Well, I have been amazingly busy, and I apologize for not posting more. But I have had a ton of work to do, my ankle has made it so that it’s troublesome to even walk, and I have had a death in the family. So, I haven’t really had a chance to get back to work on The Cause with the fervor that I planned.
But, I’ll be getting back to it.
Here’s a peek at part of a sketch that contains a couple of never before seen characters (who will be making an appearance). Without further ado:
First, let me apologize for posting so late. I know I missed a little more than a week of posts, but I have been extremely busy. I have returned to the day job–and the night job as well, so I don’t have a great number of hours to keep plugging away at The Cause in the manner in which I should. Don’t get me wrong: I am very thankful to be gainfully employed. I just wish I had more time to devote to this project (and other art projects as well).
But I am not going to let that stop me.
Right now, I have enough material to take The Cause well into November (if I started to release pages on this Monday). And while I would like to start publishing pages as soon as possible again, I don’t think that I will do that just yet. I would like to get past Chapter Three before I start publishing again. One of the challenges that I set for myself with this series was to produce art in different media (depending on what was happening in the story). The film sequence is rendered in pencil–full grayscale. That alone should say just how long that takes to produce a page (well, for me anyway). Since I started the series with a “traditional” comic book approach (colored inked line work), I will return to that faster approach for the narrative elements of the story that aren’t in flashback–or other special circumstances. But more on that later 
.
So once I have a enough of a buffer of Chapter Three completed, I will begin posting pages once again. Right now, I don’t want to commit to a date, but it shouldn’t be too much longer. I know that I said that I would begin posting pages in September, but I don’t want to do that and have another hiatus in just two months. Please hang in there with me.
Another peek:
Well, I haven’t built up enough of a buffer yet, so staring today isn’t part of the plan. I’ll take an inventory of just how much I have done and how far I have to go, and then I’ll post more information later this week about when I’ll start posting pages again. Until then:
Another sneak look…
I got busy and completely didn’t get a chance to get the post up for Wednesday, and yesterday, I got a little under the weather, so I couldn’t get the post up for Thursday either. Today’s post is another sneak peak at a panel from chapter three:
Wow. Where does all the time go? I can’t believe that summer is almost over. Well, summer is over. And for someone like me who goes back to work in a few days, I have to always remember or think about how much I didn’t get done. Anyway, I’m still working hard at The Cause.
Recently, I have hinted at a new approach at drawing. Very briefly, my new approach is that I draw on a separate sheet of paper a complete and total drawing. I then marry those drawings on a large sheet of paper in Photoshop. While the paper that I use isn’t of high quality, I believe that the drawings in this method work much faster for me, but more importantly, not only is the process faster, the process is of greater for quality as well. But I’ll be talking about that more at a later time.
Recently, I’ve been having difficulty with how I should proceed with my story. I’m not sure if I should draw all of chapter 3 or whether I should get ahead with as many pages as possible within Chapter 3, or start publishing those pages as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I am not fast. I know I have already said that the before. However, I want to make sure that what I’m putting out is the best work that I can do given the circumstances. I wanted to begin republishing pages for The Cause September 3. However, I’m not sure whether not I have built up enough of a buffer for that to happen. I know that I’m slow–that I work slowly. If I begin publishing September 3rd, then I know that I will run out of pages very soon. In fact, I was seriously thinking about having an alternating on and off schedule in terms of pages. I was thinking about publishing for one month and then taking the next month off to build up the buffer and publish new pages the following month, and in all likelihood, that is probably what will happen. I know that I need to do something. I know that I’m probably losing readers, and I don’t want that to happen. I know that building readership is difficult because there are many web comics out there that are canceled or are no longer continued.
I don’t want to be one of those artists who has a project that just stops. Sincerely, my heart is in this project. It is what I want to do. And I know I may sound like a broken record when I say this, but I am in this for the long haul. I am not going anywhere. I promise to continue this story. And I thank everyone who stops back to read my posts on a weekly basis, even though that there aren’t any new pages. I promise there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel. I will start publishing new pages soon, but, unfortunately, it will not be September 3. I know at one point on my blog, I said that I would start publishing pages sometime in September. I still want to hold fast to that idea– even if that does mean I only put up five or six pages. I want to show readers that they can trust me, and I want to show readers that I mean what it is that I say.
Really, I am not a lazy bum. I’m just tormented by the fact that I’m slow; I need to learn more; I would like to be a full-time illustrator and comic book artist; I need more time; I want to do the best work that I can do; and I want the best for the project. For those people who aren’t artists, or for those people who aren’t familiar with making art, art can be a very frustrating endeavor. Speaking honestly, my frustration level is pretty high right now. I’m frustrated by the fact that I can’t spend more time working on The Cause and solving the problems that present themselves in a timely manner.
Anyway, enough of the whining. Here is another look at a sample panel that I’m working on. Again, I hope people can see that there is a big improvement with the quality of the drawing that I’m doing now. What I really hope is that I’m able to produce better pages and a better reading experience for readers of The Cause.
Arnold. Wednesday.
