Pusing past "boring" bits

(Undated entry, possibly written in Februrary 2025)

I've been pretty inactive for some time, and the reason is -- I'll admit -- because I've been putting off a boring part. In other words, I haven't been disciplined enough to just get that boring bit done and over with. The boring bit in question is the concept art for a recuring weapon/tool that the main protagonist of Project: Mydan (AKA Kamilla) uses. Not that I necessarily find making concept art of weapons and tools boring, it's just that it's not really my strong point and because of that, the process gets less interesting. However, I shouldn't let something like that cause there to be a huge gap in my progress. I shouldn't have to keep relying on waiting for motivation or inspiration to come.

Progress after finishing semester 2 of 2024

I'm going to be honest. Since my previous entry, nothing has changed, especially because of how I really wanted to focus on uni for the year's second semester. The task I needed to clear before I'm really happy to move forward is still trying to get the design for Kamilla's blaster right, and for months (or at least during the pockets of time I spent working on Project: Mydan) I felt like things were going nowhere. 

However, I strongly believe that now's the time I can actually get it done. You see, last semester, one of my courses required me to make design concepts for characters, making me experience the process of starting with various ideas evolving into a final product. Now, I'm applying what I've learnt from that experience into my own work, starting with Project: Mydan. Although I've been slacking abt in my progress (I'm just tyring to gain some momentum in this stage), I've managed to get some solid ideas down for Kamilla's blaster. I feel like I'm actually not going nowhere and just redrawing weapons, and instead using my references to get forwards in the design. I've been motivated and inspired lately. I hope to finaly come back.

Re-doing some things

I'm getting back into working on my comics again. I'm hoping this habit won't last a short time, this time. Right now, I'm starting with 'Project: Mydan'.

Just recently, I've rewritten the current scene I'm up to, which is right after Kamilla splits up with her friends, in the crater of city rubble, to look for her trailer and metal pieces. I did this because initially, I wasn't happy with how it turned out. This meant I also had to redraw a bunch of thumbnails.

Looking at the scene (which I'm going to avoid spoiling if anyone reads this), there is a thing or a few that I definitely need to make concept art of. For instance, a tool that Kamilla uses in an upcoming action scene, and also the mysterious machine piece that she finds. Maybe I should do some sketches of the crater, as well. That should be it.

Honestly, getting back into drawing and writing these projects makes me feel happy. I'm glad that I hadn't lost passion. I guess it was a little dormant for a while. 

Aiming for a 2024 Revival!

Hello everyone! I haven't posted here in a while. As you can probably guess from my lack of activity here (and pretty much everywhere else) lately, I haven't been doing much on my projects. And this is even though I had all of my Summer holidays to work on them. 

All that might sound worrying for most, but not for me. I know that my passion is still there, and it needs to be re-ignited with the right ingredients for its fuel. Recently, I have been trying to figure out what they are. This process may take just one guess, or, more likely, I'll have to test out multiple theories

So far, the theories I have come to a total of one. That theory is this: "If I update my project blog (and my projects Tumblr) on a more regular basis, then I will be more likely to do more work on my projects." Hopefully, this is the one. If not, that's too bad. But whatever happens, I'm looking forward to continuing my comics! ...And maybe more...?

(Also, uni's back and it's my final year, so it's going to be hell for me)

First Commission!

Just last night I've gotten paid to do my first commission - with real money - ever. This is so exciting! I was so nervous that this time would never come, but it happened anyway which I'm super grateful for. The commissioner, a friend of a friend, found my offers on DeviantArt, which is one of the places where I announced that I was open. 

Aside from Instagram, I feel like DA is where I've most successfully grrown an audience. I guess that also makes sense because DA is a platform that I have been on since early 2014 (at age 12-13), and I have met people who have grown up with me and my art. Even after the time the UI changed permanently and many users moved to other places like Twitter, Tumblr, etc. there have been some old mutuals who have stayed and still see my art. 

To get myself ready for opening commissions, I really thought that I had to gather up good examples for the variety of character drawings that I'm able to do. And because I lacked any relevant/recent examples of characters that were my own, I decided I would do nine drawings before I would open. That didn't work out. I wasn't very consistent with my time and effort. I guess forcing myself to draw up 18 examples was not the best idea. Anyways, I gave up and just did small doodle examples xD

You can see what I've done on my commissions webpage, which you can view here.

What you see on my commissions page may seem a bit too "mathematical" or maybe even boring to read. So, I have also been considering putting together a sheet which showcases my prices in a more appealing manner. I still don't exactly know how yet, so I'll leave that for later.

Aside from working on my first commission, that's all that I have planned in relation to commissions. And who knows? -- maybe getting into commission work will motivate me back into regularly drawing again... :O

Doodling without sketching

Recently, I've discovered a skill that I want to put in a lot of my time and dedication into. And that skill is being able to draw my characters without there needing to draw a detailed sketch underneath. 

In other words, I want something like a "dumbed down" version of my art style so that I can quickly make little comic strips and shorts. This would especially be useful for if the comic is just a small scenario, usually for some quick laughs or for just to tell a moment.

Here are some of my attempts:

A dynamic pose

I may include "noodle arms" on occasion

This skill of drawing with minimal sketching should also be able to help me in creating strong character design, too. If I have too much detail in a character, I would either forget to include them or I would struggle to add them without having to erase what goes underneath it. This is especially useful because in comics, I would have to keep drawing the same characters over and over. 

It was actually only not too long ago when I realised I could apply drawing without sketching to my art. At the time of writing this post, my current media of interest is the TV series, We Bare Bears. This series was my main motivation to practice the skill.

We Bare Bears by Daniel Chong

I was looking at the art style used to draw the bears themselves and I noticed how simplistic yet strong and memorable they were. Eventually, I doodled them on paper and I loved how easy it was. 

I eventually found the webcomic that inspired We Bare Bears: "The Three Bare Bears" and this was the hammer to the nail. I want to make dumb little comics, but I don't want to have to put as much time and effort into them as my more ambitious projects. This was the inspiration of the motivation.

The Three Bare Bears webcomic by Daniel Chong

I'll wish myself luck!

A realisation

Lately, I just hadn't been feeling the best I coul've been. Lately I've been feeling kind of down. Everything just felt slower and sometimes I was even finding it difficult to look forward to the day. This has been affecting many important aspects of my life, including working on my comics. 

When it came to working on my Mydan project, the uploads had been extended to being a page per week, which is, considering my process for drawing up each page, not enough. After each upload, I tell myself I can do better and I try to find motivation. But even so, I never improve.

Becase of this, I had been trying to find what I have been missing. What sort of things motivate me to do more? What can I do to make each day count? It took me forever, but now, it's finally hit me. What I found was lacking was that I wasn't really putting as much visual direction into my pages as much as I used to. 

I forgot about the fact that almost every panel (or "shot") shoud have its own character. And because I forgot about that, when I would draw, there would bee a sort of "stale" feeling. It felt like a chore to get to the next pages. I forgot about the media that I drew inspiration from and I forgot how to bring my heart and soul into my project.

Now that I've learned that, I feel like I've cleared an obstacle out of the way. All that's left is to find the motivation to take action...

Progress!

The prologue of Mydan is nearly coming to an end, which can only mean the (hopefully) soon arrival of the comic's first chapter. Although it hasn't been too long since I started (since about May 2022), I'm glad that I was able to make it this far. That's because it seems that almost every time I make an attempt to start a comic series (heck, even a comic short) I always end up losing motivation and putting it off for who knows how long. Guess you could say Mydan could be the one that stays for long. Honestly, who knows? But nonetheless, I'm pretty confident in this series :P

Also, it was in the past week/fortnight that I've had a couple of big motivation-boosts! First, on the 3rd of August, a close friend of mine shared my project sites to their class at university as an example for whatever it was their course was focusing on, and I couldn't be more thankful. And if THAT wasn't enough, I only learned just yesterday that Mydan was featured on the homepage of The Duck, a webcomics hosting site that I post on. Words cannot describe how happy I was at that. I've never felt so aknowledged before, and there's the bonus points that I don't really promote my stuff much. Here's the link to the feature: https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/09/featured-comic-mydan-post-beginnings/

YEAH BABY, there's my lil boy!!!