The end of an exercise, the beginning of an actual comic.
I had committed to 52 weeks of this improv comic, which, at one page a week, would result in 52 pages. And I intend to keep my word on producing that number of pages.
However, the improv exercise has run its course.
As a quick reminder, That Fighter Girl is an improv comic that serves as an exercise in speed and letting go. The motto, "Finished, not perfect," definitely applies here. That Fighter Girl was never supposed to be my best work. The whole point was to see how fast I could conceive and produce a single page and then let go of a page of comic art that wasn't perfect. It was also supposed to give me my comic-making fix.
But the last good number of pages I’ve posted have been done last minute, haphazardly, and without care. Because of this, I've cared less about the comic, and this concerns me. I don't want that. I like Sabrina’s story and I want to do it justice by caring about the results that present the story. I don’t think I can do that by continuing That Fighter Girl as an exercise.
Working like this is also the antithesis of how I've been working on my portfolio pieces; I've enjoyed slowing down and spending time crafting my work. I still work relatively quickly, but I've slowed down my process and revel in the time spent planning and creating a piece. I’ve decided I want to do that with the comic, too.
So, I've decided to stop the exercise, start fresh, and slow down. I want to craft the comic as a finished product instead. There will still be an improv aspect to it; I don't plan to go through the process of meticulous pre-production or writing a script. But I do want to plan it out a bit instead of making up each page on the spot at the last minute. I'll jot down a few notes as need be, maybe doodle out some character designs to make sure I like the visual ideas, and I'll be planning and designing the pages a bit more slowly while taking more time with the pencils to make sure the art is what I want before I ink them. But not too much time. I don't want to take forever - "Finished, not perfect", right? - but I won't be using the bang-it-out, quick-and-dirty approach anymore. I’ll probably still use the loose, sketchy style I love so much, but the work, and the overall comic, will be better. The exercise part is over.
Because I'm stopping the exercise early, I've also decided to bump up the number of pages to (at least) 64 as a form of "compensation", a way to make up for stopping at the beginning of Sabrina's story. I have plenty of ideas for Sabrina's story and am looking forward to presenting her “first” adventure in a manner I can be proud of. The more I think about doing this comic "for real", the more excited I get.
I'm thinking of using this site to post progress pics, but I don't plan on posting full pages from the comic until I'm at least halfway through the finished art stage.
If you've been reading for the past 19 weeks, thanks. When you see this comic again, I think you'll like it even more.
-Phillip Ginn
www.phillipginn.com