2016 Starting

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Hello anyone wishing to waste their time reading my Journal here, I hope you're having a fantastic day/evening/time despite stumbling upon my ravings.  I've gotten all projects I needed to out of the way and cleared my slate of almost everything and have a list of my own projects to do.  Recent emails between perspective women to date which didn't really go anywhere kept reminding me of one thing they'd ask often...  "why don't you do comic books?"  And my go to responses were excuses which is inexcusable.  So I've looked over what I've achieved as an artist in 21 years which mostly only amounts to making other people happy by doing Caricatures at parties, parks, and events.  It's time I made myself happier with my artwork.  Sure I've made a living but I haven't been pushing myself to get new work as much as I should and that living I've been making is basically just getting by without taking vacations, going on trips to places I've always wanted to see, or even finishing my own artwork.  If it's for a client, it gets done on schedule.  If the project is my own I get really excited sketching, writing details, and eventually get distracted by the next of my own projects.  So I'm a bit disappointed in myself, and have struggled with depression over it among other things over the years.

This year I have to change, I can't continue just getting by as I'm getting older and the characters and Ideas will drive me insane if I don't work on them.  My favorite author had a quote...
 "...Because one is not always in a position to employ or not employ a method at will; and sometimes I strongly suspect, it is the method uses us rather than we the method.  Men dream that it is they who have ideas; I have a shrewd notion myself it is the ideas that often possess the men.  There is many an idea has used up two or three generations of mankind and, before working itself out, is going to use up three or four more."  -Alexandre Dumas
I'd personally rather not just be a step, a generation, of the idea working itself out.  So that requires far more effort when I'm not contracted out as a Caricature artist, so I'll have to sacrifice free time getting myself back to the time/place where I absolutely loved being at my desk all hours of the day. 

My list for the year of projects is fairly simple. 
1.  I'm writing and doing layouts for a web comic series which I am collaborating with another artist on who also stressed she wanted a project to get herself drawing comic art style things when not working.  Progress so far has been pretty minimal.  I wrote a pitch and submitted it to my collaborator which she liked and began designing characters based upon the descriptions.  I've written a rough script, which is about all we're using as I'll write dialogue and take dialogue suggestions from the Artist as she does the layouts.  It's story is plotted out beyond the first act with a loose plot going all the way to the point the story ends.  I've done only about 12 panel layouts so far that are extremely rough/basic as I haven't received copies of the actual character designs so the they basically amount to camera angle choices, backgrounds, and rough characters nearly as simple as stick figures.  Before much of anything comes of this project I'd like there to be about 3-4 months of finished artwork for publication and then the two of us can decide if we want to create a website to publish or go with a web series publisher of some sort. 

2.  I used to love to write stories, I still take notes on ideas for everything from short stories to comic book ideas.  As I actually haven't sat down to write a finished story over the course of the next year I intend to write a few short stories.  Simple enough.  I'll also be turning a few comic book ideas into full scripts for at least their 1st issue to get a few of them further fleshed out.  My main two ideas for comic books have been fermenting into fine wine, or vinegar that depends on how the final version turns out, so I'm going to write the scripts for both of them and make whatever revisions I need upon them.  Novel, what a novel idea!!  But no, I won't be writing a novel this year I'm just being realistic about time.  I may plot out some novel ideas but even if I do flesh one out the most I intend on doing would be a novella nothing greater then a big short story. 

3.  Pen and Ink comic book pages.  Old school Ink on Bristol!!  Hell Yeah!  Once I get the script revised on one or both of those comics driving me crazy I'm going to channel that insanity onto some pages with whatever rough draftsmanship I have with the goal to just improve as I go and hopefully the characters/story can come to life in some form instead of just driving me schizophrenic.  I'm also going to do some random wrestling based spot illustrations and spot illos for the comic characters as well.  And knowing how easily distracted I can get in my free time I'll keep doing some practice art which probably a few pieces will get worked up to at least the inked stage.  What else?  Oh, I'm busting out my light box and inking some other comic artists on board.  I have a few OLD pages from when I was at the Kubert school and asked a few other artists I know for copies of their comic book pencils.  This is both great practice and perhaps an editor or publisher will like some of it?  I can hope. 

4.  Digital Art, Cintiq, Manga Studio, etc...  I've long been fascinated by digital art, yet I don't do it at all anymore.  Again I'm going to make another effort to teach myself and possibly take some courses to get refreshed on some of the programs for this purpose.  I haven't decided on how I'm going to tackle this yet, that's why it's fourth on the list. 

5.  Caricatures.  I'll still be doing some random caricatures at work, I'll post some here and there.  It's my primary source of employment so I'm going to see, as always, if I can continue to improve in technique even though I feel with as stiff as my hand has gotten drawing live I may have peaked as far as my actual speed of drawing faces.  The trick will be to increase the level of draftsmanship and detail while still remaining very quick.  A few of the other goals may overlap a bit and perhaps I'll create some more Illustration style caricatures to add to my portfolio. 

That's pretty much about everything for today.  I'm going to attempt to be more upbeat in my Journals and perhaps even write these a bit more often to keep myself motivated.  The main thing that's slowed me down over the years is myself, I'm sure many artists are the same.  There's so many great creative things out there I want to experience that I completely lost track of creating my own in my free time.  I'm off to clean up my apartment a bit and get to work, lots to do!
© 2016 - 2024 Wraik
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