lookingland

first of all, it's Update Day at Reconstruction. i feel i have to apologize for the page because i rushed it (massively rushed it). so i had a sit and think about why i was feeling ill-disposed to work on it and i came to a couple of conclusions (always the conclusions!).

for one, i'm not working from a very solid script. i mean, the story is solid and even the dialogue is solid, but i have no actual working script, so remembering what they are saying and making the words fit on the page so long after the fact (i must have started drawing this page months ago!), made it really hard to find my way back to it. so if i am really going to do it, i really need a script to work from.

additionally, i just hate all the pre-production that goes into this. i sort of like doing the coloring, but it's enormously time-consuming in direct proportion to my laziness. i also really dislike doing the lettering. poking words around on the page annoys me and i feel like i am always making compromises as a result of my own poor planning. those are a couple of big deal breakers in this venture.

fortunately, there's a solution: cut down on the digital production aspects. the less i have to do once the image is scanned, the more likely it is that i will actually draw and finish pages. so yeah, i am changing the art. i realize this is obnoxious 14 pages into the thing, but i'll never keep it going if i have to do it at the level i've been working (a level which, mind you, has not actually improved on the story one iota ~ and in fact has been to its detriment in some ways). so here are the impending changes:

i am going to loosen up on the art (go back to a more sketchy style to ease up a bit),

i'm going to lose the sepia tones (egads, it's true! i just prefer the contrast of black and white),

i'm going to hand-letter the darn thing (which is actually less work for me than digitally doing it ~ and i think it will look nicer),

and i am turning the orientation of the pages to "landscape" (reading vertical tall comics online is hard on my eyes, so why am i making my own that way? derrr....).

and if nothing else, this entry will serve the record as yet another example of the madness of my indecision. but seriously, i think this is a much better way to go and i think i might actually be happy with it because it will give me time to focus on the parts i really like: sketching and inking and watercoloring.

anyway, that's my current neurosia (it's like ambrosia, but for debilitated minds), and i am sticking to it (for the mo'). other conclusions, meanwhile, are being drawn in other places, but those will have to wait for their own post at another time.

i have missed a lot on lj this past week, but i understand congratulations are in order to