No real stories. Just pages 12 and 13:
I like page 13. It’s simple, fairly direct, and certainly one of the more spacious pages.
On a related note, I’ve decided to forego the weekly updates and just do a “Payday Progress” blog. These will, of course, be specific to that project.
Late post again.
While I am making progress on the graphic novel, it’s slow going. For one, I’m starting to nitpick over correctness, especially in perspective.
Second, I’m in the middle of scene where character development via exposition is taking place. This is always an interesting thing for me to draw because it challenges me to come up with ways to convey conversation in a visually impacting manner.
I have a few more pages left of this conversation and I can already feel myself getting sick of the scene. I suppose I could jump ahead and draw a different scene for a while, but I like working in chronological order. Tomorrow morning, I’ll have to figure out a way to bring back the spark I was feeling a few weeks ago.
The other thing I tried doing this past week was sitting down to draw. I started standing up to draw probably when I was doing Omnipotent Me because I liked the activeness of it (plus I could access more of the board that way) and I decided I wanted to keep the habit. However, with my hand hurting, I decided it was time to alter positions. For the most part, my hand hurts less when I sit to draw. Perhaps I’ll stand again when I hit the inking stage to see what happens.
Missed Friday’s post again.
Things are going well with the work on my graphic novel, Payday, though it’s slow-going. Not because I’m not moving along. There are some things I’m drawing that do take some time, but there are two factors that are impeding faster progress. One being my schedule. I draw for an hour and change every weekday morning, and sometimes on the weekend, depending on what other projects I want to work on.
The second thing that slows me down is my drawing hand. My thumb goes numb when I draw for 5-10 minutes. I stretch constantly, relax as much as possible, and have started to concentrate on not pressing too hard on the paper but instead let the sketching darken the lines for me. Unfortunately, my hand continues to hurt while I draw.
I’m not really sure what to do about this.
I finished page 10 and am finishing up page 11. I have one more panel to go, then I finish up some character things in the next couple pages before hitting the setup of the main part of the plot.
I’ve managed to stick to my morning drawing schedule (with the exception of yesterday, but there were good reasons), which I’m proud of. However, this Friday-update thing is, I suppose, too relaxed. I did a good job keeping up when it was every day, but with so much time in between I’ve tended to miss my Friday posts.
In any case, here are three penciled pages from Payday (click on the thumbnails to view “full” size”).
And, the one that took me about four days to complete, page 9:
I’m not a big fan of page 9. I don’t know if the page is simply too mediocre for the amount of time it took me to finish it or what. I know that the waitress’ face in the bottom two panels really bug me; it’s too long. But, I must move forward. I need to get more pages done and I can’t afford to spend more time on this page. The goal is to get faster and more efficient, right? I can always fix things later when I’ve completed a huge chunk or, preferably, the entire book.
I’m only on page 9, but that’s okay – I spent much of my time yesterday getting references for a panel I needed to fill in on a previous page.
And boy, do I feel bad.
I don’t mind tracing. It’s a good way to learn, and I often trace my own work when I’m drawing similar panels. But this time, I traced part of a photograph: the back right of a car. And for some reason, this bothers me. I mean, it’s not a special photograph, I’m rendering the thing my own way… I just traced the basic structure and that’s it. But I, for some reason, feel guilty, as if I didn’t do something right. As if I cheated. As if it would’ve been better to draw the thing by eye.
Tracing is a common trick, I believe. I’m sure Brian Bolland has done it with some of his covers (tracing a rifle, for instance). But is tracing a photograph art? Or should I be looking at the bigger picture, since the bigger picture (the entire graphic novel) is the art itself?
In other thoughts, my goal is to be able to lay out and do a full page of pencils in two days or less, since I only spend about an hour and fifteen every morning drawing. If I can meet this goal, hopefully my speed will increase I can get more work done within the same time allotment.
This weekend I’d like to up the page count by two, post some pencils here, and write a bit (prose, music, and otherwise), and start a site redesign (more on that later).