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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Finished my 2 pages worth of inking at 11:30AM today!
Waking up at 5:00AM does have its perks. Been working from 6:00AM with only one half hour break for breakfast and coffee-brewing. Just got my shower in, and will whip up a little lunch and read me some comix before getting on with the second half of the work day: art things in the garage studio, packing orders, and a bit of writing.
Also doing a Zoom discussion with Elliot Colla and Molly Crabapple later today. About WE ARE ALL THINGS for Printed Matter's website.
Inbox at 44, which I should also get to, maybe tomorrow.
I could also do with a haircut.
When I started to fall asleep at 9:00PM last night, I thought to myself: okay great, my body's finally going to make up for lost sleep from the nights prior.
Nope, by 12:00AM I was wide awake. It is 2:00PM now and I have yet to crash.
I think my body's just training itself to deal with the first few weeks of impending fatherhood?
On the upside, finished a page and it's only 2 o'clock, so plenty of time to get started on (and finish) the next.
I lied; I couldn't let it go. Cut out the two figures that were bothering me the most and I think the page is now much better. Will probably redraw them and paste directly onto the original pages (because I hate having sub-par originals).
Tried the thing I wanted to do with the gutters and I think it works (Although, what is included right now is just some preliminary text for a quick mockup, just to get a sense of the look of the thing). You get a real train-of-thought vibe, like this character's mind is really at work and he just can't shut it off.
My initial idea was to have it all handwritten instead of typed, like such:
Looking at both of them now though, I can't quite decide which one I like better.
Not the best to be honest, but it's one page in a 400+ page book, so I may have to learn to live with it.
There's an exhausting idea I'd like to try out with the gutters, but that may have to wait till Monday. A bunch of house-maintenance stuff to do this weekend.