Here we are again, and maybe one of these weeks I'll remember to update on the same day as last time. I'd like to start out by showing you all a picture of my son, to the left.
It's still not done, but I've made it a hard rule for each volume of the Hamlet series to have a two-page spread somewhere in there, with some moderately impressive content included on said spread. I've always wanted the series I make to have things like this ever since I read Ken Akamatsu's Negima in high school. There's this absolutely insane spread early on in the first volume of the manga of all the students rushing to get to school on time, and it really did a perfect job of cluing you in on the absolute chaos the protagonist had been thrust into; it made a hell of an impact on me, and while I don't think I've achieved the same amount of detail just yet, that original manga spread has me constantly chasing after a wow-moment of my own.
The spread for Hamlet is shaping up to have it's own type of chaos, but that's mostly because drawing a bunch of bare tree branches in winter time can get a little hard to keep track of. I do want the vibe of the page to express a certain harshness and anxiety, and I think I've met that goal, but I'm excited to see what people think once the book is out. I really do hope they like all the trees, because those have proven to be the thorn in my side that all the stairs in the last one were.
Somehow, I always manage to plan for a lot of things I don't have a ton of experience drawing, forcing myself to really dive right in and get used to it. To be honest, I find this to be a fantastic artistic exercise, because it helps me grow my skill set by the time the book is finished and I've drawing that difficult subject fifty-some-odd times. If I haven't mastered that thing, I've at least figured out some shortcut or another to convey the same amount of information.
As well, with my casual work, I'm sure I've mentioned in some place or another that I've been drilling myself on better coloring techniques. Hamlet is primarily in black-and-white, so I'm not given a lot of room there to work on coloring as a skill, but lately I've been depicting a lot of my dreams in short, colored-comics, attempting to define something that is initially very abstract for me. I'd like to make a habit out of the dream comics and maybe compile a zine at some point, but I can only work as fast as my occasionally vivid dreams and frequently aching hands will allow.
The most recent one (part of which I'll include to the right) begs for more pages to follow, but I'm desperately trying to keep Hamlet as my number one comics priority. I still have finally touches to add to the two-page spread and a whole other page to letter today, after all.
I know last time I asked for pictures of orchards as my end of blog request, but I think this time I need someone to tell me a good pastime to do between comic pages that isn't just...drawing more, different comic pages...