February Report (Patreon)

Thank you all for your patience in waiting for this report. I had to get through some work this week that really took it out of me and I'm starting to breath again now that it's Friday. I'll have some art updates for you later today as well! :) On to the report!

First off, Gibson Girls. We've got 5 WIP pages! No text in there, that's something I think I'd like to do this week, refine the dialog/writing to a point where I'm more confident in it and can start adding in speech bubbles to the roughs to make sure it all works. Last month was about getting the roughs done, and we started this month with creating some finalized character designs that I can keep open while working on pages to hopefully help things stay more on model, even though I'm changing them as I go.

 Still no name for this project, but that's usually the last thing to fall into place anyways. I'm not sure I can fight that part of my process.

The other thing that was really helpful was abandoning making "finished" pages right off the bat. Since I'm still finding my way through the style as I go, I adopted a "fix it in post" philosophy to the pages that helped me get some in progress so I'm not stuck in analysis paralysis. It took me a week of being stuck before I could do that, but it meant making good progress.

To help further refine the style I did a Josephine Montilyet fanart pinup in the Gibson style. And I'm looking forward to using fanart as a fun diversion and way of practicing the look.  

I can't just stop drawing Libby, so there were some Libby drawings as well.

It's a little surreal for me to totally abandon color in my main comic project, as I am with Gibson, so I'm going to keep jumping over to this as an escape going forward. It might make my twitter feed look chaotic, but I need the variety to stay happy. :) 

Speaking of variety, I'm still listening to a lot of pulpy Conan the Barbarian stories, and my freelance work lately has all been sci-fi themed, so it's a HUGE relief to draw some sword and sorcery stuff :)

The sketchbook feed for gold patrons shows a lot of color too this month, it's very much a part of the balanced art diet I need, having multiple things going at once.

Exploring Gibson stuff in color is a nice activity, because I am able to work through thought processes I need to for the comic, but in a visually refreshing way.

Meanwhile the sketchbook also is just my place to indulge in very non-Gibson-y art styles. I've been watching a little more anime lately. Specifically Golden Boy, and Tenchi Muyo which I'm ashamed to say I never watched before. 90's anime really excites me. 

Poppy is one of those characters I find myself returning to a lot. She's a lot of fun for me to draw. This month especially I've been trying to fold the anime figure model studies into a kind of paint/drawing style that just edges a bit more softness out of my drawings.

It's apparent that I'm feeling green lately, for some reason. It's a real pleasant color to draw on. :)

Here's my February takeaway:
I was secretly hoping to get 8 pages of the comic done, but I had to come to terms with the fact that this is going to be more organic and gradually developing as I figure out the new style.

Going forward in March I'd LOVE to complete the thing but I don't see it happening, I'm instead going to shoot for at least page 12 and adding dialog. Course correcting is part of the process and I'm trying to be more of a realist about my output. I suspect I will get all the pages to a certain level and then be able to look back and spot fix some of them to make it overall more consistent before calling it "done."

Since I'm in a "product development cycle" whenever I'm making a comic, part of my challenge is to be able to tell people about it while I'm making it, so I'm going to  keep making Gibson-y fanart as the comic progresses. To that point:

I'm happy to accept more suggestions for characters that would either be perfect fits or really strange in the Gibson style ♥

Thanks for your support over this past month! I hope you enjoy seeing the comic continue to develop I'm excited for March because i know it will bring warm weather related doodles to my sketchbook! ☀

♥Winton