Chapter One Post-Mortem

We're at a big milestone: after many months, Chapter One is done. The first chapter of DD4, wherein I thought I'd try a few new things, is all coloured-up and finished. Let's do a little reflection, a little personal accounting, and see where things stand.

What’s been accomplished so far?

I started full-time work-in-earnest on DD4 in January of this year. Now it’s September and, 45 finished pages later, Chapter One is complete. Let’s take a look back and see what was involved.

• Through January and into February, I was creating location studies and costume/character designs. With the location studies, I remember trying to establish a fluency and familiarity with the type of location in which the story would be set, so that every time a page called for a new setting, I wouldn’t need to spend too much time making concepts for a new area, but I also wouldn’t need to dive back into research to get up to speed.
• At the same time, I was working on the story, using methods like Post-It-Note Madness.
• I started thumbnailing Chapter One mid-February. I was defining imagery and writing narration and dialogue.
• Shortly after, still in February, I was taking those thumbnails and roughing them out at full size. It must have taken about a month to rough out the whole chapter.
• Inking started mid-March! I was learning to use brushes, brush pens, and nibs as I went. Inking finished at the end of May. So, forty-five pages in two and a half months.
• A week and a half later, scanning was complete, as was lettering.
• A few weeks later, near the end of June, I had finished my rough colour script.
• Colour prep (or “flatting”) carried me until mid-July. Note: back in the Spring, I imagined I would be posting final colour pages by this point. Hmm.
• Colour must have started shortly thereafter, because I posted the first colour pages at the end of July.
• Colouring took place throughout August, and now we’re here, mid-September, and colour’s all finished.

So we see that 45 pages were finished over the course of seven or eight months. I would estimate I’ve been working four to six hours each workday during that time. This is useful (perhaps ominous) information when planning the 215 other pages I’ll probably need to make for this book. Notably, during the same period of time, our infant child has gone from being a sweet little helpless lump of giggles to a tall, speedy one-year old with a distinct and frustrating interest in electrical cords. He’s not walking yet, but he’s also not far off.

What worked?

The Chapter-At-A-Time Approach.
This felt risky: I’ve always thought that A Good Story needed to be created at a single stroke and approached as a whole. The only way to make things cohesive, and to draw good character development and thematic connections was to lay the whole story out in front of you and work on it all at once, refining it and improving it like doing laps around a race track. Plus, I don’t “shift gears” easily, so this new approach felt scary.
But! I am exceedingly happy to have complete pages in front of me, eight months into the process, which I can share with people! This is personally gratifying.
Even better, though, is what it’s done to my writing experience. Since I’m spending months drawing and colouring pages for one chapter, that is time I can set my brain on the task of brainstorming ideas for the next. I’m so excited for Chapter Two, now. I have a lot of ideas to cram into it, all of which have emerged in quiet moments during my extended work on Chapter One. I’ve never had so much time to let ideas “simmer,” and I really like it.
Will this benefit the work as a whole, at the end? Right now, I am only seeing positive things.

Patreon.
I was uncertain what sort of place Patreon would occupy in this process, and how I might feel about it. I do feel a constant, low-grade pressure to be giving you interesting things to look at, Dear Reader, and I could do without that feeling. (Related: I thank you for your kindness in advance, but no amount of “don’t worry about it!” will keep this feeling at bay. It’s a Me Thing.)
But! It has been so much fun to be sharing this process with you. I love being able to post things and talk about them a little. It’s keeping me sharp and honest, and I’m grateful that you all have elected to join me on this journey. And of course, I thank you for the immense enthusiasm and encouragement you have shared with me in return.

Patron Cameos.
I only managed to get two of these into Chapter One. This was a bit of a scary thing to attempt. What if the cameos looked out of place? What if the process was “weird” in some way? What if the results dissatisfied the patron in question? So far, no one has confirmed that last fear, but I think the cameos look good in place, and the process has been as friction-free as I could have hoped (thank you!). I’m glad I included this way to recognize you, Dear Patron, for the faith and support you’ve put behind this project. And it’s fun.

Balancing “Life” and “Work.”
With the new baby around, I was worried that either I wouldn’t get any work done, or I wouldn’t get to see enough of the baby. I feel like I was able to strike a good balance. This is not a very glamorous or exciting thing to talk about, I know. I would like to be finishing pages quicker. But I am also aware that most dying people wish they had spent more time with their family and friends, and so I am trying to avoid that regret. A relevant difference, of course, is that I love making these comics, but, you know, that’s where the idea of “balance” comes in. Also, this baby is growing super quick, it’s astonishing.

What didn’t work?

Creative Polls for BENEVOLENT SPONSOR Patrons.
I wrote this into the tier description at the start, thinking that surely some sort of opportunities would make themselves self-evident for this feature. Sadly, I did not encounter those opportunities in the wild. Clearly, that’s something that will require some brainstorming, or that I will have to create opportunities for. I should have anticipated that this would not be so easy. I would still like to find a way to distinguish the first two patron tiers, but I am honestly a bit at a loss here.

Improvements in Draughtsmanship.
Relative to DD3, I was hoping my drawing skill would be greater. Now, I’m not totally dissatisfied—I can see some improvements. But I’m still chasing a style of drawing that is more native to its tools, less fussy, more economical, without sacrificing the style of representation I like to see.
To put it more plainly, I really like what Matias Bergara does in his drawing. I don’t want to draw like Matias, per se, but he does a good job of using suggestion as much as he does description. I’m not sure if that makes sense to you, but it does to me, and I’m going to keep working in that direction. My proficiency with brushes will improve naturally with experience. More importantly, I can improve my aesthetic and rendering sensibilities by being more careful at key points in the drawing process, which I will have to remind myself to do.

Improvements in Colour.
Similarly, though I’m happy with my colour choices overall, there are too many places in Chapter One where the colour aspect of the work did not feel as integral as I’d like it to be—where it doesn’t feel like it was considered along with the early compositional choices. I must remember to do that, to be conscious about colour choices during the part of drawing where no colour is involved. There are a few panels or pages that I think I succeeded in this regard, but more that aren’t, where the colour is simply an addition, or is forced upon the drawing later.

So, going forward, I’d like to come up with more creative ways to involve the patron community, but that’s going to require more thought on my part. I want to make greater strides in my draughtsmanship and colour work, and that’s going to require a little more careful attention during the thumbnailing stage and during the drawing process. Overall, moving forward, I think I need to remind myself to sit back, take a breath, have a bit of a pause, and make some time to consider more carefully my approach to the page.

Which is exciting, because I’m so so so hype for Chapter Two. I’ll write more about what to expect in another post, as well as some longer-term, maybe-we’ll-see ambitions that I only dare dream about.