A major milestone for me. The first page is done! Of course I see plenty of things I’d like to improve, but I think it’s better if I plow forward on the story and get more pages done.
I’m still trying to find the right tone and style for the webcomic. It’s close, but it’s a little time consuming and I’d like to find a style that lets me work quickly but still feels right for the story I’m trying to tell. So this will be an evolving piece. I’m also trying not to plan as much and leave more room for happy accidents and exploration. I tend to want to work out all the details beforehand, but then I never get past the design stage.
The half page art format doesn’t leave room for much per page, and the painted style takes time. I think it’s a nice balance between amount of work and being able to finish something fast enough that I feel it’s within reach. Otherwise it might be too overwhelming.
Maybe some weeks I’ll be able to do longer pages, depending on the complexity of the subject matter.
I’m finding that I need to design a bunch of characters before I can start on the next page. Later on when the world is more fleshed out, I can get right to painting pages. But during this early phase I think it’s going to be a week of writing, a week of designing, and a week of painting. I wish I could post updates to the story more quickly, but there’s quite a lot of work to go before I’ll get to that point.