I started working on Payday on what I think is the week of 4-20-2009 (my first post about it was made on 4-24-2009).

It’s been my policy to draw for at least an hour every weekday morning, which isn’t a lot of time, this was implemented with the consideration of a few things:

1. I have a ton of projects that I have unwisely started, and this is my way of helping me to prioritize.
2. I need to learn to belt out a page, so a time limit forces me to accomplish a lot in a little amount of time.
3. If I don’t give myself a time limit, I may not stop which means impeding on my other tasks.

I’d say, since starting Payday, I had done fairly well for, oh… 60% of the time? Maybe 70%? That’s not a good grade. That’s a D or a C, depending on what percentage you go with.

I did take a small break to illustrate Fighting David Parrot, written by David Hopkins. But I count that as time well spent. Other than that, drawing Payday became less and less of a constant as I began to grow frustrated with the scriptless experiment I committed to, as I’ve stated many times before. The fun was leaving.

At what point does one admit that an experiment in the creative process isn’t working and that one should go back to the norm?

I’ve decided that if I don’t make some sort of significant progress in penciling the pages by 4-24-2010, then I’m going to give up the experiment and write out a script. What is significant progress? Well, I’m on page 22. Yes, that’s it. Page 22. And I’m pretty upset at myself about that, especially when there are other comic projects I have that I want to work on but won’t allow myself to start until Payday is finished. In any case, that gives me 14 weeks. I’ll commit to completing 28 pages of pencils, which is two pages a week, drawing at the rate of an hour to an hour-and-a-half every weekday morning. That’s a lot of work. We’re not even counting weekend mornings, which would help me stay on top of things. This would bring me to 50 completed pages, meaning I could finish the rest of the pencils by the beginning of May. If that happens, I can go back and finalize the dialogue for the entire graphic novel.

If it doesn’t happen, if I fail, I give up the experiment and write out a script for the pages I have and the pages that are thumbnailed before returning to penciling the unfinished pages..

There. It’s in writing. Now I have to commit.

For those of you that frequent my web-bursts via this site or Twitter, you know that I postponed drawing full-sized pages of Payday in order to try doing thumbnail layouts. And you know that I have said on more than one occasion that I really, really, really didn’t like doing them.

In case you haven’t heard that before, here it is: I hated doing thumbnail layouts.

It’s not that they weren’t productive, overall. My last, full, penciled page of the book was page 19 (which didn’t get posted; I posted page 18 if you care to look). When doing the thumbnails, I laid out pages 20-52. That’s right, I got to page 52 in layouts.

The problem is, I lost my feel for drawing the main character, it wasn’t fun, and I didn’t sit down to draw the thumbnails in a consistent manner. The work was sporadic. So, while I don’t have to think as hard about what to draw for the next 33 pages, I still feel like I’m behind.

Actually, I don’t have to think too hard about the next 32 pages, because page 20 is penciled:

My general method for making comics is that I write a script for myself, then I go directly to full pencils, laying out the pages as I go along, often two at a time to make sure everything is visually cohesive. Since Payday isn’t a scripted comic, I’m making things up as I go along according to the story in my head. Doing layouts for this sort of comic was like a) writing a script, but not as fast, and b) an extra step.

On one hand, I’m glad that 52 pages of comic are solid and that there are only a few more pages to go after that. Using my thumbnails I should – should – be able to pencil through them quickly. On the other hand, the thumbails weren’t that fun to do, and it was a bit of a demotivator.

Time to brush it off, suck it up, and move forward. Page 21, here I come.

Emphasis on “unscripted”.

I just got finished pre-dialoguing (is that a real word?) the first 19 pages of Payday. I’m going to wait to ink everything until I’m finished with the book, because I know the way I’m drawing it is slowly evolving with each page. Therefore, by waiting to ink until the end, I should be able to give everything a unified look.

One thing I’m finding is that doing an unscripted book, working from just a basic plot, is not much faster than writing out a script first, which is what I prefer. Because I only have an hour and change every weekday morning to draw comics, I thought maybe doing an unscripted book might be faster; I wouldn’t have to sit down and write a script, which would prevent me from drawing. Well, I can tell you, making up the pages as I go along is not my favorite way to do things. It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s just slower.

There’s nothing wrong with slow, but in this case it’s too slow. Had I written a script first, at least I would have completed one aspect of the process. In the case of Payday, everything is being done at once, so the accomplishments are spread far apart.

I’m intent on seeing this through as I began. However, I’m going to change things up a bit by incorporating comics into my other tasks. I’ve put a ream of paper by my computer so I can work on layouts when I need a break from writing or composing music (which seems like an obvious thing to do, in retrospect, huh? And I know I’ll have plenty of downtime thanks to my slow-ass computer not being able to handle the robust Sibelius 5 music notation software). I think this way I’ll feel like I’m accomplishing more when I’m drawing. Instead of spending so much time figuring out the next page’s layout, I’ll actually be able to draw.

Pencils for page 18:

I like this page if for any other reason than the storytelling. I know there are no words written out yet (except in scribble), but the juxtaposition of the characters and the pedestrian traffic light makes for good implication in that particular scene, I think.

One thing I re-realized while drawing today is that I need to re-adopt the practice of getting the pencils completed just enough to be inked. The pencils aren’t the final version and yet I’ve been trying to get them to look semi-tight. Probably because I’m trying to beef up my illustration skills. I need to find a balance that allows me to practice illustrating while penciling, yet get them done well enough so that they’re ready for inking but aren’t actually finished pieces themselves.

It’s been a while.

I’ve been meaning to post this page for about 2 weeks or so, now, and I forgot all about it. So here it is, page 15:

I like it.

In other news, I JUST finished page 17. How sad. It was an easy page to do but I got stuck on a panel, not knowing what to draw. It happens with an unscripted comic, I guess. I do prefer scripted, but I’m bent on finishing this one as I started. I see much work ahead of me.

Contributing to my slower productivity is that I’d been setting aside drawing the pages in favor of doing other things… things still comic-related, but not Payday-related. Technically, this is fine, since my mornings are dedicated to comics, but Payday is supposed to be a priority.

Thirdly, I’ve felt like garbage the last couple of weeks. Perhaps I’m in a funk. I don’t know. I still get up to do comics every weekday morning, but I feel like I’ve gotten very little done in the way of Payday, even though I’ve accomplished a few other comic-related tasks. Tomorrow morning I will get up and kick my ass back into gear with the pages. The current scene is almost done and I can move on to the next scene, which should give me a small jolt.

I was about to say that composing music is much more instantaneously gratifying because it can be done faster, but then I remember that I have a 9-year-old computer running Sibelius 5.1 and it is sllloooooooooowwwwwwer than a snail eating molasses.