Time Commitments

I haven't gotten nearly as much done with the artwork as I wanted, unfortunately. It's tough. Hopefully what I am experiencing now is just growing pains to get used to drawing and commiting to the artwork for a set number of hours per week. Hopefully.

I've laid out the first page, which is a "splash" panel, meaning it is one giant frame. I am doing it to introduce the reader to the environment that the story takes place in. Lots of different levels, lots of perspective in play. It's not an easy page to draw. I don't have a light table, so I am pretty much forced to either keep the vanishing points on the 11x17 sheet of paper I am drawing on, or tape pieces of paper to the sides of the artboard, and get my vanishing points that way. It's crazy. One of my vanishing points is so far off the page that I needed to tape together three sheets of paper to the artboard, and also tape together two rulers, so I could even reach the vanishing point. Sheesh.

I am also having some anxiety with the inking. It makes sense to make rough layouts with no real detail to them, and just get those details laid down in the inking stage. Otherwise, I am essentially drawing the same page twice. I am not nearly as confident in my inks, so it's tough to get myself to sit down and do it. I'll get it done, but let's just say I am happy that the deadline for this book is months away. I have inked before, and more or less understand the bare fundamentals, but still, haven't done it too often.

It's funny. I look at other artists as examples of what is possible. For example, I know Todd McFarlane, back when he was drawing Spider-Man, has stated that his layouts were essentially just blobs, to show roughly where the people are standing. He does all of his details and drawing with ink. Am I stupid to think that if he can do it, then so can I? Besides, if I am trying to get faster, I need to take shortcuts. This seems like a good way to save a couple hours.

My time went okay, over the 3-day weekend. I took Friday night off to spend some time with my wife, but Saturday I drew for a good 4-5 hours. That's okay. But, again, I did spend some time pacing the house to get over some mild anxiety with the art, but overall, I did at least, as I stated above, get the layout done for the first page. Sunday was tough to get anything done, which was mostly my fault; I could have done more in the morning. In the afternoon, we were pretty much gone all day at my Father-in-law's place, and didn't get home until close to 9pm, as I recall. Monday we went to a SF Giants game, so no work got done at all. Hopefully, tonight will fare better.

I've adjusted my time frames a little bit. I think so as long as I can get 60 pages of art done between now and November, I'd be pretty happy. I plan to use the money I make from this gig to help pay down some debt before my baby is born. If I get more done, great, but 60 pages would bring in enough money to make our lives a lot easier come the end of November. Also, I'll still be able to meet my publisher's plan to get the comics in stores in January, and still have at least another issue in the bin ready to go (and hopefully another one close to being done, as well).

I'll let you know how tonight goes. Hopefully, I'll get some inking done.