Update (About Time)

I know last post seemed like a complaint, and ever since then I haven't made any posts or updates.
Well that is simple.  I have been really busy, and haven't been working on any animation or drawing projects at all.

Well I am desperately trying now to get back into my creative mode at full force now.  About 2 weeks ago, I started picking up the guitar.  I have actually been learning to play both the classic acoustic guitar, and the electric bass guitar.  Since both work on a similar principal, I have slowly been teaching myself both.  I have also decided to start learning how to sight-read music, a skill that is most useful in the music world, and something which far too many people lack.  While many accomplished musicians never learned to read or write music, I find it is not that hard to do if you let your hands do the learning before your mind.  By that, I mean let your fingers figure out the muscle movements before you memorize what all the note names are.  Sure, knowing the names of the notes is important, but it comes second, in my opinion, to your ability to play the music you see.  Once you can play it, you can better understand the technical side as well, such as the note names.
So WHY am I talking about music in an animation blog?
Simple.  Music, just like drawing and animation, is an expressive art form that takes practice and determination, as well as skill, to master.  While I will never be a master guitarist, I find that getting my creative juices flowing again is a very good habit.  By thinking in a creative, and eager to learn way, I am readying myself for the next step in what I am trying to do.  Drawing.
My drawing skills have very much been a roller coaster.  At times, I can barely draw a person, even if they are standing in front of me.  At other times, I am able to draw very well, especially from a model.  I admit my weakness if drawing without a model, so I am constantly looking for reference shots to help aid my drawing.  But that only works so well.  Lately, being mainly out of practice for a long time, I find my skills are lacking, and I need to get them back to where they belong.  Drawing is not like riding a bike.  It takes constant practice, otherwise your skills decrease and you find yourself at square one again.
I am looking into a few books to help me out, as well as a few tutorials.  However, most importantly, I am back to drawing again.  The animation right now, "Weak 1", will be put on a temporary hold so I can work on the prologue to a web comic my brother and I have been working on.  It isn't up yet (obviously), and we want to have the first 8 or so pages finished before we go any further, but I am using this opportunity to get back in the habit of drawing.  I need to do a lot of drawing, in practice and study, as well as in real-world applications.  Here, I am going to using this project for both.  I am going to be setting up a deadline to finish so many pages a month, I am shooting for 1 entire drawn, inked, and colored image every week.  This is to allow for a timely and regular schedule on a web comic, something most people rely on if they like to read web comics.
So why web comics?  Again, it is part of my attempt to get myself back into my creative mode, and the best way is to do creative things.  Writing stories, playing music, drawing, all these are important creative processes, and all of them can help with animation.  The better you are at drawing, the better you will be at animation of any kind.  So I must start from the basics, and improve from there!  Besides, most of my readers enjoy web comics, and probably have found this site, if not directly through me, than through Tangent Artists, a web comic site that I am a part of.  In fact, this very comic, when it is ready to be uploaded, will be featured there, but I will be updating more on that in the future.

Now most comics will update at the very least once a week, but many update far more often.  I have seen ones from 1 or 2 a month, to one or 2 a day.  Sometimes they keep no schedule and update when they are ready, other times they have a regular update at a specific time which they stick to.  I find that those comics that update regularly have a better readership, and a lot more content to play with.  The artists also improve the most in their drawing style.  While many start simple and crude, some eventually become truly impressive as time goes on.  I am hoping that, by spending a week per page, I give myself plenty of time to practice, draw, ink, color, and finalize one page, while still leaving time for everything else I need to do.  I hope that this will help me improve draw better and faster fairly quickly.  Without a set deadline, I will slack off and not follow through.
For now, I am still in the process of drawing the first few pages.  I have been experimenting with inking and scanning techniques, and will be moving onto color soon after.  I have a few ideas on what I want to do, but this is really meant to be a learning experience for me, as well as a tool to help me practice and get better at drawing.
Of course this means the beginning will look rough, stiff, awkward, and even bad at times.  I am always hard on my own work, but every good artist is.  I hope that by using a few books, models, and (someday) classes, I will get significantly better.  This comic will help with that, and I hope that by the time the entire comic is complete, anyone who compares the first chapter and the last chapter will see a world of improvement in the art style and drawing.
Most comic artists improve their style of drawing, but they use a very stylized form, and often encourage that in their art as they develop.  Sometimes this works out wonderfully for them, other times they find they can only draw that style of character, and nothing else.  I plan to use characters that, while inspired by Japanese manga (comics), is clearly not mimicking them, and trying to use fairly accurate depictions of people, in such a way that I can apply the principals of figure drawing to this comic, despite the awkwardness and time consuming process this will create.  It may start hard, and I may never be as masterful an artist as many of my artist heroes, but with this knowledge, I plan to take a new look at my short animations, and start making quality work at a fast pace.

So, for now, my animations are on a short hold, while I work on this comic.  It will be called "A Twist of Feyt", which is a play on the Celtic inspired fey-realms and fairy creatures.  Once this comic is completed, I have plans to work on a sci-fi comic next.  I am hoping to write a story where I can combine cyber-punk and steam-punk, but that is still a long way off.  So for next time, I will be posting some drawings of my latest comic pages, with some of the techniques I will be using and some of the things I have learned.

Look forward to it!