Waiting for Spring

Where to begin?

A comic about the day to day life of @sketch-a-bsinthe 's coastal orcs.

Firstly, I guess, I have had so many crisises of confidence around this comic. I've swung between 'this is going well!' and 'this is total trash!' way more times than I'd care to mention: from drawing the figures to painting the backgrounds to the panelling, layout and progression! I've always wanted to do a comic but I've never had the confidence and there are a few times I almost gave up and trashed this half way through. I'm proud of myself though and even of I'm not happy with the result I'm happy that I made the effort.

From a technical perspective:

1: My biggest criticism is that the 'far off' figures are too poorly drawn. I know there's a limited amount you can do on paper since I can't zoom / magnify etc but I feel like I was a bit lazy and could have made a bit more effort in defining their forms.

2: By the time I got around to the painting I was really losing my will to carry on so after the water I started rushing things and I think it shows. I had a reference book on hand ( Nausicaa: watercolour impressions ) that I intended to use but I totally forgot. Next time references would be much better.

3: Speaking of references: I could have probably used references for the foliage, the fish and the chef's setup. I scribbled them from my imagination and they're kind of lacking.

4: Although I've been reading comics and manga for nearly two decades now I still made a few rookie mistakes. The fisher orc does a random 180° turn that isn't communicated in order to face her away from the sea, the panelling is a bit dull and I think I could use some clarity in who certain speech bubbles belonged to ( the chef's first yell, page 5 panel 1 ).

Overall, mixed feelings! Proud of what I've achieved. Not entirely happy with the outcome. I'm glad I started small though! In the past I've made the mistake of planning to start with a *small* 12 issue ( 24 pages per issue ) comic. If I nearly gave up with 5.3 pages then 288 would have probably killed me. I think I'll try 8 pages next!

a few of my recent commissions!