Production Report: Episode 39 entered Alpha 1

Hey, earlier this week I posted a first version of the upcoming episode 39 to the development forge of the Pepper&Carrot project. It's an important milestone for a new episode and I'm really happy that this one finally arrived in this state!

However, the episode is far from being ready for public release. I call this version Alpha 1 because many things will change. The artwork of this 11-page episode is still undetailed and in grayscale; it's an intermediate step in the production. Dialogue and storytelling will also be improved.

If you're not afraid of spoilers and want to contribute, I'm currently collecting feedback on the story, and I've written more about it in the dedicated discussion here:

https://framagit.org/peppercarrot/webcomics/-/issues/254

Feel free to jump in, it's an open webcomic project! Just don't expect any major progress on the repository until the beginning of 2024: I'm currently on a family vacation for the holiday season.

I estimate I'll need about 160 hours to finish this episode, so I'm optimistic for a release by the end of January if all goes well.

What's next? Here are the main next steps in the development of a new episode:

• Alpha: Fixing the storytelling, the ease of reading it, the info given by the dialogue. Make sure the comic "works".
• Beta FR: Improve the dialog, simplify the sentences or make them easier to read. Also correct spelling and punctuation.
• Beta EN: Translation of the French version.
• Beta ready for translation: Opening the translation to all other 66 languages of the project before the release.

... and of course parallel to all these steps, the coloring and painting of the pages.

Screenshot on top: Four panels of episode 39 Alpha 1, grayscale, painted in Krita 5.2.2appimage on Fedora Linux 39 KDE, the files are tiled on a 1080p display, the one of my laptop while traveling.