Monday, January 17, 2011

Odyssey of the White Knight...


Welcome! It has been about two weeks since our last update.

Here is the latest:

- Paul Skowronek – I have decided to bump the pay per piece up a bit and reduce the number of pieces due per week. Paul has a life and other responsibilities, and I think scheduling seven writeups per week is unrealistic. So I am going to go with doing five per week. That means I am going to pay the same for five as I would for seven – putting more money in Paul’s pocket while creating a production schedule which works out for everyone.

This schedule, if kept, will give us 107 fully-edited entries by mid-May. As the layout and remaining art will be complete by then and as we will have been editing in accordance with the Table of Contents, we should be able to assemble the entries as their text is finished. I just shipped the Lyran Alliance vehicles, but with Paul’s approval I am going to begin shipping the BattleMech writeups instead.




- The HMV and HMAero PDF files are nearly done. I am working on the last half of the Periphery (about 12 machines) and then the fourteen or so variants. Then we will be done. For now…

The idea is to get all the Heavy Metal files created to match their respective PDF. I know – they should be in the machine already. However, the designs were genned up, tweaked and turned out over three years. Some of the designs are on other computers and some have been tweaked even after they were set in PDF format – so I have to call up the PDF, check it against the current list of Vees or ‘Mechs, and create it if it is not there.

That is just Stage One, however.

Stage Two is where I cut and past the completed writeups into each HM file, make sure the appropriate Availability block is checked and otherwise final-check the design. I cannot do that until the editing is done, but I can do the rest for now.


- Stephen Huda has completed the reworking of the White Knight. This piece has gone through a long gestation period and at least four artists. See below:

CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR A FULL-SIZE VERSION


- Eric Ou is quite busy but has agreed to re-do the Leopard gunship and the Draconis Combine’s Sher Khan. No telling when they will be ready, but I still owe him $50.

Speaking of money, I have paid for Kurbound Seth’s work.

- Your feedback has been vital to my project – many errors caught, some corrected on the spot. Below is the Check Sheet I generated to use with each entry. Please let me know if you can think of a check I missed:




Thanks for stopping by!!

Steve


5 comments:

 Ashley said...

Labour of love Steve. Much kudos to you and your team.

Brian said...

Looking forward to seeing the final result. Keep it up!

Paul Skowronek said...

"Rather than expect seven pieces and get maybe five" - this strikes me as inaccurate.

I've sent them back to you in the same batches you've sent them to me; if the batch is five, then the batch is five. If you mean on average, well, I *have* offered to do several batches at once.

Steven Satak said...

It is inaccurate - I thought perhaps I was loading you down with too much work, given your other responsibilities, and did not meant to impugn your work ethic.

You *have* sent them back, and in quantities equal to what I send. What I meant was that I was attempting to arrive at a less onerous work schedule which would work out for both of us - you get more per piece, and I get a schedule I can plan around.

If you can do more, by all means, but paying for them in full is my intent upon receiving the finished stuff. And I can only manage about $25 per week.

PacificSentinel said...

It's all looking very good & like "Brian" above, I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product!



(PS - I use to post here as Electromage)