Here it is!
Page 1 of my Robert Smalls graphic novel!
Please do leave me a comment and let me know what you think of it.
I’m happy with it, but it has certainly been a learning experience!
I’ve never done anything like this before so I am figuring out and learning a lot of things as I go. I had a few false starts, and started working in Photoshop in a way that I thought would make the process easier, but then I found that it actually made things more difficult further down the line.
I also think that maybe I was a little too fussy and worked in more detail than was necessary. That will prolong things if I keep doing it.
Some things I did for this page are things that, hopefully, will only need doing once and will stand me in good stead for each subsequent page. For example, setting up a template for correctly laying out each page. Also, yesterday, I spent a good couple of hours turning my handwriting into a font which, now it’s done, should allow me to quickly letter each page, still in my own hand.
I’ve drawn some elements in a way that means I should be able to reuse them later and I’ll continue to build up a library of elements
I’m starting to pin down an efficient workflow for planning, laying out, pencilling, inking, colouring, and lettering each page that I hope will speed things up a little.
But as I say, here it is!
I’ve larnt a lot from producing this one page that I can apply to all subsequent pages. The size of the project is daunting, but I remain excited and eager to get on with it and begin working on the next page!
I’ll be posting this page on my Patreon intro page as an example of how the novel will look. This and all future pages will also go up on this website’s homepage.
Some Work In Progress stuff will be going up here soon.
As a heads up: having produced this and constantly reading and learning more about the process of creating and sharing online comics, I’ve been having some thoughts about how this Patreon works and how I work too and I’ll be rethinking the tiers and rewards over the next few days.