Ramblings du jour:

ZAP!

…

Well, it appears that technique still doesn't work.
I wish there was a zap button to take the images out of my head and lay them on the paper, at least in pencil form, to speed things up.

Right now each individual page is running between 3 and 4 hours just to paint. The fewer frames per page, the faster the painting goes, but the slower the story moves. I don't track the time it takes to develop it in sketches because I already know that number would be depressing.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the process, I just don't have as much time to devote to it as I might wish. I miss the days where the routine was: wake up, get caffeinated, check email, paint, eat, get more caffeine, paint, eat, game, sketch, study, optional nap, start over.
So.
Since I piece the pages together in what spare hours I have in a week, it's taking about a week to ten days to get three pages done. (Three, because that's how many I can tape the the art board at a time.)
I don't want to abandon the color to speed it up - I enjoy the lushness of the watercolored frames - and I feel like the work would lose too much if only inked. Don't even mention pencil - the pencil version of page one http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb194/Red_Said/Tapestry%20Bonus/tapestry_1_pencil.jpg was eight hours and much cramping of the hand.
Le sigh.
I am eager to increase the update frequency, and it is sheer force of will to remain at one post a week right now. I just have to keep reminding myself that we've only got a backlog through page eleven, really, since I went off on a tangent doing some character art and pages one and two of the first main story arc. I want to have a good two months solid of backlog before we increase frequency. The idea is, with the backlog, hopefully I can continue to produce pages at the same rate to maintain a stable backlog and if there does happen to be a hiccup in production due to real life, posting will continue as usual. Erratic postings and delays tend to plague new comics, and it seems better to stick to the plodding, once-a-week update right now rather than risk a break in the update schedule. It also gives us time to hammer out the html into what we want. (And by we I mean I poke Shirtgoth and he fiddles with the code and we both stare at the screen in confusion until it works.) Hopefully we'll be ready to go to Tuesday-Thursday updates by the time fall readership picks up. It's looking like that might coincide nicely with launching into main storyline.
Keep your fingers crossed for us, and look forward to some bonus postings to alleviate the temptation to speed up the story.

(x-posted to my lj)