100 Days of Making Comics - What Happened?!

Hi True Believers!

Welcome to... the brief and slightly cryptic explanation as to what happened with the 100 days of making comics challenge.

So... Obviously I didn't quite complete the challenge, I will be undertaking it again at some point, relatively soon, but for some rather good reasons I didn't make it to the end this time.
I'm pleased with what I did do anyway, I haven't drawn that consistently day after day for many years, and it did help get a good start on JAR.
The first 30 days or so where fine, I had the time to get at least a half an hour done every day, a few days quite a bit more.
But once we got into February a few things began that hindered me a little, for the next two weeks I spent the half an hour each day doing the drawing as required, but as my mind needed to be on other things I was starting to become conflicted. I wanted to complete the challenge, but there were other things, more important things, very important things, that I needed to focus on.
And you may think, but it's only half an hour a day, surely you could have spared that, but the thing is, I could have, but it's not really just half an hour.
To do that half an hour you need to think about the comic as a whole, for more than just that time, and I tended, over the course of the 45 odd days I managed, to think about it on and off for a lot of the day.
But I have something else, that as I said earlier is very important, to think about, and it's come to the time that I need to put all of my extra free thought time into that.
I will explain about this other thing in the future, for now I want to keep it to myself, but be assured, it's definitely more important to focus on that at the moment and forgo the challenge, than to risk trying to do the two at the same time.
Never half arse two things when you can full arse one - Ron Swanson.

I shall return to the challenge, until that time I'll be doing bits of drawing, some I may post, and once I have the time to get back and give the 100 days of making comics challenge a second go I will definitely give it my best to complete it.
It wasn't a waste of time, in fact it really was a great way of getting me to keep creative, and even if you don't think you'll be able to complete a challenge of this length of time I'd say give it a go, at the very least you'll get a lot of artwork done!

 Anyhow, for now I need to get on with some stuff as I have tons to do, so until the next post,

Keep Creative!

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Forty Two and Forty Three - Driver Issues and More of That Kid Again!

Whatcha!

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

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Another kind of crap update I'm afraid...

Day Forty Two

I have been having a few issues with the drivers for my tablet monitor and stupidly chose the day when I had to go out for a driving lesson first thing to try resolving the issue before leaving...
Drawing and drivers did not get fixed after an hour of trying.
the issue isn't a huge problem, just lacking the full pressure sensitivity that the monitor should, and did once have.
Will continue to try to resolve, email has been sent to manufacturer, am trying to locate an earlier driver online which is supposed to work.

Day Forty Three

Didn't sleep well, woke up, did the flats and some shadows to the panel I had drawn and inked a couple of days before, gave up after as i just wasn't feeling it.
Here's where this page is at at the moment, it will eventually have some colourful doodles on it!

I'm done for today, back to another fun filled week at work, I'll try to get my momentum back up and running so there's a bit more to show! I guess this is the reality of doing a challenge like this, or indeed just trying to keep creative all the time, sometimes you hit lulls and have to just push through until you get back to full steam again.

Whatever the case, just try to keep creative! 

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Thirty Nine - Forty One - Research and Sketching Days

'Ello!

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

Sorry but not a great deal to actually show for these 3 days, I was very busy doing some research for some...things... i'll need to draw later on in the series, and obviously I can't actually show or even describe what they are.
I have also started on the next page from where I last left off, and drawn the first panel, but I think at this point I'll leave it until I'm a little further along to show.

There will be an update over the weekend, most likely on Sunday after I've done a bit more of something I can actually show, doing this challenge and not actually giving any spoilers will become a little difficult further down the line as once the stories main plot lines start to kick in I'll become far more limited as to what I can show. But I'll do my best, I might start drawing the pages out of the order they are read in so as to be able to pick the ones I can show.
We'll see.

Anyhow, again sorry for the slightly contentless update, but there will definitely be a slightly more interesting one over the weekend, until then, keep creative!

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Thirty Eight - Layout Changes, for the better!

Good Evenin' All.

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

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After a meeting with the writer of JAR, and a productive one at that, the first pages of the comic have had a major overhaul layout wise!
And it's definitely for the better, the new look is much more dynamic and less static looking.
I still need to do some work on it but here's a look at it as it now stands.
narration boxes and text still need to be added, and I'll definitely be adding more objects into the room in the background as it's now a two page spread!

Also, we have been discussing the idea of the comic being in black and white, which I'm really liking,  the story is mainly set in the 1940's and the look seems to really suit it. I will still colour it all so there's both versions but the main one may look a little like this...

I'll do some more work on it at some point, but for now, hope you have a great evening and I'll catch you next time, until then, keep creative!

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Thirty Seven - Painterly Practice

Yo! Whassap?

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

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I'll keep the writing to a minimum tonight as I want to relax for a couple of hours before bed!

I wanted to get a bit of practice on the style of colouring I had planned for this comic, so did some "painterly" type photoshop colouring this evening, below is the before and after images. 

I'll probably add to these some more but it's going in the general direction i want, so all good.

Before

After

Catch ya next time, 'til then, keep creative!

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Thirty Six - More Colour!

Hola! Buenas tardes usuarios de internet!

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

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Just been having a bit of fun with colour this morning, adding a background colour to the last two pages, I haven't yet inked the 3rd and 4th panels on the last page but couldn't help myself and got carried away with it.

These are only the base colours for these pages, will be adding shadows etc a little bit further down the line.

Here's the current page as it looks now, I won't post the page before as it's in a lot less of a decent looking state.

That's it for now, tomorrow I'll try and get that bit of missing inking done, then get the colours flatted on this page before moving on to the next one.

Until next time, keep creative!

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Thirty Four and Thirty Five

WEEKEND!!! Whoop!

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

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It's a double post again, got in late and couldn't be arsed to turn everything on and edit images etc so left it for this morning.

Day Thirty Four

Did some work on panels 5-7 when I got in from work, sketched out the three characters roughly (a couple of times as the storyboards we did had them in different positions, but whilst sketching came up with the idea for the shared three panel layout.

Also fixed the girls cheek in panel 2 as I decided it was a little too pronounced, smoothed it out a bit and am now happier with the look.

Day Thirty Five

Woke up this morning and did a little bit of inking, got all three characters in panels 5-7, and am now finishing up for the day as a splendid lunch and a couple of beers await, 

Here's where the page as a whole is...

I'll be getting on with the roughs for panels 3-5 tomorrow morning, so...

Until next time, keep creative!

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Thirty Three - Word Balloon Placement and Roughs

Hello!

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

Not much to report today unfortunately, I spent the morning doing a few roughs before work, and the did some alterations to the word balloon placement on the page as I had some ideas for changes to the storyboards, I'll be getting onto some more interesting stuff tomorrow afternoon and over the weekend.

Sorry it's not a more content packed update but there's always going to be slow days along with the productive ones.

So, until next time, keep creative!

100 Days of Making Comics - Day Thirty Two - Little Bit O Inking

...and so I said, what do you mean?! Ah, sorry, didn't see you there!

Welcome to 100 Days of making Comics, a challenge in which the goal is to spend a minimum of 30 minutes a day working on or towards comic creation.

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Keeping this post brief as it's getting late and I need to get some sleep!

I got the main inking done on the panel from yesterday, need to add a little bit more to it in the way of line weights but I'm happy enough with it. No background for this panel as it's not really needed, the focus is on these four so not wanting to crowd the page for no good reason.

That's it for now, until tomorrow, keep creative!