Because I just wrapped up the last page of chapter one of my webcomic TUJEC and will be sharing it with you in the coming days, I thought this would be a good time to reflect. Here's what I've learned from working on chapter one of TUJEC over the last seven months: 1. Brain Breaks versus Procrastination Did you catch that? It's been SEVEN LONG months of working on just one chapter of this story. That is a hell of a long time to work on anything without losing interest. And, h

Weird title, right? Well, I promise it's not what you think. This week, I continued my comic coloring adventures, which I'm sure I will regale you with at some point in a blog. However, this will not be that blog. No, this week I also began scripting my next chapter and doing some exercises to get more familiar with my main characters' motivations and themes and ensuring I will be able to create effective chemistry between all of my characters, both romantic and platonic. So,

Let me first start off by saying that I have remorseful feelings about starting this "episode" business in the title. It seems silly. Like, perhaps "week 5" would be more appropriate. But, at this point, I've already done three this way and it feels as though I'm committed now. Also note, I've moved away from Roman numerals because they seemed pretentious...plus, looking up the next one every week seemed a little too labor intensive and ain't nobody got time for that. I digre

This week I discovered the true meaning of "getting lost in the weeds." I watched this video, panicked, and went down a character design and art style rabbit hole. Essentially, Ursula discusses how a artist's style should match or complement the tone of the work. For example, a style with very simple drawings, while effective for other types of storytelling, may not be suitable for a story with complex emotional depth. After watching it, I asked myself, does my style complim

Welcome to week two of my comic-making adventures! Thanks for sticking with me for another week! This week, I took a page from James Gurney's book. This one to be exact. My anatomy book is great, but only got me so far. People are different shapes and sizes and the body types included in anatomy books are certainly limited. Plus, I found that the positions I needed my characters to be in would be difficult to recreate accurately, unless I had a good reference image. I usual

"Why not try a web comic?" That's what my wife asked me very recently during yet another conversation about next steps for my work and where to go with it and how to do it, and blah, blah, blah. Really, she is a very patient woman. What? I balked. I couldn't possibly. "Do you even know how complex that is?" I asked her in disbelief. "I can't do that." You see, seven to eight years ago, I bought a "how-to" book with the intention of starting something similar, got intimidated