Rrrrnng.
I'm actually being productive, here. More accurately, was being productive. I finished a full page. For that page, I like it pretty well overall: I sort-of botched the first panel (though it's not terrible), though my main regret is that I missed out on a perfect opportunity to ste--ah, I mean...borrow a pose from a reference image exactly down to the inch. (In this case...I only have one reference image of Kagomi from Inu-Yasha. And this was my chance to use it. Because she wears an outfit similar to Ruby's, it would have been an easy panel to draw, but no, I didn't think about it until after I had drawn the panel in its entirety. Oh, well.)
The second panel I also botched, in this case, me trying to use the awesome reference image I mentioned on this blog before (I have it bookmarked, even), but at least in that case, it was an epic botch. By which, I mean...the foreshortening was an absolute, utter, miserable failure, and as a result, the anatomy is horrendously off (the foreshortening needs to work in order for the anatomy to be good, and...it didn't), but in spite of that...I still like the panel.
Why?
Because in spite of the absolute terrible failures...Ruby still looks like a badass teenage superhero! It's probably one of the first times I've managed to so successfully capture what she's supposed to be. So while it's a bit of a failure artistically, conceptually, it is an absolute, entire blast of a hit.
The final panel didn't go so great, but it's not terrible, either. I think the proportions might be slightly off, and the attempt to show Ruby's head from a side perspective was a failure (I'm a weak artist, especially outside my comfort zone, and...I learned to draw in 3/4 profile, so anything beyond 7/8ths gets to be...well, of lesser quality, meaning that both front perspective and profile perspective are hard), but it's still a decent image of her. On the other side of the divide, the villain is drawn better, since for him, I just did a makeshift 3/4ths perspective which works...slightly better. Still didn't quite nail it (his hands are terrible, and everything below the hips is awful), but his face at least looks human this time. (When I envisioned him, I envisioned him as looking human, only...not quite, with slightly pointed ears, sharp teeth, and slightly--emphasis, SLIGHTLY--pointed claws. His neck is still too massive, his head a bit small, his teeth still too sharp, and claws still too prominent, but at least he looks closer to human.)
What I'm mostly here to gripe about, though, is that...well, I've been productive by producing that, yet when it comes to the next page, my body's telling me "No, we can't do much more of this". I'm right in the artistic zone. Right in it. I have the mindset to keep going. I want to get it done, I want to work on it, and I HAVE worked on it. The page has some details already put in, one panel finished, all panels outlined, the text for the page already laid out, everything done except the art in the remaining panels...
...But I've been fighting my body the entire time. My shaky hands are getting out of control. They didn't act up at all for the first page, but as soon as I started the second page, they began trembling violently. Heck, they're still shaking as I'm typing this. Especially my right hand...which, y'know. Is my drawing hand. If I focus, I can get the shaking to stop (and, yes, it requires focus, because by default, the shaking is there), but doing so places stress on my arm. As in, I quite literally am fatiguing my arm when I try to stop the shaking.
It also is a distraction. Every bit of energy I spend focusing on not losing control of my own arms and hands is a bit of energy not focused on doing my art. So while I've been forcing it to get this far, I've basically reached the limit of what my body can do. It definitely doesn't feel fair.
I mean...I have been working for a good three hours on art (aside from some minor research tracking down reference images for a scene from episode 2: not time wasted, but not something I need right now), and my body is telling me I'm hungry, so it's possible that all I need in order to shut my arms up and stop the shaking is to eat, butstill...
I WANT ART, NOT FOOD, DANG IT! I'm working on page six. There are 22 pages in the chapter. I want to get the prologue sketched before this Monday, when it's possible I'll be working again. That means today, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 16 pages after the current, means that if I only finish my current page (which, as noted, I may not be able to do) today, that's four days to do 16 pages, a rate of four pages a day.
I'm averaging maybe .75 pages a day at this point?
Something like that.
So...I have two options here.
Option one, set a different deadline. I hate, hate, HATE this option, because that enters the procrastination cycle: "Well, I missed the deadline, better set a new one" which I then miss, and set a new one and so on and so forth.
Option two...buckle down and do the work. I like this one, so...I need to work around my limitations, here. There will be a way to overcome the physical blocks. I'm overcoming the mental blocks, finally, finally, finally, so I should have a way to conquer the physical ones, too.
Because, yeah. If I don't find a way to defeat the physical limitations I'm facing right now, I'll fall straight back into the mental blocks. Inertia is strong. Get going, it's hard to stop; get stopped, it's hard to get going. I've gotten going, but the physical blockade of my body not working properly right now is giving my mind a perfect excuse to shut the engine down. And that would be absolutely catastrophic to my goal of a Red Hood Rider January 2016 release date.
As-is, I'm realistically looking at a second-half-of-January release date, even IF I finish the pages before Monday, because I'll likely be faced with work, and job searching, which I promised to start come January 2016. (I only have so many excuses left!) Given my unfamiliarity with FireAlpaca, which is looking like the best option for quickly doing my art, and how digitizing pages traditionally takes me about 1.5 times the length drawing them did (going off of The Descended, anyway--it took 2-3 days usually for me to draw a page, and 3-5 days for me to digitize it), that's going to slow me down a lot.
...So if I fail to make my end-of-Sunday deadline...(and I need to go to the Y on Sunday anyway to get my schedule)...then I'm absolutely screwed as far as my webcomic goes.
So I'm going to keep fighting.
I want you to see my work so badly!
Red Hood Rider has been dieing to be made for nine months. It's my child, now. A baby, ready to be born and grow.
It would be criminal if I didn't let it come true.
I'm actually being productive, here. More accurately, was being productive. I finished a full page. For that page, I like it pretty well overall: I sort-of botched the first panel (though it's not terrible), though my main regret is that I missed out on a perfect opportunity to ste--ah, I mean...borrow a pose from a reference image exactly down to the inch. (In this case...I only have one reference image of Kagomi from Inu-Yasha. And this was my chance to use it. Because she wears an outfit similar to Ruby's, it would have been an easy panel to draw, but no, I didn't think about it until after I had drawn the panel in its entirety. Oh, well.)
The second panel I also botched, in this case, me trying to use the awesome reference image I mentioned on this blog before (I have it bookmarked, even), but at least in that case, it was an epic botch. By which, I mean...the foreshortening was an absolute, utter, miserable failure, and as a result, the anatomy is horrendously off (the foreshortening needs to work in order for the anatomy to be good, and...it didn't), but in spite of that...I still like the panel.
Why?
Because in spite of the absolute terrible failures...Ruby still looks like a badass teenage superhero! It's probably one of the first times I've managed to so successfully capture what she's supposed to be. So while it's a bit of a failure artistically, conceptually, it is an absolute, entire blast of a hit.
The final panel didn't go so great, but it's not terrible, either. I think the proportions might be slightly off, and the attempt to show Ruby's head from a side perspective was a failure (I'm a weak artist, especially outside my comfort zone, and...I learned to draw in 3/4 profile, so anything beyond 7/8ths gets to be...well, of lesser quality, meaning that both front perspective and profile perspective are hard), but it's still a decent image of her. On the other side of the divide, the villain is drawn better, since for him, I just did a makeshift 3/4ths perspective which works...slightly better. Still didn't quite nail it (his hands are terrible, and everything below the hips is awful), but his face at least looks human this time. (When I envisioned him, I envisioned him as looking human, only...not quite, with slightly pointed ears, sharp teeth, and slightly--emphasis, SLIGHTLY--pointed claws. His neck is still too massive, his head a bit small, his teeth still too sharp, and claws still too prominent, but at least he looks closer to human.)
What I'm mostly here to gripe about, though, is that...well, I've been productive by producing that, yet when it comes to the next page, my body's telling me "No, we can't do much more of this". I'm right in the artistic zone. Right in it. I have the mindset to keep going. I want to get it done, I want to work on it, and I HAVE worked on it. The page has some details already put in, one panel finished, all panels outlined, the text for the page already laid out, everything done except the art in the remaining panels...
...But I've been fighting my body the entire time. My shaky hands are getting out of control. They didn't act up at all for the first page, but as soon as I started the second page, they began trembling violently. Heck, they're still shaking as I'm typing this. Especially my right hand...which, y'know. Is my drawing hand. If I focus, I can get the shaking to stop (and, yes, it requires focus, because by default, the shaking is there), but doing so places stress on my arm. As in, I quite literally am fatiguing my arm when I try to stop the shaking.
It also is a distraction. Every bit of energy I spend focusing on not losing control of my own arms and hands is a bit of energy not focused on doing my art. So while I've been forcing it to get this far, I've basically reached the limit of what my body can do. It definitely doesn't feel fair.
I mean...I have been working for a good three hours on art (aside from some minor research tracking down reference images for a scene from episode 2: not time wasted, but not something I need right now), and my body is telling me I'm hungry, so it's possible that all I need in order to shut my arms up and stop the shaking is to eat, butstill...
I WANT ART, NOT FOOD, DANG IT! I'm working on page six. There are 22 pages in the chapter. I want to get the prologue sketched before this Monday, when it's possible I'll be working again. That means today, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 16 pages after the current, means that if I only finish my current page (which, as noted, I may not be able to do) today, that's four days to do 16 pages, a rate of four pages a day.
I'm averaging maybe .75 pages a day at this point?
Something like that.
So...I have two options here.
Option one, set a different deadline. I hate, hate, HATE this option, because that enters the procrastination cycle: "Well, I missed the deadline, better set a new one" which I then miss, and set a new one and so on and so forth.
Option two...buckle down and do the work. I like this one, so...I need to work around my limitations, here. There will be a way to overcome the physical blocks. I'm overcoming the mental blocks, finally, finally, finally, so I should have a way to conquer the physical ones, too.
Because, yeah. If I don't find a way to defeat the physical limitations I'm facing right now, I'll fall straight back into the mental blocks. Inertia is strong. Get going, it's hard to stop; get stopped, it's hard to get going. I've gotten going, but the physical blockade of my body not working properly right now is giving my mind a perfect excuse to shut the engine down. And that would be absolutely catastrophic to my goal of a Red Hood Rider January 2016 release date.
As-is, I'm realistically looking at a second-half-of-January release date, even IF I finish the pages before Monday, because I'll likely be faced with work, and job searching, which I promised to start come January 2016. (I only have so many excuses left!) Given my unfamiliarity with FireAlpaca, which is looking like the best option for quickly doing my art, and how digitizing pages traditionally takes me about 1.5 times the length drawing them did (going off of The Descended, anyway--it took 2-3 days usually for me to draw a page, and 3-5 days for me to digitize it), that's going to slow me down a lot.
...So if I fail to make my end-of-Sunday deadline...(and I need to go to the Y on Sunday anyway to get my schedule)...then I'm absolutely screwed as far as my webcomic goes.
So I'm going to keep fighting.
I want you to see my work so badly!
Red Hood Rider has been dieing to be made for nine months. It's my child, now. A baby, ready to be born and grow.
It would be criminal if I didn't let it come true.
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