As I enter the transition stages of my life where I begin to start a new chapter, it feels even more important for me to have this balance between my two professions. I have loved comic making for as long as I can remember, and for years, I have always had the intention of releasing my own comic. It feels bittersweet that these goals have consistently been pushed back in favour of more academic pursuits. The coming year, I wish to prove myself wrong, and be able to continue to make consistent progress on my comic such that it reaches a stage where I can release it with ease.
Intentions This series of logs will be more a private online space for me to keep track of my own journey, hold myself accountable, and have a little fun while doing so. For those interested, you are more than welcome to follow along, and have a peek into the journey of an aspiring comic artist's struggle to create comics while working a separate full time job. I aim to update at least once a month: set goals for myself, and review my progress. I'll begin with my accomplishments last month, and my goals for this month. November Summary It took me way too long to complete just the first chapter of my webcomic. But I did it. Honestly, it took me as long as it did because this was my very first time attempting to oversee a webcomic chapter to its completion. I remember being so immensely proud of myself just getting the first 18 pages done and now look at it. Fifty-two full coloured comic pages. I'm sure that the journey from this point on will slowly start to get easier. Certainly, the quality of art in chapter 2 has been a major improvement from this first chapter.
Picture 1: The entirety of chapter 1 in its completion.
Other progresses for this month includes completing the lineart for BG panels in chapter 2, as well as completed flats for all of chapter 2. I also completed the storyboard for chapter 3, and I'm already starting to write the script for chapter 4. December Goals My goals for this month is starting out light. I want to complete shading for all of chapter 2. It's 30 pages, which means I just need to shade at least one page a day. I think that's doable, so long as I keep myself on track, and not distracted. If I accomplish my goal, it means that I will have reached the milestone of 3 months worth of backlog.
I think that begs the question of when I'll begin releasing my webcomic to the public to read. I had stated in the "Arcanus Crucis" landing that I had initially aimed to release the webcomic on 05.11.2020. Let's take a deep dive into why that didn't happen, and why I'm delaying the release. Firstly, I have always intended on having a large backlog before I released it. This is because I want to be able to maintain a consistent schedule without putting the pressure on myself to draw till I drop amidst the other priorities in my life. I'm not in a hurry to release it. I've been attempting many different comics since I was in elementary school, but I never ended up getting very far with them. I didn't have the art skill, I didn't have the attention span, and I had more fun talking than I did doing. Which is why, I actually want to do it right this time, and I don't want to mess it up. I wanted to release it on 05.11.2020 as a gift to myself. After all, I had worked so hard on it, and it would mean the world to me to finally debut it and share it with everyone. However, I wasn't going to release it for the sake of releasing it. I wanted at least a 3 month backlog before I did, but with everything going on leading up to November, that wasn't happening. I still want to release it on 05.11 as a gift for myself next year. But, I also need something to help me cope through the trials of this coming year. I do want to have something to look forward to each month, as I release each episode, just to keep my mental state afloat. Being an artist is perhaps the most lonely profession in the world, and having people invested in all the hard work I put in, would make it all worth it. So, I have two conditions to releasing it early. 1. For the next 3 months, be able to demonstrate that I am able to roughly complete one chapter in a month. 2. Have a backlog of at least 6 months, which should be achievable if I achieve #1. Then, we'll see how I go. If that doesn't happen, then my goal will remain on 05.11.2021, with an ideal backlog of 1 year (Yes, I am serious about this large backlog. My other profession is not easy in the slightest, and takes a lot out of me).
So, that's all I have to say. It's a long first update, but hopefully you found it intriguing. I will look forward to writing these updates, and finally reading them back and seeing the progress I've made. See you next time! Ciao!
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