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Well from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm today I did my first attempt at my 12×6 Comic Challenge. The idea is to do a 12 comic pages in 12 hours jam six times (giving a 72 page graphic novella). So today I tried to do 12 pages in 12 hours that will be part of a final 72 pages that will be done at the end of June.

The story starts with the diminutive circus strong man, Ollie being rescued by his sister, Tess who has been looking for him for many years. At the small train station they catch a train along with a short older women and well dress gentleman. Things start to get odd when the old women goes to the back of the train and rings a bell. This leads to the train stopping with a large man standing in the tracks….

I will post final art when it’s ready. Encouragement is always appreciated.

The result: I did not get as much done as I would have liked. When I did the 2008 24HCBD challenge I really did well I feel, but today the results were hardly finished. This might have been for a few reasons…

- I have been thinking up ideas for the comic all week, all the while trying not to plan in my head the comic too much. Trying to live up to what was in my head is possibly a problem.

- Take the time to design the characters in some detail before you draw the character. It was hard to jump into inking with confidence when your drawings of characters very in look and proportion.

- If you really want to get it done in time: less characters, simple setting. I had 6 characters.

- Try hard not to be a perfectionist.

- I added 4 additional pages to make the story work.

- Some materials were hard to find since I did not get organized ahead of time. In my case a small brush.

- I had a week of sickness, a friends memorial service, and a parent in the hospital.

What did work:

- If your stuck, work on something else. When I found that I was too worried about the inking to do a good job I switch to drawings the panel boarders.

- Rough out at least the start and end of the story and work on those first, then fill in the gaps. This worked well, though I did add some pages (16 in all).

- Avoiding realism.

- Have templates made ahead of time.

- Remember that it’s only the first part of a bigger project and there’s time to learn and to catch up.

Final result: Basic character designs. Chapter 1 (16 pages) fully plotted, penciled, panel boarders drawn, and inking started. I plan to work on it more in the coming weeks.

Continue reading »]]> I have a project I plan to do this year staring next weekend (Sun Jan 25, 2009)…the 12×5 Comic Challenge. I really want to create more artwork and do more projects this year and I figured one way to do that would be to make a challenge for myself.

I really liked the results of my 24HCBD comic (see it here: http://atomicbearpress.com/2008/11/11/team-sonic-x-page-1-and-2/) and wanted to take what I learned and keep moving forward.

The idea is that I will do a 12 comic pages in TWELVE hour jam SIX times. I.E. 12×6=72 pages. That will give me a graphic novella that will be drawn by the San Diego Comic-Con.

My rules are:

- Do draw the comic at some other location away from home if possible. Less distractions make is easier to do.

- Do the first 12 page jam as a stand alone story.

- After the first 12×6 challenge you can work on the project in-between, but you still have to do all 6 challenges. The idea is to do more projects and more art after all.

- Like 24HCBD, don’t write the story ahead of time or make big plans. But do plan themes and gernés ahead of time and think up general ideas.

- Production work can be done after/in-between the 12hr jams. The important thing is to produce 12 pages of art on each jam.

- Do post the art on-line.

- Do invite other artist to join in the fun.

- Do dedicate the story to someone that matters to you if possible.

- Do reschedule if you can not do the jam when planned.

The only issue I have now is to find a place to do the jam and get figure out how big to create the art. Since my father is having some serious health problems, I might need to do the challenge at home.

I all ready know what ideas and concepts I want to use, but I will not state them encase I decided to change them.