Comic Report #17 - Stress Management (Patreon)

As I predicted last week I didn't have as much time to push through this page as I'd have liked, but it is what it is. I have a fairly substantial medical thing upcoming in my life and that's both a source of stress and a drain on my time and resources, so I try to set goals and work through it. I'll make this post about dealing with stress while trying to focus your mind on something as complex as painting.

This page is bookended on the top and bottom by very specific crowd scenes, and since I was pressed this week I decided that after I inked and prepped it for painting I'd instead focus on smaller, more achievable goals.  I usually paint my panels in order but I decided to skip the big headache so I can trick myself into feeling more progressed than I am, and when I'm in a better situation I can come back and paint it in later. If I try to slog through the first panel and constantly tone/detail reference all those little people I'll burn what little of my energy I have and get much less done than if I rotated to something smaller.

Art is a very mental exercise. There's very little muscle memory to it, every line and every brushstroke is an analysis and interpretation of the ideas in your head and an attempt to convert that idea into visual language that other people can read, so you're considering everything you do as you do it. It can be very taxing, and if you add outside factors into those thoughts then your brain ends up trying to process an overwhelming amount of data constantly, and you end up getting nothing done.  Thinking of the brain as a computer, as a CPU or a GPU or whatever, you've got so many cores or so many cycles, and your work is going to demand a lot of that memory in ideal situations.  When you factor in outside stressors it's like running two massive programs at the same time, everything chokes.  You can't choose to close or end-process invasive stressors, though, so you have to be more efficient with lower-impact artmaking.  At least, that's how I think of it.

This week I'm shifting back to game sprite animation, and next week I should be less burdened and get more of the page done.  Do what you gotta do to take care of yourself in the long-term.  Thanks for sticking with me.