I don't handle New Year's resolutions too well. I always end up forgetting and then just feeling guilty. Just because it's a new year or a new month or a new week doesn't mean I'll take a resolution any more seriously. So my goal is to draw one comic page thumbnail per day for 30 days.
Why comics? So many times I've suddenly thought, "I want to do a comic!" But I never, EVER have the motivation. There's so much to do - I have to iron out the story before all else, because none of my original stories have enough substance to them to sustain a comic right now. I have to design characters, figure out setting and floor plans, manage dialogue... not to mention that every panel of a comic is a piece of art in and of itself.
More than anything else, though, what stops me is page layout and composition. There's something about the sheer possibilities of the boxes and triangles and other shapes you can arrange on a page that just has me freezing up like a deer in headlights. Not that this is the only thing that makes me put down my pencil before I've even made a mark, but I get really caught up wondering to myself, what if it's no good? What if my product isn't creative enough? What if someone notices how awful my layouts are?
What I have to realize is that as long as a comic layout flows readably, it works. If the panel size and arrangement aid pacing, even better. If you can come up with a cool composition for the images within the panels that complements it, bonus! They're little things that add up. And I have to realize that I'm not always going to get it right the first time. I've freed myself up a little, working on this challenge. I start planning a layout the way I'm thinking of it. A lot of the time, though, I only have a section of it clearly in my head, and the rest is vague. But that's okay. When I run out of pre-planned stuff, I start making it up. If it's wrong, I just redo it. As long as I complete a page in a day, it doesn't matter whether it works or whether I'll ever use it. It doesn't matter what story it's for; most of my writing plays out in my head cinematically so it's easy to pick a scene no matter what medium I ultimately want to use. What matters is that I'm practicing.
...That said, the pattern lately seems to be that each day I'm just doing the previous day's work. Even when I do catch up, I then miss the next day. Evidently I'm just awful at this. But I will not skip a day! Here's my progress.
For the first one, since I didn't really have the feel of it yet, I started by sketching out the panels without worrying about layout. Then, when I had what I wanted, I arranged them into a page.
After that I quickly got the hang of just sketching in the panels, though I did retry it once or twice. If I'd already sketched it, I would number the panels and just do a page layout with the panel numbers in, not bothering to resketch. I already have the visuals there, after all, in case I do decide to turn it into a comic. Every now and then I did sketch a panel before inserting it, because I find boxes very stifling.
I've started putting the date on them so I can tell when I've missed a day. Maybe one day I'll be inspired enough to do more than one, and then I'll be ahead instead of behind!
- Hex
