Drawing from life

Well, I've been making progress in improving my bodies. I really want to get better at drawing the actual bodies of people before I start my next comic project. It's bee frustrating, as I wanted to take a life drawing course but they cost money and I'd have to travel during rush hour. But then I found the answer (or rather it found me) in the form of a deviant art.

One artist I follow (whitetrashpalace, if you want to look them up) often does little "lessons" that I usually already know. But recently, they did one on drawing from life. It was very informative, and at the very end there was a list of references. One of those references was a book that I was able to find a digital copy of and skim over. I studied it for maybe 15 minutes and tried my hand at some new figure studies. I drew this:

 Well, mostly I drew the body first and added the head later. I'm pretty satisfied with my faces. And sure, I already know at least one thing that's wrong with this torso, but it's way better than anything I've drawn in a while!

I feel buoyed on by this improvement by just 15 minutes of studying, so I ordered the book from Amazon for a whopping $4.89 and it should be here within the next few weeks. Hopefully, sooner rather than later. 

So keep your eyes open for more sketches and hopefully a new comic soonish.

PS - Alternative Press Expo is this weekend. I'm excited! And sick with terror. XD Haaaaa...

Sometimes, it's awful

It's hard, you know. Doing all that I'm doing.

Currently, in my efforts to get established, I have a booth at least 3 cons a year, work on my comic between school assignments, improve my website, take commissions, and spend my very little and rare extra money on con supplies and such.

And it's tiring. And sometimes it feels like I'm going nowhere and I'll never get anywhere.

Like this recent con I did. It came out of the blue and was unplanned. This was the third con I've shown at, and my first two cons were at big locations and I made decent bank. But this con was dreadful in every way. Everything you can imagine would go wrong, went wrong. I forgot my prints the first day, so I only had my sketchbooks and Collide Chapter 1 prints. The con was tiny (I mean, super tiny) and we didn't even get 300 visitors in the entire show, I think. And to make it worse, I broke even exactly; it wasn't a financial gain at all. It was really rough and frustrating. I don't plan on going back to that con for a few years, to see if it improves or something.

But I think it's important to realize things aren't always going to be marvelously easy. Even if you get a publisher by sitting on the train and the guy next to you happens to work for Marvel or Oni Press, and he sees your work and BOOM, you're published. Even if that happens... you're going to feel like a failure sometimes.

And if you do cons on your own time and money, you know the deep penetrating terror that you will spend over a hundred dollars to get a booth, another hundred to make prints, and whatever extra you spend to advertise on your table, and you will utterly fail. You won't sell anything. You'll forget everything. Something, everything will happen.

So it was healthy for me, I think, to realize that even if I forget all my prints (that was the deepest fear for me), I'll still be okay.

Also!

If you do cons, have something you do on-site and make money off of. My friend, Megan, does on-site sketches and illustrations; I do tiny art cards of well known characters. If you have something you can do on the spot, you'll be able to make those extra dollars.

Anyway, that awful con is over, and I have a big BIG con in October. Alternative Press Expo. I'm terrified. Utterly. Terrified.

Printed

So I finished drawing Chapter 1 of Collide a while ago, and sent the pages off to be printed into a neat little book. And it happened! It's done!





It turned out pretty good! So I ordered some more to sell at the next con I go to, which will hopefully be in September. I'll probably make them available to order through a website. Yeah.

All right, I'm off.

Dilemma

Seriously. Dilemma.

I've been doing Collide in the style I've been using for years. I've tweaked it a bit, and I do like it. It works for Collide. But for my future comics... I don't want to use that style. It doesn't suit them. Collide is the first comic I planned and it took a long time, so I've been staring at these character designs in that style for years. It belongs with this style.

So I spent the past few days nailing down what I want to do my other comics in. I knew I wanted it more detailed, realistic, and less manga-ish. But I still wanted large eyes, very expressive faces, and will probably use chibis.

Here's what I came up with.



You like it? I do. Very much. I've been drawing characters from my other comics all day. The biggest change is the nose. I really like it.

But I am concerned that I won't get truly used to this style unless I draw it all the time from now on. But Collide is in a different style.

I guess I could do both as best I can, and try not to let them affect each other?

Mehhhhhhh!

Go me!

I'm working on the last page of chapter 1 right now. This moment. I'm excited!

I've been working like a fiend on Collide. I'm amazed at how fast I'm tearing through this! I'm so excited to finish chapter 1 and to thumbnail chapter 2 and start that! XD

Once I finish the page, though, I'm going to wait about a week, review the pages, see if any changes are needed, and then submit them for printing. I'm going to print the chapter 1 copies as early as I can. I'll do the one test copy, and if it looks good, I'll probably print 20. I haven't decided if I'll start offering them online on my site yet, though. I might wait til a few more chapters are up for reading, then readers will know if they really want the chapter (I hope they will)!


I'm still blown away that I'm doing this. That I'm pushing myself to achieve. I sometimes consider myself really lazy, but this is making me wonder if that's true. I'm working so hard and refusing to give up. I'm impressed with myself, honestly.

Fanime 2010

And that's the end of another con.

Fanime was different than WonderCon, that's for sure. I didn't know what to expect, so I had to adjust my products throughout the weekend. I didn't do as well as I had at WonderCon either, but at least my friend (Megan "Dekay") did really well. It was her first con since she was 15 and I'm glad she cleaned up. ^__^

I did manage to find successful techniques, though. Things to use next year, if we decide to do it again. *shrug* Maybe.

Anyway, now we are prepping for APE in October and there is so much to do! I want to finish Collide chapter 1 by then and have printed copies, as well as bigger prints of my best illustrations, and we want to buy some PVC for an upright display. Gah, so much to do.

Whoa, hey, what's up?

WonderCon is over. Has been over for a month now, too. But I've been crazy busy with school. The Spring term is wrapping up, so I have 3 or 4 papers due every week. It's pretty brutal.

On top of that, I'm moving this weekend. I haven't been able to work on Collide, which is killing me. T__T Ugh. I miss the work!

In other news, my friend Megan 'Dekay' and I are going to get some booths together at a plethora of conventions, hopefully starting with Fanime (if they get their act together and give us more info soon) and leading up to APE. APE seems far more likely than Fanime at this point, but here's hoping.

I made a tiny between site to connect Dekay's links and mine so we could have a single link for APE to post. Check it out.

Peace out.

Collide and tiny illustrations

After careful contemplation I have concluded that there is little chance I will be finishing Chapter 1 of Collide in time for WonderCon. Which is all right, really. I hoped to have it done, but it's not the end of the world.

Between now and WC I'll work on illustrations. Today I drew two tiny illustrations I'll watercolor tomorrow. They're little fanarts of Totoro and Princess Mononoke.





I was planning on doing more little fanarts, but it doesn't really show off my art as much as I'd like. So I'll work on original stuff from now on.

Ahoy

Right, so, Collide is chugging along nicely. I got over my worries and started drawing it again. Art board was readily available at University art at a far less expensive price than online; online including shipping, which is 13 dollars--yuck.

As of today I have inked through page 5. Once I get a bigger scanner I'll be able to tone and letter them. I'm not sure how updating will work, though. I don't want to update one page at a time, so it'll be in groups of probably two or three, but I want to have a nice backlog before I do that. Although, I prefer to have chapter 1 up before WonderCon.

Sigh, there is much to do.

Bump-bump

The past few days I've been feeling discouraged about Collide. Sometimes I think I'll never be good enough at drawing to do the story justice. Other times I think the story isn't as good as I believe it is. And most of the time, I'm terrified of having nothing to bring to WonderCon.

So tomorrow I'll order the art boards. I've decided to buy the manga dimension ones. They'll arrive in some number of days. I assume.

But for the most part, I need to rewrite the beginning. Completely. Which means I need Jacqueline and Maria time, to bounce ideas around. Lucky me I get that tomorrow (today?) night. Unless something gets canceled. Which could happen, y'know?

It's making my stomach hurt, all this worry. I need to relax and not get so stressed.

An assist

Yesterday, exciting things happened. I heard back from a guy who writes comics, whose work I really love, and he had read my comic and was offering some advice to me. He provided me with a lot of frank opinions about what I should change, and I think I'll be taking a majority, if not all, of it to heart.

I need to rehash the beginning, and change it. I'm going to redraw chapter 1 anyway, but now I have to hold off on Chapter 2 until chapter 1 is revised.

Also, my dad has decided to invest in my art a bit and is going to buy me a bigger scanner soon. Why? So I can start drawing my comics on art board.

This will all be happening very soon. Of course, Chapter 2 won't be coming for a while, though. But I really want a good copy of chapter 1 to sell at WonderCon.

I'm really tired, so this entire post might make no sense. Oh man. I hope that is not the case.

Arg, dimensions

So having finished chapter 1 of Collide (yay!), I set about trying to find out the proper dimensions for comics published in the manga format. It took a few days of hard work and internet scouring, but I finally found out the truth.

And it burns.

My pages are not at all the right dimensions. *urg*

I guess it's good I found this out early. That means I only have to redraw 1 chapter, yeah? Ha... T.T

I'll worry about that later, though. I'll start drawing the rest in the right dimensions, now. Everything will be fine.

To do's

WonderCon to do:
-Collide work

• Design ch 1 cover
• Correct page tones
• Adjust dimensions?
• Extras?
• Try to get Chapter 2 done, too
  

-Illustrations

• Small, original illus
• Original Characters
• Fan work
• Get prints made of finished works
• Finish octo-horses

-Buy lock box
-Get seller's permit
-Plastic sleeves
-Records notebook
-Buy domain name for Collide
-Business cards
-Display portfolio
-Personal work portfolio, to show to publisher's

Goal: Have everything done by March 15th

Oh man!

It's official.

I got a table at WonderCon in the artist alley. I'll be selling some prints as well as the first chapter of Collide.

I'm kind of terrified of this, but also excited beyond all reason. I have a lot of work to do before then. Most of the illustrations are done, thank goodness, and the chapter is almost complete, too. But I have to figure out how to make these prints. So, yeah. Lots of work.