I was looking at the art style recently and noticing how it has evolved over time. You can see it in today’s strip. When we first started, characters did not have ears. Now all newly created art comes with ears that require shadowing when we color. There’s still the odd, older style character that will show up with no ears, but… I’m kind of cool with that.

Over time I have come to sympathize with George Lucas’ constant revisionism of his films, because so often our strips are rushed and don’t turn out the way we might have liked, ideally. I’ve even gone back and made changes now and then to the odd strip, from a new background in a scene, to a tweaked pose, and sometimes–though more rarely– a revised punchline. However, looking at the evolution of ears in the BMS art style is kind of neat, and I don’t feel any real urge to start an ear revision frenzy. I think overall, the quality of the art has improved, and if we start tweaking ears, then what about the line work too? Where do we stop? Early BMS has a charm of its own, just like the Original Trilogy with its Muppets and Teen Wolf rejects. It’s part of experience, in a good way. Hopefully that applies on some level to BMS as well.

I recently updated the About page as I felt the larger BMS team had gone without a nod for a long time now. These are the people that have helped make BMS something bigger than Leanne and myself could have done on our own.

G. Padilla – 3D Star Wars vehicle poses
T. Gatto – Paper milk carton designs, supplier of some strip backgrounds
J. Porter – 501st Blackhole Stormtrooper cosplayer, BMS promotion and forum moderator
P. Dejawavu – Rebel Legion Jawa cosplayer, BMS promotion
Gennady – Russian translator
M. Stipp – German translator
V. Torres – Spanish translator
Carlos – French translator

Thanks so much guys!

Leanne and I have been publishing Blue Milk Special since the start of 2009 and are now approaching four years. Sometimes that feels like a long time, other times it seems to have sped by. We’ve come to know a lot of fellow fans in that time and many of you have helped spread the word about this webcomic. As we look to complete our parody of The Empire Strikes Back in December we hope to have you along for the rest of the journey. And we welcome all the support and help we can get, whatever your idea or help might be. In fact, I’m really interested to hear any suggestions.

It takes on average about 5 hours per strip. That’s a long time for a hobby. We are in two minds over selling anything BMS related except for original sketch commission work. However, don’t rush out asking us for sketches as we are desperately short on time and most of what we do have goes into producing the strips themselves. Since we don’t want to infringe on LucasFilm by trying to make any kind of livelihood out of BMS we wonder whether donations are even a good idea to help us. What would you guys say to a “Best of Leanne Hannah Art Book” for $12 including shipping?

The idea behind this is that we can’t currently offer our original project as its not ready. The Best of Leanne Hannah Art Book would feature her best full color pinups from across a range of pop culture icons, along with some sketches and perhaps one or two BMS pieces included. And it would be personally signed, of course, with one of the free BMS promo cards thrown in. It would be a way to financially support us without infringing with a specific Star Wars product, but you would still get something in your hands in return for your BMS support.

Fire away with your ideas!

P.S. It has been pointed out that I forgot to add Leia’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye costumes to the current poll. Sorry! I really like those outfits too! I just totally forgot when I was busy putting the poll together. 🙁