A Little Rationalizing.

This page isn't finished yet, but here's a panel from it.

I can't believe how long it's taking to complete this Calamity comic. I can't believe it's been as long as it has.

I think the average is about a page a month.

I can't believe it.

But, here's me trying to believe it, in 3, 2, 1...

Thinking about it though, professionals who do all their own work (drawing, finishing, lettering, soforth...), who've been drawing for years, take about 2 or 3 days per page. And that's pretty much considered a pretty fast pace.

And that's with usually about 12 hour days, everyday.

If only I had 12 hours a day, everyday to work on stuff... I'm only getting a couple hours here and there, between work and house projects. And I'm trying to fit other, non-comic drawing projects in as well.

I can't really say that I'm disappointed it's not finished; if it were finished, it would look like crap all the way through. One of the reasons it's taking so long is because I'm trying not to use shortcuts. If I can't figure out how something looks here, or how a leg looks from this angle or so forth, I'll try to find the best way to draw it- not always successful, but I'll give it a decent attempt. If I don't know how to draw an arm from a certain angle, I'll get out my handy anatomy book (it took me about 3 years to find a decent one) and study and sketch it out on scrap paper a couple times before determining which is best. Well, best for me.

Another reason I've taken my time is coupled with the reason above- Style. You have to draw a lot to get a style. The more realistic you get, the harder it is to get a distinctive style of your own. That was almost the single goal of why I wanted to do this comic for practice. If this and nothing else comes from the entirety of the comic, I will be more than satisfied.

I want to nail a specific style of my own. That's not to say that I want to be utterly decided in how I draw; I want to continue to evolve and better myself, even after I've nailed down this elusive style. I guess by style, I mean that you can tell instantly I drew it. If I draw a 20 page story, I don't want every 3 pages to look like someone different drew it.

All of my favorite artists that I follow have their own, very distinct style. One reason I don't read more comics than I do, is a lot of artists look exactly alike. To me, at least. When I buy a book, about 60% of it for me is how it looks. If the art's bad, it better have a f***ing amazing story.

For me, style comes down to how you abstract things. All drawing is, really, is abstracting 3 dimensional objects into 2 dimensional interpretations. But all this style talk isn't to say that you only draw a certain kind of eyes, or you draw all you feet the same or anything like that though.

Eventually I went from "Ok, how do I draw this" to "Ok, how do I draw this."

Overall, the comic so far is almost a flip-book of drawing evolution. The early pages are almost hard to look at, and the later ones are almost decent.

By the end of it, I should be better. It's just practice. I have to remember, it's just practice. I'm not getting paid, so I can go at my own pace- which is better because it was intended as a learning experience, not an attempt to see how fast I could get it finished.

I guess in short, I'm ok with taking my time because I'm pretty much just trying to learn to be better. So far, there have been very few Liefeld moments- where something looks horrible, then just say screw it and leave it the way it is.

To be continued...?

(I got tired of typing)