October for artists is also known as “Inktober,” and this year I jumped in despite the busyness of my life with 3 little kids and working from home. I’m glad I did, because it’s definitely a lot of fun. I’d been meaning to draw “realistic” versions of the Octonauts for my kids for a while and this gave me an excuse to do that and I had the ink, gifted to me by a friend, to even try color. Many days were random, or punny topics, and my husband got to choose what I drew on his birthday, of course. The most intense part of Inktober was when it coincided with the 24-hour comic challenge, which I also took part in with a group of other artists, recreating the very first Superman comic in our own styles. Because of copyright issues, the lead artist on the project backed down from actually putting the pages together, but it was still fun to do, and taught me more about drawing comics.
I have been toying with the idea of turning a story of mine into a graphic novel for some time, and even decided I was going to do so in August of this year. Since that time I have made it my mission to study and learn as much as I can about drawing faces/expressions, backgrounds, ways to shade and color, as well as developing a consistent style.
I am reading Scott McCloud’s “Making Comics” and continuing to work through story details so that I can have a clean, straight-forward tale to tell. I am excited about this endeavor, even though it could very well take me decades to accomplish, as I don’t have a lot of free time to draw at present, and I have to balance personal projects with art that actually pays the bills.
I believe in this story, though, and that it is worth telling. So here ‘goes.
Character expression sheet
A group of characters from the story