I finished the inking for Chapter 1 on… Monday. However, it turns out that I had this week off because they apparently need to check the inks before I start toning. My editor says she’ll get the inking notes and the notes for Chapter 2 to me by Thursday night her time, which means Friday afternoon my time. So there you go, an entire work-week gone – if only I knew the inking must be checked beforehand, I would have asked my editor to approve Chapter 2 earlier. Oh well.
I’ve already planned out my schedule: 3 weeks for each Chapter, including inking and toning, is my plan. This schedule ends on the 22nd May, leaving a week before the 1st June. However, my scheduling doesn’t take into account that there would be any lag time for approving inks (and from the rate things are going, pencils too). And judging by the progress, it’ll take at least 4 working days for these to be approved.
Luckily I’ve told my editor to approve my pencils (which are approved separately from the inks) as fast she can, so when I’m waiting for the verdict on the inks, I’ll have SOMETHING to do. I think I may be one of the few creators that’s not being hounded by an editor for missing deadlines, but instead hounding the editor to hurry it up so I can finish the goddamn thing and do some other stuff.
Ten Years Ago Today
I’m grateful that my work “The Dreaming” for TokyoPop isn’t the most important thing in my life, or even my manga-drawing life. It’ll be so depressing if it was. The web is where I got started, and I won’t stop drawing short stories and experimenting on that front – best way to share my work with people. Anyway, as sucky as the scheduling problems have been, I’m grateful I’ve had a week off to knock together a short story for another anthology I’m contributing to (2 contributions due this month, AIEE!). This one’s a 10-page “Twilight Zone” sort of short story, and is drawn ona 6″x9″ page. I find that drawing quality of a 1 to 1 ratio still is passable – and I work quicker too. I also mixed traditional ComicWorks tones with greyscale tones, much like what I’m doing with “The Dreaming” – hopefully spooky things won’t happen during printing. There is also more sound effects in this short story than other stories I do – but so what? Apparently, there isn’t all that much difference.
I’m only sticking up 4 out of the 10 pages. This story’s for a printed anthology after all.
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Rough Cover #2.5
Here’s another rough cover I’ve been asked to do for “The Dreaming” that’s very much like cover #2 – because cover #2 was really based on this cover and it was suggested I make the hands “creepier”. Well, we all know how that turned out. I’m 😐 about this one. I don’t know what to think, as it was the last of my original 7 cover submissions and for some reason they asked me to do this one (when this cover was the one I put the LEAST amount of thought into). I’ve always thought the very first one was my #1 preference, beyond everything else, so who knows? It’s marketing that chooses the cover, not me, so at least I’ll have someone to blame if people don’t like the cover of “The Dreaming”.
