The fallacies of youth...

Life is good. An update: my foot has finally healed to the point that I can both walk and drive (I have a manual transmission and it was my clutch food that was broken) which alleviates a great deal of organizational stress in my day-to-day life. 

I have spent the last two weeks working to refine previous work that "wasn't good enough anymore." Part of the problem with being a young artist is your old work becomes outdated...and fast.

The major tackle last week was primarily decision-making. The biggest problem I face is how to take a religious story with mature subject matter and make it entertaining to a wide audience of all ages and many belief systems.

To my knowledge no one has done this successfully with Latter-day Saint material, except for the recent Book of Mormon musical, created by the South Park prodigies.

I was hoping to find a way to get feedback on the story without having to add a storyboard version of the entire comic...and the verdict? I have to storyboard the entire comic. 

It's a lot of work, but I'm pleased to announce it's already 1/2 way complete. I have over 20 pages of storyboards (with the lettering complete!) and hope to finish the next 20+ pages by the end of next week.

At which point I will be seeking beta-testers who will be given access to the story in exchange for their feedback and some free comics. I am looking for people of all walks of life young, old, male, female, Christian, Jew, Muslim--the works.

In particular, however, I need LDS parents with children who are willing to read the comic with their children.

Here's a visual update of where we are:

And some storyboards samples. Have a great week!

Light at the end of the tunnel!

Hallelujah!! A real page! I've been working a long time with this vision in my head and finally am able to start showing people what I've been envisioning....and (drruuuuuuum roll) TA DA!

An Israelite father and his son travel to Jerusalem to sell their olives at the market. Life is good. They live during the time of Solomon the Wise, about 950 BCE. Who said the Bible can't be fun? It is my conviction that many of the greatest stories of all time are contained in the Bible, irrespective of religious content--they're good stories!!!

So this is what the comic will look like. In fact, it is now what it DOES look like. I have completed the color keys for the entire comic, which was more work than expected (I was hoping just to do the first 9 pages which only has 2 lighting schemes, however, the entire comic has like 7 or 8...maybe more...). It set me back 2 days and the inks took an extra 2 days as well. Right now I will be lucky to have the first 9 pages colored by the end of next week.

But quality over quantity. I don't want to sacrifice story or art for speed...especially since I am pushing my limits in all of these areas, and now that I've set this page as the standard I think I have a lot to live up to.

Good luck to me.

First 9 Pages!

I will have completed pages to post next week! I am in the process of inking them and will be coloring them all next week.

An important part of any production is testing the "pipeline" or the workflow to make sure there are as few kinks as possible. I think of it like a well-oiled engine where all the pieces work together perfectly with very little wasted energy.

I decided to complete the first 9 pages of the comic (the total comic is now closer to 40--basically a double-issue!!) in order to make all my mistakes early on. It has been very effective since I've made a bunch of mistakes!

But I am very pleased with how it is coming along. Here's an inked panel:

Have a great week! Gotta get back to work!