Busy busy busy, that’s all this week is; I’m grateful for it, it keeps my hands moving and my mind focused.
Shoulder update: it’s not the shoulder. I’m meeting with a neurosurgeon on Monday, as this is apparently more neck/spine related, so hopefully I’ll be able to get a definitive answer to my discomfort; I’ve almost stopped noticing it at this point, but there are still certain positions that I can’t lean into without feeling the pain.
I’ve been deep into my art this week, and not just with the new Showcase story that started yesterday. One of the local comic shops is running a competition until Sunday, with a R1000 voucher up for grabs, and since it’s art related I had to jump on it. The challenge is to draw a cover inspired by Green Arrow #1, which was released a few months ago (I was lucky enough to get a foil edition, signed by artist Sean Izaakse, at ComicCon Cape Town this year!). While I initially took this to mean that we had to redraw the cover in our own style, it turns out that it’s actually a freeform contest, and we have to produce an original work; that was two days worth of drawing down the drain…
Nevertheless, I’ve been plugging away at this thing in every spare moment I could find since Monday, and am proud to show off the end result here:
I’ll be getting this bad boy printed and submitted tomorrow, wish me luck!
Other than that, I’ve been working on staying ahead of schedule with the Showcase this month; while I’m still proud of what I put out during June, a couple of the pages were a little rushed due to my injury, and I want to try and have some pages prepped in advance if anything else sets me back again, God forbid. I might even start plotting out next month’s story early as well; it took me a while to settle on which one I would be including in this issue, and there’s still a lot to write; I literally have a one-line summary at this point.
The tricky thing with the Showcase is that I have a lot of characters I want to introduce, but many of them hinge on the bigger picture story that I want to dedicate full issues to in the future, and I’m starting to run out of characters that are slated to take the lead in that story. Basically, I’m just about done with introducing the necessary cast members; I may feature a few extra stories with them, but they’re ready to start taking centre stage and get the main plot rolling. In light of this, the Showcase may start to feature a few non sequitur stories by the time we pass the six issue mark; we’ll see what happens.
Anywho, back to the grindstone; I have to get tomorrow’s page done and dusted, and I’m running two separate games of D&D this weekend, which are going to require some prep time. See you all next week for something new.
Ciao for now.