I guess I can only ignore that ache for so long. I’ve said it in so many places that every time I looked at TCoaRH pages I desperately wanted to start it as a graphic novel again. I thought maybe it would go away while I was novelizing it, but really, during every scene I’m writing I just wish I were drawing it. My moleskine sketchbook I brought with me to NZ is ridiculously full of sketches of the people from this story. The narration of the novel is clunky and sparse because I’m busy visualizing the scene so that I forget to write it well. This story is begging to be drawn.
I’ve also always known since I drew my last graphic novel that committing to a graphic novel would be a huge investment of time and energy and resources. But because of how many times I’ve told this story now (once in full, and I’m over halfway through the novelization), I’m willing to slow down and work patiently with this endeavor.
I’ve more or less figured out what my process for doing this will be. I know I wouldn’t be satisfied with digital lines. At this point, I can only produce sloppy lines I’m happy with, not neat ones. Meanwhile, I tend to be naturally meticulous drawing traditional ink lines, and I’m really comfortable with them. I know I can colorize traditional lines digitally with ease, and this is such a fantastically colorful story. I might struggle with backgrounds, but I’ll go easy on myself with them.
I already have to be patient, because I don’t have any paper suitable for starting pages here. I am going to buy that tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m slowly thumbnailing my first pages, and working on character designs. I think I need to make myself some legit reference sheets for the characters, especially Solimin, who’s got visible tattoos most of the time. I also happily reminded myself it’ll be a while before a lot of these characters get introduced, which will give me time to fine-tune them and brush up on drawing their faces.
Who knows if this will take off or not, but the thing is I’m not asking for immediate gratification. So it might take off over the course of the next few years. At some point soon I’ll set up a website for this so I can get a webcomic system working.
