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Hey everyone, Rob Orpilla (Kuro the Artist) here!
5YL:R is an ongoing event. It is not a Remaster, New Addition, or Special Version. We are currently in the “5YL:R Era”. The event highlights the transition between the original uploads of 5YL, and the new ones. The New 5YL Uploads are meant to replace the originals as the official versions of the story.
So, from this point forward, the new version is 5YL, and will simply be known as such. The old one will be 5YL: Archaic, or 5YL:A.
The updates will include cleaned-up versions of the original art. There will also be some scenes completely redrawn, be it I didn’t have access to the original file, or it simply looked too poor to be clean-up and needed a full redraw in order to fit with the other improvements. There will also be extended pages to help the narrative, but this will not be a priority. I will not be adding scenes simply for the sake of adding scenes.
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From there, we will be dubbing the scenes with the Motion Comic Cast, which you can check out previews of below.
MOTION COMIC PREVIEWS:
The driving force behind the Recalibrated Era is the fact that we are adapting the series into a Motion Comic, and I just can’t bring myself to put in the time, effort, and funds to professionally dub and score the series with art that still looks like this:
Some may suggest waiting until the series is completely done before doing this. This makes sense for the long-time fans that want to see the story to be completed, but the window of opportunity to create the Motion Comic is not as liberal with my time. I can always take time to complete the series. But the chance to refurbish the pages in order to dub them is something I’d have to prioritize if I was ever going to do it before I miss my chance, and chances like this do not come very often.
I wouldn’t say so. Some may accuse me of “George Lucas-ing” 5YL with all of these changes. If the original uploads of 5YL were deemed the “true version” of the story, then sure, I can understand that. But the fact is, the original uploads aren’t the true 5YL anymore.
I’ve come to realize that the current version of 5YL is a publicly released first draft. I was working with tons of limitations such as free time, equipment, and my own budding artistic skills. The first six Chapters, I rarely fine-tuned the art after the rough sketch, and inked them as-is. They were drawn hastily wherever I was, on whatever surface was available, and whenever I had the time.
Even back then, I knew I wasn’t completely satisfied with how some of the art turned out, but I released them anyway to save time. I figured, if there were a handful of solid scenes, fans would excuse the poor quality of the others. There were many times where I finished pages literally moments before uploading, never getting a chance to do a complete second read-through and make sure that all the dialogue is tight and the art is clean.
I’ve also been constantly developing my art style, and with the addition of a digital tablet, 5YL:A is simply not up to a standard that I can truly be proud of anymore. I look back at them and feel very accomplished for what I was able to do back then.
But with every passing year, it gets harder and harder to market visuals like this:
...while we are currently releasing projects with visuals like this:
I now have the opportunity to actually take a step back and treat each page with the same amount of care. I can improve character dialogue. I am better at speech-bubble placement, along with speech bubble sizing, and character coloring, and shading.
Think of all the wonderful films, television shows, comics - practically all professional media out there. I am sure they went through draft after draft, had focus group testing, reworked things in post production, and had the time and budget to create their masterpiece to the quintessence of their vision. Or, if not their perfected version, they at least didn’t immediately have to put out whatever they created without a second go at it.
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The difference between what I am doing, and what George Lucas did, is that George Lucas released a fully-completed, budgeted, Hollywood film, with thousands of cast and crew involved, and I released the very first version of my story without any second drafts on paper covered in coffee stains.
To hold a candle to 5YL:A as the “true” 5YL just isn’t fair to me. If I had everything I had now - the skill, the equipment, the time - and went back to the year 2017 to do 5YL from the start all over again, it wouldn’t be what you see today. And for better or for worse, 5YL:A on its own isn’t what I want 5YL’s legacy to be.
Recalibrated is by no means perfection, either. I still treat it with a semblance of time crunch because I ultimately want to get back to working on Chapter 12 and so forth. If I were to 100% clean up every microscopic mistake, it would take far too long.
There are still flaws in 5YL:R that would indeed be too much to rework. I also want to honor the previous art style, so most of the art is simply cleaned up rather than completely redrawn. Even the things that are redrawn are meant to resemble the older art style, rather than update it to my current art style.
But Recalibrated is at least a version of 5YL that I wouldn’t mind being the one years in the future that fans can look back on. 5YL:R is at least good enough to the point where I won’t have the urge to ever touch the older pages ever again, unless I have to.
Despite all of this, I’m sure there will still be fans that prefer the original versions, warts and all, and to that I am thankful that there are those who can still appreciate these stepping stones, so I will keep the original version on my website.
But that isn’t going to change my stance on it being a rough draft.
Once the updated Chapters drop, those are what I will refer to as 5YL from now on. This will be the prime version of the story.
IN CONCLUSION:
