Whew!
I'm very relieved to say that last night, I finished the final full-yellow page of Naruto 35. All that's left are the easy colors. Blue, Green, and yellow with green dot. Each page shouldn't take me more than 20 minutes to letter, and likely the average will be around 10. This is very very VERY good. And it means:
Step three to preserve my sanity: CHECK.
I'm also one page away from the same status with Nana 14. I wouldn't say finishing all the medium to difficult pages in Nana is a step to preserve my sanity (Nana is comparatively easy to letter and I have niiiiice long deadlines) but it's still a load off my mind. Especially since the horrid omake pages are done. O.o (Well, except for that last one.) You'll see what I mean in vol 9, that's when the first "issue" of The Family Times was included. UGH! Though I'm often envious of the Nana goodies available in Japan, particularly over the keitai (cellphone) network. In vol 14 it's revealed that Yazawa-sensei has a blog where she talks about daily life and Nana and everything...available only to keitai owners who sign up. In Japan. Yomitai yo~~~~~~~. T.T
I'm completely astonished that script for Clay 13 hasn't arrived yet. CE3 must be running ragged with her other titles. *is a bit worried about her* Hope she's okay....and I don't really mind if it's late, as long as I have my full 8 weeks to letter. Speaking of which, today I finished making my key sheet. Wanna see the damage???
pink: 10
orange: 18
yellow with orange dot: 20
yellow: 52
yellow with green dot: 31
green: 45
blue: 6
Plenty of talkie pages in this volume, along with smaller FX that shouldn't be too difficult. I always underestimate pages when making my key sheets, though, so I'll probably be upgrading the difficulty of about 10 pages. Content-wise, vol 13 contains two side stories that are flashbacks to before the main Clay plotline begins. Some beloved (and not-so-much) characters are back. ^^ Oh yes, and the men will be pleased at the plethora of butt shots. Even one on the cover. *waves hands excitedly on behalf of the boys* Butt shots yay!!! But still no fanservice for the girls.Shirtless sword-wieiding Isley, cute huggable Raki, come back!!! >3>
You know, if I reeeeeeeely push it, I could finish Naruto 35 in less than a week now. This means means I'd probably have a daily quota of .75 pages to make my vol 38 deadline at the end of June (remember, I finished the first half of 38 before 35 arrived). This would be very very good. Clay could essentially replace Naruto in my daily schedule, rather than being added to it. But this wouldn't completely solve my problem, b/c we mustn't forget that NT3 is due to pounce on me at any moment.
Speaking of which, I had a bit of a surprise with NT3. This one is my first title with Shoujo Editor 4, and she wants her page numbers done differently. All my other Viz titles, from day 1, have their page numbers positioned on the lower outside corner of a page, aligned nicely with the panel border. This is regardless of Japanese placement (which for the record is the same place for shounen, but centered underneath the panel for shoujo.) But SE4 wants them centered at the bottom of the page, exactly matching the Japanese placement. O.o I'll do as she wants, of course, it's just odd that she wants them done differently from everything else I've lettered. *scritches head in puzzlement, then shrugs and goes on* Too bad I didn't know this when I lettered the first chapter, b/c now I have one more thing to fix on the pages during corrections. :P
Before I sign off, a fun note. Today I left the house (don't go into shock!!) and ran various errands. Including one of my very rare trips to Wal-mart. As always, I wandered through the books section (books are like a drug, I can't stay away) and sniffed the titles like the junkie I am. The past couple of times I've wandered through, they had a shelf or two of manga in the young adult section. None this time, so I kept wandering only to see manga had an entire side of one of those freestanding island cubes. O.o They had many volumes of only three titles stocked: Bleach, FuruBa, and Naruto. And I had to smile, b/c now you can buy me four ways at Wallyworld. Vol 21, 25, the fanbook, and Shojo Beat. Of course, last month it would have been five ways, since you could have added Shonen Jump to the mix. Heeeeeeee.
It will be interesting to see how many Naruto pages I can finish today. Hmm....12? 13?? I'll let you know the results. GAMBATTEEE!!!
I'm completely astonished that script for Clay 13 hasn't arrived yet. CE3 must be running ragged with her other titles. *is a bit worried about her* Hope she's okay....and I don't really mind if it's late, as long as I have my full 8 weeks to letter. Speaking of which, today I finished making my key sheet. Wanna see the damage???
pink: 10
orange: 18
yellow with orange dot: 20
yellow: 52
yellow with green dot: 31
green: 45
blue: 6
Plenty of talkie pages in this volume, along with smaller FX that shouldn't be too difficult. I always underestimate pages when making my key sheets, though, so I'll probably be upgrading the difficulty of about 10 pages. Content-wise, vol 13 contains two side stories that are flashbacks to before the main Clay plotline begins. Some beloved (and not-so-much) characters are back. ^^ Oh yes, and the men will be pleased at the plethora of butt shots. Even one on the cover. *waves hands excitedly on behalf of the boys* Butt shots yay!!! But still no fanservice for the girls.
You know, if I reeeeeeeely push it, I could finish Naruto 35 in less than a week now. This means means I'd probably have a daily quota of .75 pages to make my vol 38 deadline at the end of June (remember, I finished the first half of 38 before 35 arrived). This would be very very good. Clay could essentially replace Naruto in my daily schedule, rather than being added to it. But this wouldn't completely solve my problem, b/c we mustn't forget that NT3 is due to pounce on me at any moment.
Speaking of which, I had a bit of a surprise with NT3. This one is my first title with Shoujo Editor 4, and she wants her page numbers done differently. All my other Viz titles, from day 1, have their page numbers positioned on the lower outside corner of a page, aligned nicely with the panel border. This is regardless of Japanese placement (which for the record is the same place for shounen, but centered underneath the panel for shoujo.) But SE4 wants them centered at the bottom of the page, exactly matching the Japanese placement. O.o I'll do as she wants, of course, it's just odd that she wants them done differently from everything else I've lettered. *scritches head in puzzlement, then shrugs and goes on* Too bad I didn't know this when I lettered the first chapter, b/c now I have one more thing to fix on the pages during corrections. :P
Before I sign off, a fun note. Today I left the house (don't go into shock!!) and ran various errands. Including one of my very rare trips to Wal-mart. As always, I wandered through the books section (books are like a drug, I can't stay away) and sniffed the titles like the junkie I am. The past couple of times I've wandered through, they had a shelf or two of manga in the young adult section. None this time, so I kept wandering only to see manga had an entire side of one of those freestanding island cubes. O.o They had many volumes of only three titles stocked: Bleach, FuruBa, and Naruto. And I had to smile, b/c now you can buy me four ways at Wallyworld. Vol 21, 25, the fanbook, and Shojo Beat. Of course, last month it would have been five ways, since you could have added Shonen Jump to the mix. Heeeeeeee.
It will be interesting to see how many Naruto pages I can finish today. Hmm....12? 13?? I'll let you know the results. GAMBATTEEE!!!