Status Update: Hiatus

I should probably say something, to keep up a professional... who am I kidding, that went out the window months ago.

Here's the deal. The whole project has to go on hiatus for the moment. I've still got a few things I'd like to put out in the meantime, some concept art, some one-page comics, but the full graphic novel of Ragdoll Psychiatric will have to wait, at least until I have a job. I'm going to need some money to put behind this, and I doubt I'd get much from Indigogo.

To be continued.

Hi Friends!

Well, it's been a while. Gotta say, there's a LOT that's involved in figuring out what exactly I'm going to do that would not be entertaining to read.

So, I drew a five page comic. It'll be out eventually, it's tied into learning what I'm going to be doing, but that comic taught me something. It taught me that I've got a lot to learn. So here's what I've been doing lately. Once, I've been practicing cartooning over drawing. That's more of a personal discription, I doubt many cartoonists would appreciate it, but when I say cartooning over drawing I mean that I'm doing a bunch of rough sketches with varying poses, expressions, intended to help me learn of these new and exciting things. I've never had a reason to draw someone sitting in a chair before. Well, once, but due to the nature of that particular picture of Emma Frost, I'm not going to delve deeper into it.

Here's the big thing holding me back though. When Ragdoll Psychiatric comes out it will be online, but that opens a few avenues to travel. I could do something like Insufferable (Great online comic about a Batman and Robin like duo, father and son, that had a messy break up years ago, and Robin's kind of a dick), where I push little changes to previous pages to make it a little more animated when you click next page (You click next and one panel changes to have a door that was previously closed be kicked open). I could do it like Looking For Group, where every week I throw up a little piece of the puzzle. Or I could throw in with a crows funding service to see if anyone else is interested in this garbage.

This is the boring stuff. This is the stuff where I have to mull it over, weigh each pro and each con, and come up with a decision on what's best in the long run. I'd much rather just doodle, put it into a graphic novel, and throw it out there, but I have to think of a return for that work. Yeah, the artistic process is fantastic, and having my work be read would be great, but that's also a lot of time thrown in for a free project.

Another aspect is that I just don't want this to bomb. Something is going to go wrong, it's my first project, but I'd like it to be something minor. If it's something that only pisses me off, then I'm golden... That was poor phrasing.

So I'm thinking. And doodling. Mostly doodling.

The Hobby

So, good news. I finished the pencils and the inks for the first Prologue Short. It's just colors from here, which should be quick enough, and then a couple tests.

I've been working my ass off getting everything complete, researching how to move forward on the business side of things, and generally getting everything ready to make things move quickly once I release the first Short. But, most importantly, I've only been drawing two things. One, the pages. Two, practice sketches. The first is necessary for obvious reasons, the second is necessary to keep  me on my toes. There's a lot of time where I'm inking a page. I don't want my already limited skills to sag, and I've still got tons to learn, which I'm only going to do through practice.

I've been drawing from a script or drawing for speed for a while now. Tonight I decided to draw for fun. I figured I'd get bored or tired pretty quickly and put the pad down. Didn't happen. A weird thing happened that hasn't happened in about a month. I enjoyed myself while drawing. I didn't worry about a bit of a mess, I didn't worry that a single page is taking a few hours, I just enjoyed myself and drew.

I've been told by a ton of people to watch out about turning my hobby into a career. I used to think this was ridiculous. How could I get tired of doing something I would have done anyways? Well, I'm telling all the mes out there to listen to it. This doesn't mean don't draw for a living, or whatever it is you do. It means put some time aside to enjoy the hobby. I'm getting into this because I love super heroes, I love comics, and I love drawing. I'm going to make sure I keep enjoying those things.

Time and Time Again

Yeah, I'm back. There's been one delay after another, all personal and stupid, but they're behind me for the summer. The first prologue short is almost complete, and I'll be throwing the issue up on the website soon. Two weeks at most, but I don't think it'll take that long. One page isn't a problem, and my distraction is now out of reach.

When it's done I'll be throwing it up on the crowd funding website Indiegogo to build some funds to actually get it out there. I've looked up a few digital distributors that I can pay to have it put up on, I wont be shooting for more than $2000. If I make enough I'll try and get an actual physical copy for sale, and god hoping I can make enough to get it distributed. That last one is a pipe dream outside of Kickstarter, but those... wonderful people... don't work outside of the States.

I've also narrowed down the number of Prologues to three before I work on the final product. I'd love to do more on this world, specifically a couple origin stories, and probably will, but I have to focus on the important things.

In essence, big things to come very soon.

Time (Ironically)

I have to restart this. Something weird happened to the old post, everything came up as white bars.

About two posts ago I mentioned something about taking your time. I still believe that's entirely true, but I've also noticed the opposite problem. That being time itself.I never realized I was such a social creature until I tried drawing on a schedule. Well, that's note entirely true. I didn't have a schedule. So I guess this post will be more about planning. Planning was never my strong suit, it's caused me more grief than I can adequately put to words.

Right now I'm working on a prologue story. It's going to be five pages long, two of which are done (except for colouring). I started this particular story when I was in my comic book class and blew through the homework (that was the two finished pages) without an issue. The inking took two days, the pencils, if I'd done it all at once, would have taken me a day, and the trouble I found I had was with the placement of word bubbles (you'd be surprised how irritating those things are). And that only took me a few hours to figure out and fix, the problems wont present themselves in my future works. I figured I'd blow through the remaining three pages no problem.

But here's the thing. My time isn't like class time. Nobody's riding me to finish on my time. I should have seen that coming, but I didn't, so I didn't put anything solid down. I figured I'd do it, no problem. I seriously didn't know I was out of the house so often. That and the $1500 dollar prize for a t-shirt contest took my attention, but I worked on that while I wasn't able to work on the pages for the most part.

Now I'm strapping down. The first prologue short will be done in two weeks. I don't have plans, it'll get done. Assuming I don't have to rewrite these posts anymore.

Finally!

Well, here's Silencer. Enjoy.

Previously On

I figured I should start talking, so lets talk. I'd learned quite a few things about making a comic prior to starting this blog. I've known this is what I'm going to do since I started high school, and it's the one area of study I've been able to excel at. I've picked up many many books on how to draw comics, learned a thing or two about putting them together, and recently picked up a few useful tools for printing them.

First off, for anyone who's used to working on, say, Deviantart, and assumes shrinking the image down to print size will work for a printed physical copy. It doesn't. Well, not alone. My current scanned scans at 300 DPI automatically, so I'd imagine other modern scanners would too, but my older one, the one I scanned and worked on a pair of pages for one of the prologue stories, scanned in at around 72 DPI. Which looks fine, on a computer. Once you print it, though, it's pixelated to all hell. You want to do at least 300 DPI if you plan on printing your work.

Second, and I find this incredibly important. I went to a class with a bunch of people who couldn't draw, and one who could. When I looked at the people who couldn't draw, I noticed something. Most of them were very opposed to doing thumbnails. Thumbnails are little preview sketches of the final product, for those not in the know. And because they were so opposed to it they simply didn't do well. They could get the layout and the poses right but they were limiting themselves on what they could do because they wanted to work fast, not smart. Take your time and the pages look fantastic.

Third, solidify your line work. I ink with a tablet on Photoshop, and recently I started inking a character design I started ages ago. But I liked the design and I threw it in  to fix up. Something that's changed for me since I drew it was that my lines have gotten a lot more solid. Trying to ink that older character was a nightmare. In pencils it looked fine, it just looked like someone was sketching things out, a little messy but hardly noticeable. In ink you noticed every stray strand. I work on a tablet, so maybe zooming in might have been the problem, and if you're a talented inker as well as a penciller you can work on you own stuff just fine. But having solid lines, especially if you're sending it away to get inked, is incredibly helpful.

Well, that's all for today. I should have aforementioned character pic up tonight, assuming the shelves I'm installing don't fight me.

Building a Comic

Here's the idea. I'm making a comic. It's going to be available online, maybe print if I manage to stumble into it, but so far it's solely going to be offered through digital distribution. I have a website for it, which is currently going through construction as I try and put some form of tangible preview up. You can view it here if you so desire, get the basic idea of the universe I want to make, but right now it's pretty bare. The quick and simple goes thus: A psychiatric hospital in a super hero universe actually manages to reform their wards. The universe expands from there.

Anyway, the point of this blog. I'm stumbling in the dark here, so I figured I'd bring you along for the ride. While I'm figuring things out and making my way forward with this project I'll keep updating this blog.

Right now the plan is to get some actual content on the website itself, namely characters and prologue stories that consist of semi-self contained stories, to help get a better view of the world and the characters you're going to be reading about.

The story is pretty much settled, I just need to write the script. I have a few prologue stories written, one that's half drawn (You can see a page at the website, under Preview). I recently finished a comic book class that filled in quite a few gaps in my knowledge, and moving forward I plan to start a Kickstarter to fill in the gaps in my funding. After a few prologue stories are out there, of course. Have to let people know what they're paying for.

So, as I stumble in the dark, enjoy. I'll laugh, I'll cry, I'll curse, presumably. At the end of it you'll have watched me drag something kicking and screaming into existence. Or fail miserably, whichever works.