So I’m slaving away over the latest Sally Saturn page, and it’s taking me forever to get it done. I’m fiddling around with colours, adding little effects that turn out practically invisible on the screen, I’m trying to work in clear sharp shadows and it’s just so very timeconsuming. But I get the job done, and I post my page, and I keep noticing little things that I could have done differently, and perhaps little things that I should have done differently, and things that I will do differently… after all, I’m learning as I go.
So get this… I’m sort of involved in a little tiff. A fight of sorts. Nothing serious, nothing remotely vicious, a whole lot of mock-outrage and a bunch of one-liners that aren’t nearly as sharp and witty as hoped. So I decide to do a little drawing, just to stretch the old creative muscle. I grab my tools and start doodling away… and yes I know… it’s a tired old joke… but sometimes even the long dead ponies need some of that succulent fresh air.
So in fifteen minutes I create something that looks better, looks easier, and more alive than something that takes me hours to draw. What’s up with that? One fifteen-minute-sketch gets my creative juices flowing just right. Sure it’s a sketch, but I’m sort of using techniques that I don’t normally use, and I’m pretty pleased with the end-result.
So I’m asking myself, why? Is it the time constraint… is it the fact that it’s all very loose and very quick, and I don’t overthing the basic stuff? Is it because it’s a pin up and not a sequence? I don’t know. I do know however that this frustrates me. I’m now qondering if I should look at the comic and change my method again. I’m constantly changing my style, constantly changing techniques, so this is just another learning thing that I can use in the future.
I’m not saying I’m going to change everything overnight, but I’m guessing I’m going to be incorporating a couple of new things along the way…
Finally I’m crawling out of a depressing black hole… took me long enough. For the first time since forever things are starting to look manageable again… I’m back to writing reviews for a reasonably large website, I’m picking up my career as a freelance artist, and my job isn’t nearly as stressful as it used to be.
I reckon this is the fabled silver lining… the hallowed light at the end of the tunnel.
I have to say that I’m really lucky to be able to review the Dutch version of “The Umbrella Academy” as well as the first part of Alan Moore’s ”From Hell“. There are also a couple of novels on my list of items to review, but they’re not nearly as exciting… although Cory Doctorow is a pretty decent writer and I thoroughly enjoyed his “Down and Out in the Magical Kingdom“, who knows maybe “Makers” will be just as fun… somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking Doctorow might turn out to be the next Douglas Coupland.
Which reminds me… I need to pick up “Generation A“… which is the sort-of-but-not-quite sequel to “Generation X”
