Redrawing a few panels that need redrawing. I hate backtracking, but certain things are just gonna haunt you too much. I think I'm pretty good at letting go and moving on most of the time. You have to pick and choose your “battles”, and it's like that everyday, regardless of what the task at hand is.
Generally speaking, when it comes to comix, I'm a big believer in the overall page being far more important than each individual panel, because it is the overall page that is “the piece” really. It's okay for there to be a panel on that page that won't blow the viewers' eyeballs out of their skulls, just so long as it doesn't ruin the overall page for you. And it can take looking at a thing more than once to know if it's worth redoing.
Too much time lost today figuring out some technical video/sound stuff. Have it down now, so might get to shooting some video content already. Maybe next week.
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I've had the idea for this bizarre color palette for my Mars sequences for several years now. Having finally got here, having finally applied my ideas, I'm now starting to have second thoughts.
Definitely hiring a colorist if I ever need colors on another book. And letterer too.
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After giving up on trying to figure out how to get my Surface Pen to work again, figured I'd conceive of a troubleshoot-proof method to get some digital coloring done.
Blocking out color fields on separate sheets of paper with the aid of a lightpad. All in black markers, a kind of manual color separation essentially. I scan those in and apply the appropriate color to them in Photoshop. This works for me because I tend to go for a “graphic designy” approach to colors with very limited palettes.
It's a couple steps slower than working directly on screen, but better than having to troubleshoot a bunch of tech nonsense for hours on end and still not get anywhere.
In other news, found me some of that Moebius/Superstudio-lookin' gridded wallpaper, and maaaaaaay be tempted to scoop it up when/if I cease to be terribly poor.
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One of my favorite panel configurations is the partially open panel, which I think I picked up from Walt Simonson? Who Warren Ellis turned me onto a few years back. Simonson has grown to become possibly my favorite comix “drawer” since. I'm not sure I know of anyone in comix who has Simonson's command of illustration chops, storytelling techniques, and design acumen.
Almost done inking this Japan segment, which also happens to be the closing scene in THE SOLAR GRID's ch. 5!
I may need to hand-letter this last bit. Need some manga-inspired dialogue balloons which I won't be able to draw directly into my computer because my Surface pen has just gone bust (of course things are beginning to fail me just as I need them). Which will also slow down my coloring for the Mars scenes too. Still hoping to have it finished by May 15 though 🤞.
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What, you didn't think I'd do a Japanese manga sequence without throwing a bit of food porn in there, did ya?
Quite enjoyed drawing these scenes. And proud of myself for including no more than one panel chock full of speedlines. Not a very big one at that.
Still a few touch ups here and there and I should be able to call it a night.
1:36AM, inbox at 66. Keep sending nudes.
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As one might have expected, yesterday's inks spilled over into today and I only just about finished. It is 9:30PM and I am dead.
Which means I lost a day's worth of penciling this week, my first in a bunch of weeks. Had me a good streak there. I also fell off the keto wagon and had me a cookie.
(They were actually a lot of cookies.)
It's cool though; only 4 more pages worth of drawing duties on this chapter! 🤯
(Of course it doesn't actually end there. Still an estimated week worth of colors, followed by about 4 days of lettering. Almost there.)
Inbox at 56, some of which are actually important. But they will have to wait till tomorrow (another thing to cut into pencil time).
Bed calls, where I will attempt to relax with the aid of a terrible comic (actually). Thank you and good night.
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11:00PM, will have to pull an all-nighter if I wanna have these pages inked before I turn in.
Which of course will affect tomorrow's designated two pages worth of penciling.
Remember how I mentioned yesterday the whole domino effect thing? Yup, that's exactly what happened. Fixed fulfillment issues though. By starting a Shipstation account (thanks to a friend's recommendation) and ordering a new sturdy postal scale, which should arrive by Thursday.
Time for some late night espresso.
Send nudes and podcasts.
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And inks are done (4:30PM).
This marks a bit of a milestone, because come Monday? I transition into my Japan scene that I've been contemplating since at least last year. Excited to finally get to it (and see what the results are)!
Still no rest for the wicked though. Gotta draft tomorrow's newsletter still, and do a couple thumbnail sketches for the commissions I'll be doing over the weekend.
Haven't exercised all week, but come tomorrow I'll work it into my daily routine again.
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Two pages, fully penciled by 9:00PM. Not bad considering I started a little late today, at noon. Had I started at 9:00 in the morning, wouldda been done by 6:00.
Early start tomorrow. 🤞
I've read a lot of how-to books on comix. Stan Lee and John Buscema's HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY my old man got me when I was... maybe 14-15?
Eisner's COMICS AND SEQUENTIAL ART several years later when I was in college, along with McCloud's UNDERSTANDING COMICS, and probably a bunch of reads along the way. All very good books that deal with the craft of making comix, but I've read nothing—absolutely nothing—on what it takes to actually bring a comicbook out into the world.
Enter Dave Sim's CEREBUS GUIDE TO SELF-PUBLISHING which I only scored a handful of days ago. It's full of gems! Take this bit on time management for example:
“There are things on any given page that you know how to do, and there are things you don't know how to do. You have to do the things you know how to do smoothly and efficiently to buy yourself enough time to solve the problem you don't yet know how to solve.”
And then later:
“Once you have done everything on a page that you know how to do, the parts you don't know how to do become a surrounded enemy.”
Genius.
It's an odd psychological trick that really does save you a shit ton of time. Oh the number of pages I'd attempted to solve the difficult parts on first, pages that would take up an entire week to finish. Stupid, stupid.
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Y'know how there's a story-writing rule about making sure that by the end of your story, your characters have gone through big dramatic change from where they were at the beginning of the story?
Yeah, I'm kind of applying that rule to every single page of the graphic novel now. Whereas before... I could have an entire page showing a character running. Multiple panels of a character running, and that is it (page 22, I believe?). Mind you, that particular page I'm shaming is a beautiful-looking page, but if I could have a do-over, I'd probably at the very least show the character run from a significant point A to a significant point B. I s'pose that's part of why I ended up with 38+ page chapters!
Chapter 5 will likely be my shortest chapter thus far, no more than 20-22 pages, even though it covers a lot (i.e. Earth, the Moon, and Mars! 🤯).
What a very long, extensive learning experience this has been (But that's good. If there isn't a degree of learning experience in any project I undertake, I'm not so sure it's worth it).
2:15PM, and I've only finished rough pencils on a single page. Late start today. Will move onto the second before tightening up pencils on both. Should be plenty of time.
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