Organising my 'Catch-All's

Over the years, I've kept these sort of 'catch-all' notebooks for collecting the ideas that appear in my head every now and then. Those ideas could be related to stories or projects that I've had in mind for ages, they could be for new stories, or they could be connected to nothing at all and just be something I'd like to keep for later. 

I don't know how often I go back to read those things I've written, especially after I've finished a notebook and moved on to the next one, and all that just leaves those ideas, even if written, alone to be forgotten about until somehow they're picked up again.

Just recently, I've found a solution to prevent that sort of thing from happening.

This might seem excessive or overwhelming

Since I have plenty of spare notebooks in my storage, I've decided to put them to use here (especially the ones that are less practical to bring everywhere I go). What I do with them is this: I dedicate one of them to a specific category that I tend to write about.

Afterwards, with my old catch-alls, I read through them thoroughly and then if I find anything I like or find that seems relevant to something I'm writing (or could potentially write), I copy that idea down into the notebook dedicated to the category that ita fits in.

So far, I have five books.

#1 is for my first major universe/group of stories: my sci-fis set in the planets revolving around Star Piaros (and beyond).

#2 is for my second major universe, where one of my other main projects is set. This is where the characters from Gone Unsupervised! and Agonie Island's other inhabitants live.

#3 is for my other stories that are not set in any of those two major universes of mine. Those stories could be one-off narratives or be set in a universe with multiple narratives, which isn't as 'huge' or as ambitious as my main two.

#4 is for any of my ideas for stories that I'm in the middle of writing that I'm not sure about keeping or leaving out. There are some ideas that I like, but I'm not exactly sure how -- or if -- I should weave them into the story that I planned them to be part of. Sometimes, I rewrite information and come up with new ideas, and I don't know what to do with the old ones that I still believe have potential.

Finally, #5 is for anything that isn't tied to any story that I'm working on, or anything huge set and/or set in stone. This book contains loose ideas, prompts, and just anything that I've written that could potentially inspire something in the future.

Now, because I've organised the things I've written in my old catch-all notebooks by copying sets of writing into their respective notebooks, this makes looking back at my old ideas much easier. This way, I can assume that nothing I've thought about and written down gets buried under assorted compilations of text, never to be read again. And also, this puts many of my spare notebooks to good use.

Starting Again

It was my birthday earlier this week (on the 10th of December) and one of the gifts I received was a sketchbook. With that sketchbook, I've decided to use it for thumbnailing my comic pages. I thought it would be nice to have a focused place to have all my thumbnail drawings, and I guess it'd be cool to flip through all the work once I've got a decent amount of pages filled.

This was from one of my aunts on my dad's side

I'm starting with my 'Gone Unsupervised!' project, of course. I'll show the thumbnails I've done for one short here. It won't be a huge spoil since this one is a remake of an already existing short, so enjoy!

Although, I do feel like that before I actually get started on drawing the actual comic itself, I should set up the character reference sheets and make some concept art for the house that the characters live in, too. 

I should've drawn up everyone's shoes in the lineup, but whatever...

Maybe I should do concept art as I go, as in: before anything new shows up, I'll do the concepts for them, rather than doing everything all at once. It might make the pace of creating this project much faster, but I don't know how well this might work in the long-run. Maybe because this is a more slice-of-life project, it won't be too harmful.

In the meantime, for 'Project: Mydan', I'm just working on its story and characters, still.

Those are what I have planned to do for now.

Process of drawing 12F.Ave's lineup

As pasted from my logs on my art Tumblr.

Day 1

Here we have sketches of the first four. (I actually changed French’s pose a little since I took the pic). Maybe I should make everyone’s posture as straight as possible so their heights are more accurate…

Day 2

Sketches of the second four are now here!

Fixed up some of the first four’s poses to have them be standing more straight so their heights are more accurate, too. Also wow, I did not know how actually tall some of these guys were. (The final four of the house actually contain the most middle-heightened people in this group, haha)

Day 3

The sketches of the final four are complete! (Thinking about giving 2.0 & Barley some more height, tho. I dunno, yet)

Here’s how the whole lineup’s looking so far…

Also, here’s some context for the heights (that blue rectangle is a 30cm ruler, btw)

Update on 'Project: Mydan'

I'll admit, when it comes to working on Project: Mydan I've deliberately decided to put off drawing it for some time. I've done it for one reason: Kamilla as the story's protagonist. For ages, I've been thinking about how to go about her role as the main character and 'hero' of the narrative. I've felt like she's not strong enough as one, at least for me.

I know, when I initially started writing Project: Mydan, I gave myself a limitation -- keep the story somewhat simple. I thought it'd be good because I could make it a little shorter to complete. However, I wanted the characters to be people we actually care about enough to follow, because in my mind, simple doesn't equal shallow.

To be continued...

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. 

Money ($$$) commissions?!

For months I've been thinking about opening up commissions where I get payed actual real money. I guess it's about time I started earning money since I've been officially an adult for a couple years now. At the moment, I'm unemployed, pretty much flat-our broke, so I've been doing a lot of job-hunting recently. But since that's going to take a while, I may as well earn some extra bucks on the side by starting to do some commissioned art.

Before I start though, I want to prepare myself a portfolio, just so I can let people know the kind of art that they're in for if they request something from me. Right now, I doubt I have much relevant art I could use for examples, so I'm creating some in my free time. But, I've been kind of slacking off in that aspect... On the bright side, my uni's mid-semester break's coming real soon so I could spare some time to work on that.

Here are some examples I'm planning on doing. I hope I'm not really overdoing myself, but since my art is more suited for comics & stuff, I've got the advantage of getting this done a lot faster than most. Anyways, here's the list:

Organising the process

Lately, I've been thinking of ways to speed up the process of my much larger, more ambitious comic projects. Now, here's the thing: since they're so long, it would be quite intimidating to work on them one at a time. It's a huge commitment and I'm kind of fickle, so I'd be afraid of losing interest, especially since they're projects that I'm really passionate about. Since I don't want to have to go through all that, I've spent a long time trying to come up with a plan to manage my projects and my time working on them.

Here's the plan: I'm going to divide those big projects into acts. Which I have done long already, since that's part of the storywriting process, but now I'm chosing to implement that aspect to use in my time-management.

It'll work something a bit like this...

First, the conditions:

• I have 2 big projects: Project A and Project B
• A has 3 Acts and B has 5 acts
• A is Set years Before the events of B and their Stories Aren't Overlapped

And here's the pattern I plan on undertaking:

1. Project A, Act 1
2. Project B, Act 1
3. Project A, Act 2
4. Project B, Act 2
5. Project A, Act 3
6. Project B, Act 3
7. Etc.

And if any new major projects pop up, I'll figure stuff out from there.