drop curtain with "End Act 2" spray painted over it. I'm a lot less satisfied with the curtains as depicted but I don't want to lose that one bit of consistency at this point.

 Got a chance to start this tonight but not a chance to finish it. I'm too damned busy these days. Work, social engagements all weekend, my next day off isn't til wednesday and even then I have to take my car down for an oil change. I feel a lot of pressure to keep working on things for which I really don't have a lot of time. And I don't get to just relax much, either. Oh well. It may be obvious, but I reused the background from page 90. I could have drawn a new one, redrawn this or something but I did want to re-ground things, give that feeling of stage again as the curtain comes down for the end of the act. So that's how I'm justifying it. I also added in the big murals Silas did of Angel and Tamino and spotted the night sky with splatter 'stars.' I'll want to draw in a ladder in the background as well as the damned stripes that are supposed to be on Silas' pants but which aren't there because I forgot to change pants before I took the reference photos. I'll be damned if I draw the figures again. Anyway, progress.

 One last concept for the style for the upcoming intermission with Howard. This one is a bit more dramatic and likely won't be typical of this part of the comic, but I wanted to see how he'd hold up to some distortion. Pretty well, I'd say. The head is drawn freehand, the rest is traced over then inked by hand, well, digital hand, and moved through the usual process.

 Did another quick test of Howard for the upcoming intermission. I think I have a style down I want to use but will also likely do one more of these just in case.

 My original idea for doing Howard in the upcoming track was to do the opposite of what I did for Digby; instead of using direct photo backgrounds, I'd pose and use photo bodies for the character and then draw the head and hands from scratch. Problem was, there were too many tones that really didn't look good when reduced down to three or four. So I took another tack; I traced a photo of my posing and drew the head and hand freehand, inked it all and colored it using Howard's original palette from the overture. And that I like. What it does do, however, is show how much the styles have changed in six years. Well, there's no other consistency in the comic so why shoulder there be any now? That's my excuse anyway. I will try and be a little more dynamic with Howard. He's back on stage at the open mic. We'll have to see what I do about the audience. Probably the same thing. I hope the track isn't too long...