The shock of realising you’ve grown.

As most people who follow my bits ‘n’ bobs know by now, I have a webcomic. What many may not know is that I’ve had to teach myself to draw, essentially from scratch. It’s been three solid years of going through multiple sketch pads a month, as I try to create a link between my mind and body; all so that what I see in my mind is, more or less, what appears on the page.

It really hasn’t been easy. Add together the facts that my eyesight is very…unbalanced, with some nerve damage in my hands, and a general lack of graphical artistic talent; well you can see the problem.

But last week, and again today, I’ve found it all much, much easier. Something had just clicked, and I suppose after 3 years of struggle is should have by now. And with that click came the realisation that I needed to change a few of the ways I do each webcomic page.

So today has been a first day for a few things…Acidgirlish.

I’ve switched from roughing out on A4 to A3. This was so I could mark out the proportions of the box the comic sits in on the site. I got rather sick of doing shitloads of drawing only to end up with it cut out at the end.

I’ve also switched from using a 2b pencil for everything to a 3h for rough out, and 2b for lining…that’s proving very, very awkward after 3 years of doing everything with 2b’s; but it’s actually lending a pretty cool finished product. (or as finished as the rough outs ever are.)

I’ve started working in a well-defined “hard” box. Meaning that everything I draw on paper ends up in the comic on the webpage. This is a little odd feeling in a good way. It gives me a very defined space to work inside, which makes laying out so much easier.

And finally this is my first time very harshly limiting my rough out time. 1 hour per panel to do the four stages of rough out I use. I just managed it with the 1st panel of the next page, I actually had 30 seconds to spare. And guess what? My rough out work was so much better than usual. The time limit means I don’t have time to mess about trying to get this line, or that line perfect. The rough lines end up more…real because I’m just letting my mind and body to get on with it; much less conscious thinking involved, and far less worrying about whether it’s “right”.

In short in the past two weeks I’ve progressed so much as a developing artist that for once even I can see it. Me, the super self-critical creative person can see genuine progress in the development of my own artistic style…hell one of these days I might even feel comfortable describing myself as an artist!

So all that said, the new page will be up on Thursday the 3rd. And for the second time ever (last week being the first) I’m finding myself feeling confident in my own creation. It still feels, surprising to actually feel nearly as confident in my artwork as I usually am in my writing, alien even. I’m so used to not being sure whether something is right or not, that feeling instinctively that even if it’s not how someone else would do it, it is right, my version of right, it’s shocking. And hugely enjoyable. I highly recommend it.

Webcomic Update…

After way too long, and WAAAY too many completely redraws the new page is up! Enjoy page 8 of Acidgirl.

Acidgirl Page 8

Waking up can be rough sometimes…

So last night I had a dream where my PTSD had vanished, I was my old self again, and the really gorgeous goth girl who gets off the bus across the street from my house most days had asked me out; AND it gets better…

I had just bought an old 2 door cinema, and was converting the two theatres into a house for myself, with these insane multi-tiered mezzanine floors, and enclose spiral staircases between them, two walk in wardrobes, a 100 square foot artists studio, a command centre of my own with a custom dual motheboard, 4 graphics card, 32 gigabyte, liquid cooled gaming rig. Oh and a 16 foot projected screen with 7.1 surround sound for my 360…AND it got better.

The following morning I was travelling to ComicCon as a panellist, because not only had Acidgirl become huge, but it had been made in to a cartoon. The dream ended with my PiC and I having a pint with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Then I woke up…rough morning man, rough morning.

I forgot to do this last Wednesday. Webcomic update!

Yeah what with my having a birthday last week I got kind of distracted. Anyway, here is last weeks page of my webcomic, and yes there will be one on Wednesday too.

Page 6

New Webcomic Pages. (Oh and I’ll be blogging once a week again pretty soon.)

Well the good news is that after a week of being too sick to sit and draw Acidgirl is back with a double day.

http://acidgirl.thecomicseries.com/comics/15/

The better news is that I will be back to updating this blog regularly pretty soon after my birthday in the beginning of March. It’ll only be once a week, but I’ll be putting up one decent length article per week, and I guess that’s something.

Webcomic Update Page 2

A week already?! Wow, well here I am shilling my second page of the revamped, rebooted Acidgirl. This time I managed to draw it in about half the time last weeks took. Who knows at this rate I may even find the time to do two pages a week…but not ’til after my birthday hangover next month at the very least.

Acidgirl Page 2

Webcomic update.

After a forever of waiting I’ve relaunched my webcomic, Acidgirl. The time seemed right. This is a complete, and total restart. And it starts…well, now. Enjoy.

http://acidgirl.thecomicseries.com/comics/12/

Acidgirl Page 3.

Starting a little weekly thing here as I haven’t figured out how to publicize my webcomic through the host site yet. So for now at least each Friday there’ll be a link posted to the latest page here. Anyway click away if you’re interested.

Acidgirl – Page 3

A dream came true yesterday. What I learned from making it a reality.

Anyone who has paid any sort of attention to my blog over the past year will know that one of my long-term life goals has been to have my own webcomic. Well as of 1pm yesterday that dream finally became reality. Yes, that’s right loyal reader, Acidgirl is now and honest to goodness, live webcomic, updating every Friday at 1pm (until I get faster at drawing them then it’ll be twice a week, and we’ll see what the future holds after that.) It’s been a long, hard slog to reach this stage. Well over a year of teaching myself to draw, learning how to use various art programs, getting to grips with my graphics tablet. In short, in one year I taught myself all the basics I needed to know. Mastering them…well there’s a reason I’m only putting one page up a week for the time being.

But as excited as I am about the reality of being webcomic artist, what I really want to speak about today are the lessons I’ve learned from reaching this stage. And I don’t mean the skills, I’m speaking here about the life lessons I learned over the past year, and a half.

Eighteen months ago (more or less) I decided to write a webcomic. The original idea was as far from the Acidgirl concept as it’s possible to get without literally moving to a parallel universe. But it really excited me to have this concept jump almost fully formed in to my mind. Then I tried to draw some of it. The results were less than good. Actually the results being described as bad would be complimenting them far too profusely. The results were frankly, frikkin’ awful. The bastard love-child of Star Trek: The Final Frontier, and the last All Saints album, it died a cold lonely death, unwanted, and unloved by anyone but me. I weep for it still. No really, see? Actual tears.

It was a disheartening experience to say the least. But I learned from it. I realised that while I could write (if punctuation was ignored, and it often was), I couldn’t draw anymore. There was a time when I could draw extremely well. A time when I won competitions, and small awards for my artwork as a child and a teen. But the intervening 20-ish years had put paid to those skills, and if I was to ever be a web-artist I would need to relearn everything, from scratch.

It was a hard lesson to learn. It nearly killed my dream there and then.

But I persevered, and around November of last year realised that my artwork had reached a good enough standard to start putting up pages. Note how I said “good enough”.

That’s the second biggest lesson I learned building up to yesterday. That sometimes there is such a thing as good enough. As horrible a thought as that is to any perfectionist, much less one with a nasty case of O.C.D. What I put up yesterday is not perfect. It’s not as well drawn as I wish it was. It’s not really in the style I wanted it to be. It’s not a lot of things, but it is good enough for a start. It is good enough that people will see where I’m trying to go with it. And it is a starting point, a point I can build on, and develop from.

That was the biggest and most important lesson I’ve learned over the past 18 months, that even if I’m still drawing comics in a decades time, it’ll still only  be a starting point. You’re never going to reach the zenith of your skills, style, techniques. Because it’s all an ongoing learning experience.

I now know that I will still be studying drawing techniques in decades to come. I know that I will still be practicing in years to come because it’s the only way to improve my skills, but I also now understand that I will never get it perfect, I will always be chasing that imaginary goal, and it will always be on the horizon. I for the first time truly understand the idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become truly proficient in any skill. 10,000 hours of doing that skill, not studying it, not thinking about it, but doing it. I’m now excited by the idea of going to events, museums, bars, burlesque nights. You know purely to practice life drawing, nothing to do with the semi-nude ladie…okay even I couldn’t keep a straight face on that one. I’m excited that alongside my writing I have another complimentary skill to practice, and grow into, perhaps for the rest of my life.

And who knows, in a few years I might even get to a point where I can tell the story of my original idea. We’ll see.

But in the mean time I have Abigail Acidgirl’s story to tell. (<—- that’s the link to my webcomic, you know, in case you missed the first two times I put it in this article.)