my second post that idk what it's gonna be abt (progress on my comic mostly, turns out)

it is the day after this blog was born.

i didn't do much today. i slept in too late again (i've been having trouble falling asleep and as a result sleeping later than i would like to. sigh.) and between mealtimes and groceryshopping i just worked on my uni comic. it's going really well, i'm on stage 3 of drawing it and over a third of the way through (12/30 pages).

the stages are:

☑ stage 1: sketches (finished these some time in december. i had set up an affinity layout doc with my panel grid and printed all the pages on A4 printing paper. and then it was just sketching on there with my (then) newly obtained multicoloured pencils. they are somewhere towards unerasable but they make drawing sooo much more fun.) 

☑ stage 2: lineart (finished this on christmas day! wowie. used transparent paper and two layers per page because i have lineart in two colours that overlap and with it being riso-printed, it has to be like that. i used my beautiful wife faber castell 4b pencil <3 (well. like 4 of them) and this was definitely not a good thing for my hand and wrist. oh well. loved seeing all the characters gaining their shapes. i can't wait for people to see them, personally i really really love some of the drawings.)

stage 3: shading (i'm using ink-wash and it's really quite nice. my hand doesn't cramp up as much now and i loove watercolour and the like anyway, so. #yay only thing is i finally bought a lighttable/-pad for this, which is great, but also watercolour obviously appears much lighter than it actually is when howevermany lumen of light are shining through from under the paper. so i have to keep turning the lightpad off and on again to check the greyvalues, and the rest of the time i just kind of have to. trust my gut and hope for the best. so far it's working out well enough, though.)

stage 4: preparing for print (this keeps being my least favourite part of making print-products because i have to sit on the laptop for one william years, especially in cleaning up the scans. but also at this point the excitement starts to settle in that this is gonna be a real thing. so it's a bit of a two-edged business here)

stage 5: printing (in my head, i've not really been counting this as a stage, maybe because it's not as neatly trackable by page number, but i probably should. i keep underestimating how long printing stuff takes. and this is gonna be riso-printed, so it'll take extra long)

my workspace rn as i'm shading this thang. also shown: (top) my hashtag entertainment (atm this is a 7 days to die let's play) and my beloved water bottle, (right) a bag of mini spekulatius which i get to eat one (1) of for every page i finish. the rest is my very unorganized desk.

i would've put in some photos of everything btw but i haven't taken any and now i'm cozy in bed with all my things all the way over there on my desk. so not today. maybe i'll edit in some pics at a later time. 

there was something else i wanted to talk about. uh.... oh, the calendar! i made a calendar. but i think i'll make an extra post abt that when i've handed them out.

i still have to think up cover art for the comic. this is something that i always struggle with, same as with blurbs. how do you sum up 30 pages of story in one image that also has to be somewhat catchy at a glance? i've always always been bad at summaries. ough. i'll try to come up with something this week.

ok it's late. i need to try to get to sleep soon (even though i don't really want to. curse of the nightowl). i love you. 

i love this image. i use it all the time now.