In Sixty Minutes

[rowyn]

I was looking at koogrr's 24-hour comic again a few days ago. I've never done something like that, though I've considered it. I'm have the week after next off from work, and (for once) I'm not planning to go anywhere during it.

So I've got the time to do something like a 24-hour comic, and mess up my sleep cycle at a time when it won't matter.

I'm not sure I want to do a 24-hour comic. I mentioned the "novel in a weekend" project that I've heard of other people doing (one quote on that: "A novel in a weekend isn't writing. It's typing.") Koogrr suggested I could do a 24-hour novel: one chapter every hour, 24-chapters. That's got a certain appeal, except that even pushing to the limit I don't think I could write more than 1,000 words in an hour. And 24,000 words isn't even a novelette. On the other hand, I might be able to do a NaNoWriMo novel (50,000 words, which is still more novella than novel) in a Friday-afternoon-to-midnight-Sunday time period. (55 hours or so.) Umm. Well, probably not, but I could give it a try.

Still, the 24-hour comic has some appeal, even if my art is kinda crappy when I spend time and effort on it, never mind when I'm rushing for a deadline. So last night, I tried one of Koogrr's "practice runs": see how much I could get done in an hour.



I was surprised that I managed to get it done on the first try. The whole page scripted, drawn, and inked in just under an hour -- 58.5 minutes, i think. I messed up on the panel layout, which annoys me. Inking seems like such a huge waste of time to me, because I'm so bad at it anyway. But it does make the page scan better.

I did cheat a little for this one: I came up with the concept while taking a shower, just before I started. It's hard for me not to think about what I'm going to do when I want to start something creative. Next time I try the one-hour page, I'm going to try to start the timer and then come up with something to write. That'll be tougher. I'm not sure how well my muse works when the clock is ticking.

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

If I'm ever crazy enough to do the whole 24 hour comic thing, I've resolved that I'm going to try doing that "shadows on the wall" idea that I think I may have briefly mentioned some time ago. (In fact, I may have mentioned this very thing - that I would do it for a 24-hour challenge - before as well. It's hard to remember what thoughts I've voiced, and which ones have just been rattling around my head for a while.)

Basically, it would entail drawing all the characters and scenery in silhouette. I think that would lend itself more readily to being quick and at least somewhat aesthetically appealing - so long as I have a suitable tool at hand (such as a pen brush) to solidly fill shapes, rather than just making them look like outlines filled with scribbles.

Maybe it is partly a product of my time spent painting miniatures of late, but I feel like I could more quickly "paint" a shape, than to "draw" (outline) it - at least, when I'm trying to be the least bit neat about it.

Anyway, for this whole 24-hour thing, is part of the challenge that you have to not only make the comic, but come up with the idea within that time frame as well? That seems to add a whole new layer of frustration to it. (I would rather not feel like I'm cheating if I'm starting with even a fragment of an idea I already had beforehand. After all, if I tear my ideas apart far enough, I would say that everything I think of is, to one degree or another, derivative.)

[rowyn]

Anyway, for this whole 24-hour thing, is part of the challenge that you have to not only make the comic, but come up with the idea within that time frame as well?

I know this sounds weird, but this part of challenge is actually intended to make it easier, in a way. See, if you start with characters/setting/plot that you've thought a lot about already, then you're likely to bring with it all the baggage that's kept you from ever doing a comic about it before. The characters might be reluctant to do the things you need them to do, because you'll think "No, this character wouldn't do that." Or you'll get hung up on making them look right, or having the story be as good as you thought it should be.

I suspect it'd proabbly work fine to decide "I'll do a 24-hour comic on my vacation in two weeks" and then do it based on an idea that started percolating around in your head at that point. But I think that if I tried doing a 24-hour comic about, say, "Hope", or illustrating the next scenes in Silver Scales, I'd run into troubles with it. I know how those are supposed to go and I wouldn't feel right trying to rush them out.

I think that I could do a new story using existing characters, like a prequel story with Kildare and Madden, and have that work. But I don't want to draw on a "failed" idea that I've had for a long time but not gotten out, because it'll bring with it all of that "I can't do this" vibe.

Also, for the one-hour-test, I think coming up with the idea inside of the hour is good practice, because I will need to conceive and plot on the fly, no matter what story I try to do. And the test'll be more accurate if I include the time it takes to do that in it.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Whew. Well, all the more the challenge, I guess. =P Best of luck, whatever you decide to work on!

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

The other thing is, if you start with nothing and then finish, you have this incredible, unshatterable, "I can do anything" feeling. As Rowyn said, if you start with a project you've had in pieces, like if I drew Sunset's story, well I've been thinking about Sunset for 10 years. All I'd really be able to say is "I thought about her for 10 years, then did this in one day" which doesn't seem quite as much the accomplishment as "There was me, some paper, them BAM! This happened, one day, start to finish. From zero to wow!"