What I Did Today

Remember the discovery of the RMS Titanic? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

This morning I penciled two more pages so I should start inking those tomorrow. I took a nap and tried to start laying out an animation project I’m putting together. By then the decision making part of my brain was outta juice so maybe I should open with that in the morning. Treat it as a warm up exercise and get some ideas out before the precision of inking. Then my dad wanted to do some running around.

I’m still trying to make the second half of my day as productive as the first. Since I’m napping anyway I might as well treat it as a second day and freshen up in the shower. That does seem to wake me up in the morning. I’ll sort out the hours and routine after I figure out how to get that second wind.

Remember the discovery of the RMS Titanic? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

I basically took today off. I slept in hoping my anxiety would clear up after some rest. After I showered and everything my dad wanted to grab lunch and run some errands. When I got home my mom wanted to go grocery shopping. When I don’t get up early to work in the studio my time has a habit of disappearing.

I think my anxiety came on from being tired. I might try mid-day naps or something since going to bed early tends to lead to waking up before my alarm. I’m usually in bed by 9 or 10 but I don’t know. When I started the meds I had to get used to not having the anxiety. Then yesterday when it came back I didn’t know how to handle it. It’s like when you get a headache or feel nauseous. Just waiting for this feeling to go away to allow clear thought. People try to reassure me or tell me to stop feeling that way but I can’t. I know rationally there’s nothing to get worked up over but that doesn’t help. So far the meds have leveled me out, more or less. I can talk about it and not feel terrified or embarrassed. I’m making progress.

Remember the discovery of the RMS Titanic? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

I penciled two pages this morning. I was hoping to work on some more after lunch but while I was helping my dad with his trail cams my anxiety started to perk up. It was one of those, “Am I really feeling this or am I bringing it on by thinking about it?” I’m not sure what brought it on but I decided work can wait until tomorrow.

Work-wise I’m enjoying the art I’m making but feel I could be working harder. Being alone in the studio my attention starts to wander. I’ve used work playlists to keep focused in the past but I probably need to make some more. The ones I have now tend to feel monotonous after awhile.

Remember the discovery of the RMS Titanic? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

Today I penciled two pages. My goal has been to finish two pages a day but maybe I should scale back. I’ll try working on two a day and see if I can at least get a stage of production done. I’m also going to try working on another project in the afternoons to break it up. There’s one I’ve been thinking about but haven’t let myself work on as I’ve been trying to grow the buffer. I’ll see if that helps keep my head in the game. If not there’s always video editing, recording, and writing to do.

Remember Somewhere in Time? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

Spent the morning researching/writing/roughing out six pages today. Didn’t originally intend to work on that many at once, just sorta happened as I was picking topics and seeing what I could do for each one. I’ll probably split them up when I get back to them. I think two a day is a nice number assuming I can stay on target with it.

At noon my dad wanted me to come over and order a pizza. That was nice, save my cellphone deciding to show low battery, even though I know it had a good charge. When I docked it back home it still had over 50% so I’m blaming iOS 9. Last time it did that I was browsing Facebook and it was at 87% before going off like that. I’m going in next week to see if I can upgrade it.

Remember Somewhere in Time? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

I felt better today so I started cutting together a video of the various stages of my entry for the Animation Challenge. I’ll probably have that up next week. For now you can check out the compilation video of all the entries here:

My evening’s been pretty busy since then. My dad came over and we went for dinner, then I had a haircut, then my dad wanted me to ride along and check his trail cams. We only saw one deer this time, but it was in the middle of a night shot where you could only see the eyes looking creepy.

Remember Somewhere in Time? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

Today was a slow, rainy day. I got those comic pages shaded, fixed an error on an old page, and watermarked the new ones. Did some running around with my dad this afternoon and then I put together preview images for each page. I need to figure out a way to push previews and links out automatically. Most things set to share updates just embed the article which isn’t what I want. Of course I could post the previews and links on each update day manually but it’s a better use of my time to set all that in bulk so I don’t worry about forgetting something.

Remember Somewhere in Time? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

Spent Saturday inking comics. Sunday I took the day off after uploading and typing up the podcast. This morning I flat-fill colored three pages and finished shading one. I started a second but didn’t finish it before my dentist appointment and errands. I’m thinking I’d like to get this batch of comics done and then another before I get back to animating.

I’ve got a number of animation projects lined up to keep me busy. I’m eager to get to it after finishing that animation challenge entry but want to build my comic buffer up more before I dive in.

Remember being a kid and eating your favorite breakfast cereal? Check out this week’s Billy Badass!

Watch me play Don’t Starve in my new Let’s Play series NoRights Plays…!

Got up this morning at 5 and worked in the studio for a few hours. I finished inks on one page and redrew the pencils on another. Inked about half of it though I want to rework one busy panel. I’m not used to drawing such a reference-heavy comic. If I draw something I want people to recognize I try to recreate the style. That gets confusing when you’re illustrating something that’s been redesigned a bunch.

I started feeling tired so I plopped down for a nap that ended up lasting 6 hours. I wasn’t expecting to sleep that much but I’d rather do it when I can afford to as opposed to being on deadline. Then I had dinner and ran errands with mom. I’m going to see how much of those pages I can finish tomorrow and maybe Sunday since I’d like to start another batch of something soon.