Levi George's Doodle Zone

Another year has gone by and another year this darn comic is not done. But the thing to be happy with is that I have actually done SOMETHING on it instead of letting it rot in my head like I have for the past few years. I have parts 1, 2 and 3 all plotted out (Like treatments written on paper, not just in my head). I’ve started writing (started a very awful first draft) and have dicked around with character designs enough where I have them figured out and don't feel the need to change them. I’ve been reading more books about writing too.

I’ve been reading a few comics for inspiration (procrastinating). One I LOVED was called ‘At the Shore’ by Jim Campbell and I just learned that that one took him about 8 years to complete so I guess I can cut myself some slack. I also liked one called ‘This Was Our Pact‘ by Ryan Andrews which seems like it took at least 3 years. Plus I’ve been reading Jinji Ito. 

In an ideal world, I would be much further along than I am now BUT unfortunately, I had an animation job that I just poured my heart into, plus a teaching job and those two things conspired together to cease ALL production on my comic (hence the giant gap between posts). 

But that’s okay. I can get back into the swing of everything now. To get the ball rolling, I am going to partake in Inktober and do some illustrations for g-G-Ghost!! I never really locked down the exact method, and this is a good opportunity to do so.

I think I’ll just have to accept that I’m going to fall behind schedule with the writing. It’s annoying but the time investment neems to be worth it. I’ve been getting a little cranky with my artistic and writing ability as it often feels like nothing is really coming together how I hoped. I did 3 hours of writing on the weekend, changed a few things and suddenly felt like I had no idea what I was doing and wanted to start again. Then when I came in this morning and looked at everything it seemed salvageable. Then after an hour of adding/removing ideas, it seems fine again. The project is looking more and more manageable. The treatment for Part I has gone from 5 pages to 3 pages and the story has become much more streamlined and simple.

But I’m now about 5 days behind schedule which stinks but if I just focus on writing I can probably get back on track. On a positive note I am 50% through writing and 10% through the entire project (apparently!) so that’s kind of exciting!

John Trudy, The Anatomy of Story

It turns out that writing a story is hard because you move things around and come up with more efficient ways to conveying things and then you have to cut other things so you aren’t doubling up. You put in little placeholder ideas that don’t work and you put in ideas that seem good at the time and then are bad later. In short  Bleughhh! I’m behind schedule.

Behind by 0.17% of the schedule which is about half a day. NOT GREAT! I decided that I’m going to write 2 drafts instead of 3 because I’m being so careful with this treatment that when it’s locked down it’s mostly going to be writing dialogue and if I do that it keeps me on track (Otherwise I’m a full week behind.)

Last Week:

I printed off the first draft of the treatment and wrote notes all over it. Finishing Part III meant going back to Part I and making the series arc work better. I’m kind of adjusting the characters to match the Arcs which means they are coming across differently to how I imagined but I’m seeing more of myself in both of them which is kind of interesting.

This week:

- FINISH V02 TREATMENTS FOREVER!

- Design Harriet as a kid.

Unfinished Business from last week (and the week before):

Lou’s Character Design

That will put me a little ahead again. Good luck to us all.

Other Thoughts:

I spoke to a friend who teaches English at a university about what Ghosts represent in literature and she said that they are often used as a metaphor for; repression, the shadow our selves, regret, guilt. I wonder if I should read a book or essay about this.

Well, last week was a little less constructive than I hoped. I am still figuring out exactly what is going to happen in Part III. I’ve got some good ideas that are coming together but the arc I mapped out for it was a little vague and that’s caused me some problems on this step. It also means I have to go back to Part I and probably Part II and adjust things. So I guess this week I’ll be doing some after-hours writing to keep the schedule.

I did start doing some character re-designs though. Not totally happy with them but they need to be simple because I’m going to be drawing them a LOT. I’ll probably do a few other versions.

I am BARELY ahead of this chart which is annoying. I really need to catch up on the writing aspect. I think if I spend an additional hour working from home I’ll probably be able to get back on track this week. I can't believe it’s already been almost 10% of the intended schedule.

Unfinished Business from Last Week:

Finish Part III treatment

Re-Read all complete treatments and make them flow better.

Lou’s Character Design

This Week:

Complete the unfinished things from last week 

make a good start (maybe finish?) the First Draft of Part I. If I can do that I’ll be just narrowly ahead of the curve.

Week #3 is done. My current housemate Chris is moving out and I had to empty a drawer that he let me keep some art stuff in. In it, I found cards with plot points for this comic from 2 or 3 years ago. I didn’t want to look at them because they are likely awful but I will when I finish writing.

Last Week:

Speaking of! Last week I managed to; get: 

Part III plotted out. 

Write the treatments for Part I and Part II.

I still need to re-read them and fix some small things but for the most part, they are finished. I actually thought I had to finish Part III’s treatment too (but according to last weeks blog I don’t have to so I am on schedule, just barely.)

Those assets I made a year ago are REALLY keeping me afloat. I didn’t have time to do any real character turnarounds but I did start sketching one of the characters again because I’ve gotten slightly better at drawing since I designed these characters. (All the images in this blog entry were found in sketchbooks that are 1-3 years old).

There are the most recent character designs. The one of Lou (the ghost) It probably 3 years old. The one of Harriet (the woman) is probably a little less than 2 years old. I still kind of like them but I need to re-design them SLIGHTLY.

This Week:

I would love to get back on schedule for the writing side of things. I have about 5 weeks to write 3 drafts of 3 scripts which is likely not going to happen unless I start getting up REALLY early (It’s not going to happen. I’m going to have to allow myself more time). So this week I want to:

Write the rough treatment for Part III.

Re-Read and polish the treatment for Parts I, II and hopefully III.

Maybe show someone the intended story and get some feedback.

Create 2 final Character Designs for Part I.

That won’t get me on schedule sadly but it means I’ll have a good month for writing scripts and I may have to change my daily routine to meet the deadline.

Other Things:

I didn’t track down the book about writing Dialogue because I couldn’t remember what it was called. But it was called The Art of Dramatic Writing and I have ordered a copy today. 

I started listening to The Demonologist (See the previous post) for some general guides on how Ghost and Demons work (both which feature in the story). The first chapter was VERY useful.

I’m apparently almost 50% through the writing process which is exciting. It’s exciting having this thing gradually come together. 

Week 2! Above is one of the concept frames I created last year. I am eventually going to have to start drawing new pannels again because blogs are  VISUAL medium and text is boring. Also, this pre-vis is tentatively keeping me above the progress bar that my life is now going to be a constant race against. I can feel it closing in on me and lord knows how the actual drawing part is going to go later when I am working FULL TIME and have to get UP EARLY to work on this thing.

Somehow 4-5% of a year has already passed in 2-3 weeks. I’m hoping next week I’ll be able to shoot ahead because I basically managed to achieve everything I wanted to achieve last week. 

Last Week:

- I Used Dan Harmon’s story breaking method (see previous entry) to tighten up the event’s in all 3 parts. The characters have clearer direction now.

- Came up with an interesting plot for Part II that matches everything thematically.

- Kind of figured out Part III’s plot but it’s not as tight as Part II. It still needs a bit of TLC and also needs No Scrubs.

- I basically already have a treatment for Part I but there’s a not of ideas still floating around that I need to trim down. This is a dumb thing to say about a 3 part comic that currently seems impossibly ambitious but I want to make it manageable and the story itself was getting a bit complicated when it can be very simple if I leave certain things as subtext and don’t try to force them into the text.

This Week:

- I want to start drawing some character turnarounds. They kind of already exist because I’ve been doodling the characters for a while but I want clean fresh ones. There are 2 main characters (1 as a kid and as an adult), 2 other characters and I’m sure I’ll have to design a TON of extras. For now, I’d like to get the 2 mains. Basically, I just want to draw something.

- BUT if I actually want to catch up to the schedule I need to have Part III mapped out and have drafts of the treatments for Parts I and II. This probably has to be the priority.

- I am a little worried about my ability to write good scenes and good dialogue. I have heard of some good books about writing dialogue from the Art of the Screenplay Youtube Channel. I can’t remember what it was called.

- Also, I think I just have to accept that I have limitations as a writer and it doesn't have to be perfect.

A week ago I decided to get my act together and really buckle down and work on an idea that has existed in some form since I was a uni student and started to form properly about 4 years ago. It’s a comic called ‘G-g-GHOST!’. I had the idea when an acquaintance told me he had a dream that he and I at a party but I was a Ghost and he didn’t talk to me (not totally clear on why!). In the dream, I was upset about this and in real life, it made me wonder how I was perceived as a person. Then I got more ideas for it when uni ended and everybody started breaking up from their long uni relationships. Then again when a relationship ended after 5 years and I did a LOT of self-reflection.

In 2017/2018 I started doing some pre-viz for the comic and decided I didn’t want to over plan, I just wanted to start. Write it very stream of consciousness. I was sick of managing large projects and just wanted to get to drawing basically. Unfortunately, that didn't work because it’s about a year later and the comic is still not finished (but the banner for this Tumblr is one of the panels I did finish). My friend Jase who has also been working on a comic and HAS finished told me that I should make sure I plan it carefully and I’ve decided to take his advice.

So this year (2019) I decided to go the opposite direction and completely OVER plan. I taught a class last year called ‘Digital Media Project 1′ and something I noticed was a lot of students left things until the last minute instead of gradually chipping away at their respective projects over time. I suggested that when we teach it in the future we force them to keep a weekly journal to motivate them to do something purely so they have something to write about.

SO! I decided that I’m going to apply this logic to my own project. From now on this Tumblr is going to be a (hopefully) weekly update where I just document what I did this week to make this thing finally happen. If you are reading this you should honestly not bother. It’s purely a motivational device.

Last week:

I made a spreadsheet (all projects start with a spreadsheet) and planned all the hard and soft deadlines in order to meet my deadline. I basically am treating it as a client project. I would like to have each part finished by June 20th 2020 but if that proves impossible I’d be happy to have Part I finished. This week I made a plan. The first deadline is August 20th where the writing is hopefully going to be finished.

I brushed up on Dan Harmons story Circle and planned out the arcs for each part using that. This was difficult because there are 2 central characters and each one has a separate but connected arc in each part. So there were basically 6 arcs to map out and they build on each other as 2 series arcs. I used Bubbl.us to write the basic emotional and character arcs and then wrote a more comprehensive list of actual events.

In the end, it resembled less of a story circle and more of a spiral which I am going to pretend is my own invention and it’s my way of feeling like I am less of an amateur than I really am and that I’m BREAKING DA RULES!

I was managed to get Part I to a point I was happy with. It’s the part I thought about the most last year and was happy that the pieces fit the story structure nicely. Part II is the second lap around the spiral and I think it works as an arc but is a bit uninteresting visually. Part III one characters arc I am happy with but the other is again boring. But overall I managed to stay ahead of schedule.

This week I want to:

Make Part II more interesting/exciting.

Make the character Harriet have a more interesting Arc in part III. (Basically, the hard part is finding a way to make something supernatural or interesting happen to that character)

Double check Part I and II.

Future Ideas: