Episode 36: The Surprise Attack

WRITTEN_BY David REVOY - - 110 comments
Hi! I just posted a new Pepper&Carrot episode on peppercarrot website: https://www.peppercarrot.com/xx/webcomic/ep36_The-Surprise-Attack.html Have a good read ! (I'll add more infos in the comments later)

Krita 4 splash screen

WRITTEN_BY David REVOY - - no comments
Many have noticed the change of splash screen after launching Krita 4 this morning. 🎄😻 Eg, I saw this: - https://twitter.com/V4eleya/status/1468538397732093953 - https://twitter.com/Geat0526/status/1468234122476797963 If you are curious about it, it's a panel from Pepper&Carrot "The Unity Tree" and you can read the full episode here: https://www.peppercarrot.com/xx/webcomic/ep24_The-Unity-Tree.html This easter egg is not part (yet) of Krita 5, will not be part of the release of 5.0 coming soon and that's good: you don't want to miss the [new splash screen from Tyson Tan](https://twitter.com/TysonTanX/status/1427983466038185988) with the larger size in Krita 5. It's splendid! But for sure I'll try to propose an illustration for later Krita 5.1 or 5.2 release, one that could be ready before December 2022. Feel free to also contribute to make ones (it's not just a privilege I had), you just need to propose your artwork made with Krita, with an aspect ratio for this format, about the season, and with a permissive license (eg. [CC-By 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)). Don't forger to post-it on https://krita-artists.org/ , so the community and developers can see it.

Episode 36 is coming soon

WRITTEN_BY David REVOY - - 6 comments
The wait is almost over! I'm on the intense last ten days of production for the next Pepper&Carrot episode. The longest! Twice the length of a regular episode: a project I started last summer. Here is a compilation of spoiler-free panel sketches 🥰

Aerith

WRITTEN_BY David REVOY - - 8 comments
A fan-art illustration portrait of Aerith Gainsborough, a playable character in Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake. She is one of the lead protagonists and I really enjoyed finishing the remake recently. I made it during a short break in the production of episode 36, in order to test the new impasto 'wet RGB brushes' bundle for Krita 5.0beta. I love them and adopted three textured presets to complete this piece. _This work is a fan-art of a fictive video game character property of Square Enix Co. Ltd, published here under fair use._

Looking for French to English translators contributors

WRITTEN_BY David REVOY - - 19 comments
Hey! I'm looking for **French to English translators contributors** for future episodes of my Free/Libre and Open-Source webcomic [Pepper&Carrot](https://www.peppercarrot.com/fr/webcomics/index.html)! It happens because **I'm refactoring the workflow** of episode creation. If you are interested, you can contact me and other contributors by [opening a thread on Framagit here](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/issues) (open a new "issue") or by starting a discussion on [our chat room](https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/chat/index.html). ## How English version was done previously? #### ⏩ May 2014 - December 2014: Episode 1 to 5 were written and posted directly in English by me; with a proofreading of Amireeti. #### ⏩ January 2015 - August 2017: At episode 6 with the ambitious [Potion Contest](https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/webcomic/ep06_The-Potion-Contest.html), I decided to write it in French and it was translated before the release by [Alex Gryson](https://framagit.org/agryson). I created the base of the translation system at that time; a system that split artworks and speechbubbles. It was easier to share a lightweight 27KB Inkscape SVG files than a 200MB Krita file. It was also possible to use versioning control system with them. I continued this workflow with Alex until summer 2017 and [episode 23: The Encounter](https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/webcomic/ep23_Take-a-Chance.html). I can't thanks enough Alex for this! #### ⏩ 2017 to nowadays: After summer 2017, I decided at that time to **open more the creative process to contributors**. That's how was born the [beta-reading project](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=all&label_name[]=future%20episode) at [episode 24: The Unity Tree](https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/webcomic/ep24_The-Unity-Tree.html). As in the majority of Free/Libre and Open-Source project, Pepper&Carrot's contributors uses English as a lingua franca. So, to adapt to the maximum of beta-reader possible, I changed my workflow to full English (or almost).**I kept writing my scenario and dialogs in French**, but once posted on the beta-reading threads, I had to propose it in English. So, I always translated my own version in English before posting. Unfortunately, **my English skill isn't good enough** to express the subtle tones of voice I had in mind for characters (eg. "irony" for some, a little bit "bossy" for other, etc...). So, as you can imagine, my first English draft always is very poorly worded, contains misleading tones and in the best case feels flat. It is near to what a cold auto-translation program could do. Fortunately, **my lack of skill was compensated thanks to the effort of the contributors**. This resulted in the English version you know on Pepper&Carrot and the one that become **the canon version** as a starting point for the other potential 57 languages added on the project. And that's how all other languages translators can start to translate the next episode a couple of week prior the release. ## Problems ### 🐛 Lost in translation I could spot the problems once the English version is translated back to French by the [French translation team](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/issues/189). That's often for me the time where I realize the size of the gap between dialogs from my scenario (in French) and the final French translation. That's how I can spot the **tones missing from my original scenario**, or worst, **the shift of meaning for full sentences**. Sometime it was huge and problematic, but often too late to correct back. ### 🐛 Unwanted creative input In order to fix my bare/broken English translation to something improved, contributors had to inject their own creativity and sometime input new tones or change dialogs to make sens about it. Improving dialogs at a wording level, became an open door for creativity. Important meaning got removed or smoothed as if they were mistakes sometimes and get replaced with other intents. Dialogs get extended and discussed a lot, rewritten, new pages required to make them work **resulting in longer production time, and a ["too many cooks spoil the broth" ](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/too_many_cooks_spoil_the_broth) effect**. ### 🐛 Loss of autonomy on speech bubbles It also put me in a serious position of **loss of autonomy** on a creative level. This feeling **really drives down my energy and motivation in general**. I felt that strongly when I recently preferred to do freelance commissions than working on my own webcomic. ## Refactor So, it's time to **refactor the beta-reading project** and recover a bit of autonomy on dialogs and wording output for me. ### ✨ A start in French I would like to post −starting with next episode 36− the first draft in French. It will happen as usual, on a [new thread on Framagit](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=all&label_name[]=future%20episode), (maybe prefixed with [FR-alpha] tag) and still open to public. I wish I can get the same team as the actual [French translation team](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/issues/189) on it. They are great! This thread will help me to tackle dialog issues, reading issues and improve the episode. It will be easier on my side, because I have no trouble understanding subtle shift in French and I can understand the output clearly. ### ✨ The French to English translation Once the French version frozen and final, the English translation team will be able to work on it. English preserves **a very special status** on Pepper&Carrot. Almost all other **55 languages are built upon the English version**. I also self-publish **a printed version** in English. This is **the main language** among all the ~15K daily visitors and the default language for the website as well. That's why a solid translation is necessary here, and skilled translators are welcome! ### ✨ Ready for other languages Once English version done and frozen, I can contact translators of all other languages before the release of the episode. Usually ten days or a week before (while I still colorize the episode). Finally, I merge all translations and publish the episode. ## End notes I hope this blog post will be informative to everyone involved on Pepper&Carrot beta-reading system (or curious about it). It is important to be clear about my motivation in time of changes. Be sure I sincerely suffer from not being able to continue to lead (badly) the creation in English from scratch and having to change the process now. I realize my English might be good enough for internal discussion on the project, my blog-posts (like the one you are reading now) or for [my video channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnAbNwJjusY7zQ__sQyJlSA) (I doubt about that), but I'm now sure I'll never be able to write my comics or dialogs as I do in my first language. Also, don't get me wrong about detailing all the problems from 2017 to now: I'm not blaming anyone. **I'm sincerely grateful about all the contributions I received on it**. I really do. I know everyone sincerely contributed their best on it, and without any bad intents. The problems happened because of how the process was (badly) designed. Not because of any contributors who all participated the beta-reading English project on their free time. It was a huge challenge for everyone and I'm proud of the result we got in the perspective of knowing the system we had. I really **hope the change I'm planning now will improve the workflow** for the next episode. But before trying that, **I need new French to English translators contributors**. Is it you? Someone you know? (Welcome back Alex if you read this!) If you are interested at translating **the slower webcomic of the multiverse** but also **my humble collaborative gem on the Internet**: you can contact me and other contributors by [opening a thread on Framagit here](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/issues) (open a new "issue") or by starting a discussion on [our chat room](https://www.peppercarrot.com/en/chat/index.html). I'm not in a hurry to change everything this week, a French draft will only appear by the end of November. But I hope I'll receive help in this change, thank you for reading! (PS: I forgot to mention it, but I'm not against paying for the service. Please communicate your references and price in this case. Thank you.) (Update: I forgot to give an example of the workload here: a Pepper&Carrot episode text looks like this: [the French transcript of episode 35](https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/blob/master/ep35_The-Reflection/lang/fr/ep35_fr_transcript.md) , and it might be this 6 time per year maximum. )