Stuff and Things for March

I was off to a bit of a slow start at the end of Feb and beginning of March this year.  It actually feels like I've had maybe about 10 hours at home in the last couple weeks, and I've been to every medical office in the city.

But I am starting to get things together again.  I've been thinking about some things that I'd like to put my energy towards artistically.  The biggest part is getting the painting done each month (This month will be the image of Cinders dancing in the kitchen with morning java).  And as always I'll be doing another sketch for the next person on the $10 tier.  I've had a few more new folks join at that tier too! (wow, uhh.  Thank you all!).

I'm trying to show more sketchy or illustrative things again.  I'm working to break a habit of overworking simple sketches and linework and colouring, which is allowing me to actually start thinking of a couple projects I wanted to do (One I already had started).  Mainly doing a sort of 'book' (A PDF compilation, actually) about a specific region of the world, and the things/people found there, the other being the Tides comic that I've had shelved for a while now for re-writes.

In the case of the 'book' it was a monumental task because of the amount of writing it would take (I'm hardly a writer) and the amount of art I want to stuff into the thing.  When you can't stop obsessing over getting lines perfect or painting every single image (a task that takes about 20 to 40 hours for me), getting something like a collection together felt like it was just impossible from a time point of view, especially given that I have another job.

The comic suffered from largely the same problem.  I would find myself going back to re-ink, or erasing whole pages because I didn't like the colours in a panel.  I had to fight the urge to paint each panel, and leave the linework intact.  I also had to realize that I didn't need to worry about printing processes and colour profiles as much since it's not something that was going to a printing press.

Admittedly the comic also suffered from a stall in how I wanted the story to go.  I simply halted because I didn't like where it was headed from a long term standpoint, but couldn't come up with a solid storyline otherwise.  I've been starting to make headway on that front as well.

I'm also limiting myself to only a few ideas on projects at once.  I over-extended badly before.  I didn't factor in the fact that I work an often-times full time job, that often exhausts me, and I didn't factor in that I should be taking one day off each week at least.  So this time around, A couple things to work towards in addition to what I've been doing already seems far more sane.

I'll be posting little tidbits and images from the compilation along the way this month.  Often simply coloured linework or inked lines and idea sketches.  And with any luck, I can start interjecting more of the Tides comic along the way too.

Here's looking forward to the Spring and Summer.

Cheers!

-T.J.