Progress Update: Month 6
I got 6 pages done. This is the first time I've been able to draw an entire issue in 6 months. I can't show most of what I worked on (spoilers), so I'll be showing some old stuff.
I've had a short fuse with drawing since April. It's like the moment I hit any kind of obstacle, I want to quit. The only thing that's helped is to push 5-10 min past that initial feeling. It's been working with my fanart, but has been much harder with my comic.
I was stuck in this last scene for awhile. I realized I wasn't doing two panels justice and they needed to be a splash page. It was awful because my expectations were too high and I felt like it should have been easy. I must have tried 20 variations over a few days. I got 2 to work.
Because of this, I screwed up another page layout. I think it was worth it, but I was a little worried about the amount of splash pages in this issue. There are 4(ish). I'm aware that sounds like a terrible idea!! As long as I don't screw up the pacing, I'm good.
I'm also concerned about hypothetical page turns. I added the running gag back in after adding the new page. I hope I made the right decision. I already cheat a little because I start each issue on the second page, unlike most floppies.
This is how I used to draw circa issue 1 (more below).
Lettering
I think most people use Photoshop for digital lettering, but I use InDesign because it's much faster for me and fewer files.
For web, I have to use pngs. I've been stuck trying to get InDesign to export pngs that don't blur raster images. I finally found the solution on a forum. The solution is to export to PDF then stick it in photoshop...
UPDATE** Turns out you can throw the PDF into Acrobat and hit export to png and it does the whole thing. Not to brag, but I figured that out myself. Wish I knew this months ago...
I recently read The New Space Age and observed how Beaudoin's word balloons would sometimes go over tops of panels. I also read that bubbles can be important with eye flow, so I'm trying to be more intentional about where I place them.
This is also the part where I find errors. I try to use restraint when editing because I think most old work should stay old work.
There are some things that I have to fix, but I try to keep it to what my current skill level was at the time.
But there's the other side. I can look at pages and feel like I can do better. I don't know how much to edit and when to move forward. I want to move forward. Am I choosing my battles or am I lazy?
PSA that colouring is a lot like drawing. Change is gradual, not overnight. Still a long way to go!
Back to Thumbnails
I caught up to my thumbnails, so I did a bunch this month.
I seem to rewrite my scenes when I thumbnail them. This can get me into trouble because sometimes I forget what I was trying to do in both the penciling and lettering stage because the script is different.
My future writing might need to become a dual process.
Writing
For the next issue, I ripped into a scene with dialogue I wasn't happy with. It was saying what I wanted to convey, but I was trying too hard to make a character sound intelligent. Too wordy for no reason. I'm hoping this rewrite will feel more human and I hope I made good decisions.
I think my writing has improved since I started. I'm in a weird spot where I wrote this so long ago and my art has been catching up. Some days I love this project, other days I worry I'm wasting energy on something old.
I went back into issue 1 and rewrote some narration. I used the same phrase too close together and needed to fix that.
I scrutinized over my first sentences. I'm seeing mistakes. That's something.
It's been extremely discouraging, not gonna lie. I have never felt worse about this. Always wondering if there's something I'm not seeing and this will blow up in my face. I know this is not a good way to market, but I worry. At the end of the day, I'm hoping this will be 200ish pages of a good time.
Ending Thoughts
I'm feeling shaky in all of my abilities right now. The good thing is my illustrations are achieving what they need to achieve and I know spotting writing mistakes is actually good. It just SUCKS sometimes.
I'm feeling better after re-writing the entire opening narration. Thinking a lot about this. This story won't be perfect, but I know I have something to offer.
I'm now at 158 pages and 5 covers. I will see this to completion even if it sucks. Even if I make wrong decisions. Even if all this work never amounts to anything. It will be okay. I can't control if it's good, I can only make the best thing I can make.