The Long March, Day 47

I’m counting my days starting from December 22, when my square job ended. I’ve been working on this second book for 47 days. Since I’ve given myself a deadline of March 31, have about 53 days to get the job done. I have to hustle.

As of today, I’ve roughed out 24 pages and have about 20 more to go. Once the roughs are done, I’ll start the inking, and then the coloring. My March 31 deadline is a really ambitious deadline. But, that’s usually the how I plan projects — I blissfully overestimate my skills and invariably underestimate the difficultly of the task I’m undertaking. Call me a cockeyed optimist.

Here day 24’s rough sketch. I’ve added a few alligators to add a sense of menace. I’ll fill in the details when I do the inking. These rough sketches are my notes to myself so that I can look at them in 45 days and have a clue about what I was thinking. I hope it works.

Wrapping up the Storyboard

Today I finished the storyboard. It’s a first draft, but I think it captures the storyline well enough to move on to the next step, which is starting to draw each cell. I scanned the storyboard pages and imported them into Photoshop. From there, I’ll extract each page and import the rough sketch into an 8x8 page for detailed work.

I’m more organized this time around. I created a _book2 directory, into which i’m collecting all of the files for this book. I created folders for the rgb and cmyk files, and one folder for all of the pages. There will be a lot of pages and, no doubt, some chaos with all of those files floating around. I’m searching for software that can organize the pages. Clip Studio Paint Ex looks like a good candidate. It’s an awesome drawing program with time-saving features that can speed production. It can also manage multiple pages as a project and export the project as a Kindle ebook or as an ePub. Sounds too good to be true! With all of those features, there’s got to be a steep learning curve. :)

This image shows pages two and three of my storyboard.

Creating "Turn Arounds" for Cuter Characters

I’m in production mode now. I’ve got the story written. The next step is to create a storyboard with images that represent and dramatize the text. Before I do these images, I need to finalize the new, cute look for each character. I’m having the hardest time with Buddy the Monarch butterfly. In his case I’ll have to settle for ugly cute, or my with just plain ugly, with a twinkle in his eye.

Here’s my first rough step on the march to doing 40 pages. I’ve giving myself 90 days to produce all of these images. Since I’m now working full-time as an illustrator/writer I’m beginning to feel pressure to produce more, better, faster. I can feel the clock ticking and the days peeling off the calendar. I want this book completed by May 1. It’s going to be a rough road — in mid-March I’m taking on a part-time job that will take time away from the book.