DC Conspiracy[dots pattern]

5.07.2008

Scheduling is key

So, I had a moment yesterday when I started looking at all the art projects I have that I want to work on. Stuff I'm committed to. I started putting them in order and really thinking about how long each project is going to take, and before long realized that I'm pretty much booked up till mid November now. It's not really surprising, as I have a problem saying "NO" to a good idea. Here's the order of events in which I want to work:

1. Trickster - 8 pgs full color. 4 weeks to complete.
2. DC Conspiracy's "Wonders of science" anthology - 12 pages B& W. 6 weeks to complete.
3. Webcomic Softshell - 26 pages full color - 13 weeks to complete
4. DC Conspiracy's next genre anthology
5. Project 'Aspect'. I'm not talking about this too much right now, but it's a graphic novel I'm writing.

So, with that said, and with leaving the last off the count as I'm not entirely sure how long that is going to be, I'm looking at 54-58 pages of comic art over the next 6 months or so. Totally doable, but I need to really think about deadlines, even if they are self imposed deadlines, and work on meeting them regularly.

Had a talk with Laura about scheduling my work with my personal life, and we came up with a plan that allows me three to four evenings a week to work without anyone feeling neglected or my marraige devalued. Anyway, yesterday I got my hands on a big desk calendar and started playing around with how to best break these projects down to something I can work with and set milestones with which to guage my progress. Here's what I came up with for the month of May and Trickster, which is due at the end of the month:

Photobucket

It's hard to read, but the pink represents 'Pre-production' work that might include thumbnailing, photo references, character designs, etc. I allowed four days for that. I think that was fine for this project, and seeing as how I only accepted this assignment last Wednesday it really had to come together fast.

The yellow section is where I've allowed for pencil work to be done. Here's really the big challenge for me, as I'm always battling the urge to start inks before the pencils are done. It's always something like "Wow, that panel came out really well in the pencils. I wonder how good it's going to come out in the inks?" and then I've got half the work inked and half of it yet to pencil. With the last project I finished, I tried to focus more on knocking out all the pencils first. I didn't succeed, but I did manage to do the lions share in one cluster, and I noticed it really made the entire inking process go really fast. So, with Trickster I'm setting my foot down and doing this right.

The orange section of the schedule is for inking, greyscaling, and coloring. I'm hoping to finish the pencils early and be able to devote more time to this, but I know I can ink 8 pages in less than two weeks, and the greyscaling is pretty fast for me. The coloring should be a breeze, as I'll be doing that at work during the day. It's not a gross misuse of my time at work, but it's something I will have to work on to keep under wraps.

The green section of the schedule is for "Post-production" work. Any digital manipulation that needs to be done, whether that means compositing images, or lettering, or tiff generation. There's probably way too much time allotted here for that, but 6 days should completely cover that and allow for any makeup if I fall off schedule anywhere else. It's also the first project I'm applying this scheduling process to, so I wanted to give myself a little breathing room.

All in all it still works out to two pages a week. That's pretty much my standard pace, but this just compartmentalizes each step and lets me work to completion on each phase before moving to the next. I think it'll help for stability and continuity through each project. I'm also making notes each day on the calendar of how much work was done the night before, or when the final step of that phase is reached (thumbnails submitted to editor, pencilled three pages, etc) That should help me look back on this schedule and taylor the next to what my pace actually is. I suspect that this will coax me into working faster, which is what most industry professionals will tell you to do. Carla Speed-McNeil once told me that if you're looking to develop your style more then just draw faster. Like most things in life, your style will develop better whe you're not forcing it to. If you just focus on drawing faster you'll allow your style to devolop and refine more naturally.

Anyway, thought some of you might find this interesting, so I thought I'd share.

Jacob   

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