24 Hours is so long... it's almost like a whole day or something...
This past Saturday (Oct. 7th) at around 11:30am I walked into my local comic shop to participate in the international 24 Comic Book Day Challenge. Once a year people all over the globe gather into comic book shops and sit for 24 hours straight writing and drawing their own comic book. It can be anything they want or have the ability to produce, with the best works collected into a book for publication later this year.
http://www.24hourcomics.com/
I found out about it the week before and signed up hoping it would spur my creative juices to actually get something done (writing and drawing). I hoped it would kick start me into full writing mode…
I arrived early and checked out the weeks comics and talked to a few people. I was going to be in the shop for 24 hours straight (or so I thought at the time) and I left all my distracting items (books, PSP, Gameboy, etc) at home. Just me and my Ipod fully devoted to churning out the best thing I can possible do. Lunch, Dinner, Snacks, Breakfast, Water and all art supplies were provided by the venue. The goal was 24 pages in 24 hours, 1 page every hour… Quite a task…
The clock strikes noon and off I go… or so I thought. I sat there for 45 min, doodling different pages, different images trying to come up with an idea that would be fun and simple to do. I couldn’t decide. Eventually I decided to do something that I had been doodling around with in my head for a while now. So I put pencil to paper and started working on Samurai Catgirls in Love.
I brought a few of my art-books to use for reference but I forgot my mannequin for action poses… I’m not skilled enough to do action poses without some sort of reference.
I managed to stay on pace more or less, cheating once to catch up by doing a loud onomatopoeia “CRACK” across one page.
However I wasn’t particularly inspired and most of my comic is just heads talking back and forth like a newspaper comic strip. Also I was doing something that most people were not and maybe I shouldn’t have been. I was inking everything…
I tried my best, but at 4 am I was exhausted, my hand was killing me and I couldn’t go on… I was on page 15. I read through what I had done so far to see if there was anyway I could finish the story, or at least get to a good stopping point… but I was just so tired and frustrated with my lack of abilities. I realized I hadn’t drawn in so long and was depressed that my skill had regressed so badly. I think what disappointed me the most was the lack of story… there was none to speak of. I was also very upset with my lettering of the comic. My handwriting looked like a 4th grader, it was embarrassing. Sigh…
When I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more, I did 2 pages of text asking some questions and stating to be continued and put all the pages in a folder and dropped in the box on my way out. It was 5 am and I had done a total of 18 pages.
I find out this weekend when I get the pages back, and if anyone is interested I might post them here or on photobucket. Not sure why though...
Ttyl
Q
http://www.24hourcomics.com/
I found out about it the week before and signed up hoping it would spur my creative juices to actually get something done (writing and drawing). I hoped it would kick start me into full writing mode…
I arrived early and checked out the weeks comics and talked to a few people. I was going to be in the shop for 24 hours straight (or so I thought at the time) and I left all my distracting items (books, PSP, Gameboy, etc) at home. Just me and my Ipod fully devoted to churning out the best thing I can possible do. Lunch, Dinner, Snacks, Breakfast, Water and all art supplies were provided by the venue. The goal was 24 pages in 24 hours, 1 page every hour… Quite a task…
The clock strikes noon and off I go… or so I thought. I sat there for 45 min, doodling different pages, different images trying to come up with an idea that would be fun and simple to do. I couldn’t decide. Eventually I decided to do something that I had been doodling around with in my head for a while now. So I put pencil to paper and started working on Samurai Catgirls in Love.
I brought a few of my art-books to use for reference but I forgot my mannequin for action poses… I’m not skilled enough to do action poses without some sort of reference.
I managed to stay on pace more or less, cheating once to catch up by doing a loud onomatopoeia “CRACK” across one page.
However I wasn’t particularly inspired and most of my comic is just heads talking back and forth like a newspaper comic strip. Also I was doing something that most people were not and maybe I shouldn’t have been. I was inking everything…
I tried my best, but at 4 am I was exhausted, my hand was killing me and I couldn’t go on… I was on page 15. I read through what I had done so far to see if there was anyway I could finish the story, or at least get to a good stopping point… but I was just so tired and frustrated with my lack of abilities. I realized I hadn’t drawn in so long and was depressed that my skill had regressed so badly. I think what disappointed me the most was the lack of story… there was none to speak of. I was also very upset with my lettering of the comic. My handwriting looked like a 4th grader, it was embarrassing. Sigh…
When I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more, I did 2 pages of text asking some questions and stating to be continued and put all the pages in a folder and dropped in the box on my way out. It was 5 am and I had done a total of 18 pages.
I find out this weekend when I get the pages back, and if anyone is interested I might post them here or on photobucket. Not sure why though...
Ttyl
Q
posted by Daniel C. at 12:16 PM
2 Comments:
I have finally gotten around to reading your most current entry in your blog. Sorry it took me so long.
Here's what I think: It's only natural to be a little off on anything, when it's been a long time since being involved in whatever. In your case, drawing in a comic style. Keep in mind that it's awesome that you went to that event knowing that you are out of practice. To me, what truly matters is that you went to experience being around alot of expected creative people. Don't dwell on what the result was, but gain confidence in fact that reguardless of skill level, you put yourself outthere. For you that's a great thing!
I am just proud of you. No matter what the judgement, just remember that with consistent effort, you will get better. :)
Hey, 18 pages is more than I could do in that amount of time. I can't really draw anything but Sonic-esque characters, so...kudos.
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