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Done is better than Perfect.

You hear that a lot in comics.

Done is better than perfect.

It’s like any aphorism, there’s always counter examples:

Done perfectly is better than done. And no-one remembers how long a project takes, only whether it’s any good or not.

But Done Perfectly is hard, and for every project done perfectly there’s a thousand unfinished, not-quite-there projects that are never finished. (and it’s a dead cert that the people making it don’t think it’s done perfectly)

Last year, when I began acting again, I did Macbeth (minor, but fun role) and I thought ‘God, I’d love to do an adaptation of Macbeth – as a grand sweeping sci-fi space opera, but keeping Shakespeare’s dialogue entirely intact’.

A designed a couple of characters – Macbeth, the witches, Duncan – basing it on things I thought would look amazing (touching on Aubrey Beardsley, Kirby, Charles Rennie MacIntosh, and more)

And then… well, I realised it’s gonna be over 300 pages (at least a years worth of work), and may be just out of my grasp artistically and who on earth would pay me to do it?

This month, though, doing one-page-a-day comics (setting a maximum time limit of 45 minutes of so, though I haven’t kept count, so it’s possible I blew that up) I’ve discovered I can draw enjoyable to read and draw comics that don’t require the same time/effort/perfectionism as my day job.

And, as a fun experiment I thought I’d apply that to the first page of the Macbeth strip. And, you know what, it worked. In so much as I got one page finished of a 300 page project that I was never gonna draw.

Will I do more? Maybe. Maybe next month after inktober, if the mood takes me and things settle down (even stealing a one hour out of my day is taking me off things I need to be doing).

Anyhue, here’s Macbeth, the sci-fi space epic, first page. If I do more it’ll be behind the paywall, because, well, it’s got to be some value for money for people here, right?

Well, maybe more.

1. Know the horizon line and the eye level. They amount to the same thing, except the horizon line is the furthest point in the distance (where the horizon would be if the world were completely flat and didn’t have mountains/lakes or buildings in the way) and the eye level is a line that runs exactly through the horizon line except it’s where you’ve placed the viewer of your image, so represents as close as you can get to the viewer.

(A wobbly horizon and wobblier eyeline, but just imagine one is going right through the other!)

2. Things that are closer to the eye line are larger. Things that are further from the eye line are smaller! (I know, this is remarkable stuff!). When you’re dealing with drawings though, this isn’t quite enough, because, who’s to say that two squares floating in space, one smaller than the other in 2D aren’t just two different sized squares floating side by side? Then you need to bluff.

3. Overlapping helps your brain organise which items are in front of and behind other objects. Overlap a large square over a small square and it looks like the small square is much further away (join the squares up at the corner and voila! a cube!)

4. Use the eyeline as a way to hang things the same height as the eye line – so if your eyeline is 5’4″ (I’M SHORT – DEAL WITH IT) up then anything that hits that eyeline will appear 5″ 4′. It’s just the way our brains handle it.

5. If something is taller or shorter than the eye line, figure out where the eyeline would intersect it and place all your objects where on the eyeline where the intersect.

That’s it. You don’t need no steenking vanishing points.

I’m going to be delving into these topics in much more serious depth, BUT only for patreons, I’m afraid. If this is the kind of knowledge you want then sign up for the Backstage pass. I’ve limited numbers of $5 passes so if you’re in early you’re paying half. Otherwise it ten bucks.

I think perspective is a subject that too many people are afraid off because it very quickly becomes an exercise in technical drawing. You’re drawing hundreds of lines for guides before you get to do anything creative. But I’m pretty sure there’s an awful lot of stuff you can do without playing that game. Join me and you’ll see.

Back to the story, after our unscheduled ad break.

(I had intended to properly interrupt the story with the ad, but decided to get back to it. Ad many appear in the back of any print comic…)

I’m kind of enjoying this one page per day thing. These are taking me between 10-50 minutes. (I hope, I haven’t timed them. I’ll be horrified if they’re taking more than an hour…).

I’ve sort of got an ending for this story, but I’m actually tempted to keep going. Not with this, with something else in November.

The benifit is the pressure is low – I just sit and think of something to do and draw that. It’s a little more pressure a few days in since now you actually have a story and an end point you’ve got to get to, and you can’t quite meander all over.

My plan is to do a simple 28 pages story, with cover and back cover, it means, potentially I have a 32 page comic. Which I’ll self publish and bring to cons etc (but in very limited runs).

I’m trying to think of the best way to give this away online though. My initial plan was just push it twitter (which is satisfying artistically if not financially rewarding) but you guys deserve it exclusively. 

New plan might be: one page a day on here (for all paying patreons) then at the weekend I unlock all the pages and send people over to read a week’s worth.

That’s worth considering.

(Course everything will fall apart the moment I have too much work on… which I already do. But this is like a little break from that)

At some point I should investigate comixology for selling digital comics.

My youngest son has been doing his own inktober comic too. It’s been fun sitting with him (and he’s enjoying mine) and I’ve been pushing that on twitter. I’ll maybe link his here to.

Anyway, any thoughts you have on the matter that’d be awesome. 

Oh, this Saturday is 24 hour comic book day – but you’re nuts if you think I’m committing to doing one of those.

Thought I’d take a silly one page detour, to amuse Tom. My kids love that turtle meme. (You’d think it had played out by now, but they love it)

Tom had some edits – always valuable feedback. Found the flashback stuff a little confusing (I mean they’re in space, so flashbacks to them in space WILL be confusing for a kid) so I’ve edited page 4 to make it more clear too.

There are other things I should be doing, but I actually find this relaxing…

edited to make it more obvious it’s a flashback.