Thoughts on the Process
This week, more than most weeks, I've done a fair amount of sketching -- of both nemu*nemu and non-comic related stuff.
The way I draw the comic now is quite a departure from how I normally draw (or drew) characters. So every once in a while, I feel the urge to just draw in different styles, sort of like "cleansing the palette" and breaking the monotony.
What I find is that my sketches when I'm not thinking are really good rough ideas on paper. It's where our t-shirt ideas and clip art usually come from. However, when I switch gears and am presented with a task and have to complete it, it's a lot harder to come up with something creative. Brain gets stuck in task-mode and ideas just get all jammed up.
So today, after finishing up Chapter 34 (2 more after today's strip), I started working on an illustration. In it's rawest sketch form (practically stick figures...), it's actually a really great idea! But when I started to tighten up the forms, it started to fall apart and look "forced"... so I broke it down into "parts".
The first part is the wallpaper of the month, the Riders. The second part was supposed to be the Crimson Scarab and Cyan Cicada. The third part would be all the Dark Hole enemies. Then I'd put them all together into a finished poster or wallpaper or something.
Part one looked great and went live. Part two is taking way too long. What you see if the lineart for the Crimson Scarab -- but the finished effect just isn't what I was looking for... so I might put it aside and come back to it later, and maybe use the completed image for something else.
It's strange how something that's really fresh and has so much potential can somehow dry up in the process when too much thought goes into it.
Do you think too much? When you're over-thinking a task, what do you do to get back on the right track?
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