March 6, 2026: This is the first page of the webcomic. Based on my earlier sketches, I’m guessing it’ll take about 16 to 20 pages to complete the bilingual rhyming story. Here’s to more caffeinated future sessions!
Huzzah! After many iterations, variations, and caffeine inducing moments, I think I’m finally happy with the first page of my bilingual webcomic! Since publishing a book can take 2 to 3 years, I figured I’ll do a webcomic concept proof of art first before the book so that way readers get a better sense of what I’m trying to make, and you all can see progress!
Writer Decisions: As much as I want to include the western version of Didi and Dumpster Dragon, I realized that it may not be practical and would probably confuse readers. Perhaps I’ll keep both the Western and Eastern dragons and girls in the hardcopy book in the future; but for the bilingual webcomic, I’ll keep it to just Ling Ling and Le Se Long.
Chinese: This is the part I love the most! (well, other than the characters of course) You can switch between Traditional to Simplified Mandarin. Also, there’s options to use zhuyin or pinyin or not use them at all. And what’s really nice, is that you can adjust the size of the font to fit those tired parent eyes. Finally, there’s the audio playback that took me a while to figure out how to incorporate.
Art Inspiration: In my head, Dumpster Dragon is the “puppy” friend to Didi while Le Se Long is the “kitty” version to Ling Ling. So, in order to get some fun poses for Le Se Long, I had lots of fun looking at cat photos and drawing inspiration while drinking milk tea ^_^ This is the best way to spend a Friday afternoon in my opinion!