Adamsville is one book, one story told over 130 pages. And I originally broke that up into 4 chapters, mainly for my sake and just getting the material done. I currently have 77 pages left to complete in chapters 3&4. After breaking all of that up I realized that chapter 3 was 43 pages and chapter 4 was the remaining 34. I went ahead and decided to keep the process fresh and exciting for me as I work, to break those up into a total of 5 chapters of 25, 25 and 27 each. I think this will help me just keep moving along and keep the remaining pages fresh for me as I turn style through them.
I also realized I need a bit of change in how I approcah my work. I usually stay up late at night and crank through my pages when the house is asleep, but recently I started working on my pages earlier in the evening after my kids have gone to bed and then spending the rest of the evening with my wife. What’s been great about that has been I get an even amount of work done and have been able to get to bed earlier. Sleep is important folks. Take care of yourself.
A few months ago I picked up this:
This is the graphic novel version of the Sherlock Holmes novels and they are fantastic. But what I really loved about them at first was the beautifully simple artwork by artist I. N. J. Culbard. what I didn’t know was that he was using Manga Studio to produce his pages. When I first bought it I thought man what great line art and this guy really knows how to use a brush. After I looked closer i saw the tell tale signs of digital creation. But he uses two tools that I had never messed with that I think helped his work have a much more traditional look to it. There’s brush tool that gives the dry brush look to your lines and a cross hatching brush to help it as well. If you own Manga Studio try out these brushes and pick up Sherlock Holmes the graphic novels as well. It’s pretty fun.
I did a quick drawing of the neighbor from Adamsville testing some of these tools out. You’ll be seeing this character and some of these tools in newer pages as they fit in.