I checked my clock, and I didn't see any little wings on it. So as far as I can tell, the world is behaving normally.

I knew chapter 4 would take a lot more time and work… there are a lot of things that you can “know” that don't really hit home until they're experienced. And with an ongoing, page-by-page project like this, it really does help to take a look back at how far I've come. With that in mind I finally got some filing cases to hold everything I've done up to this point. One's got the finished pages organized by chapter, and the other's got the stuff I'm currently working on and bits and pieces for the future. The big plus is that now I can carry around a whole stack of work and not worry about the pages getting damaged.

Right now we're almost through chapter 2. Thank you to everyone who's been following. Besides my usual activities I've taken time to look over a bunch of the comics here on Drunk Duck. There's a lot of great talent around here, and while I know that much of what has been posted was put together years ago, I can't help but feel a little overwhelmed. I'm pleased to be a part of a community that's responsible for so many wonderful things… but I shamelessly admit that I'm used to being the guy that masters a subject quickly and stays at the head of the class.

Art, of course, is far too intricate and subjective for that kind of approach. And impatience won't help me here. But the two things I've found to be most rewarding are diligence at continuing the work at a steady pace, and keeping an eye out for the approaches that other people take and actively thinking about how and why they work.

As I get into the details of one scene or another I sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. Once chapter 4 is finished I really ought to step back and review everything I've planned out for what's to come. And I really ought to do more research–for a lot of things, this is my first time trying to draw them, and ideally I'd prefer to get things right than to whip up some workaround.

As always, some statistics for your mathy consideration.

Time elapsed since comic debut (1/1/2009): 143 days.
Pages posted: 55.
Average days per page: 2.60.

Time elapsed since start of work (10/26/2008): 210 days.
Pages planned: 289 (39.5%) (0.73 days per page)
Pages sketched: 115 (15.7%) (1.83)
Pages drawn: 96 (13.1%) (2.19)
Pages complete: 88 (12.0%) (2.39)
Pages posted: 55 (7.5%)

So there you have it. 9 pages drawn, 2 pages completed since last time. A bunch of pages sit half-drawn in my folder, but I ain't counting anything that's not ready. Think chickens.

This, by the way, is why I build in a cushion. Some things by their nature just take longer, and cushions are a more comfortable workspace than bare floor.