6th January 2014

Less than 20 days til personal project is due, needless to say Im panicking, internally. I didnt update yesterday but I've planned and done rough draft of the next 4 pages, today I tried to shade and finished all the panels ( which I tried to finish all the details and cleared all the unecessarities ). Obviously I didnt finish it but this is my progree so far:




I think I'm going quite okay so far, I have done the first puzzle in the maze, it was a poem with hidden code sequence in it. It wasnt that hard to think of the poem or the hidden code, I thought if it's the first puzzle in the maze, it shouldnt be too hard, you know, leveling up steps by steps ahahah. The other reason is Im not very familiar with all of these dectective and mystery stuffs anyway, I meant I do read and watch alot of solving crimes but when you start thinking about, and creating it, it's so much more difficult. You have to build a whole situtation, it has to be logical and there must be reasons back up for it in every direction, and msot of all it has to be both unexpected yet expected at the same time. You dont want something too boring, the readers are more clever than you think they are. At least, these are what I thought of, after reading the 30 rules yesterday. I am doing more research today, just this morning I have to read Sherlock Holmes' The Case in Reigate. At least I thought if I read some detective stories, it would inspire me better and give me more ideas. Well it kind of did, I only gist reading it because there're alot of works under my head right now, it didnt really help at all with my story right now but I hope it would at some point in my comic. Im doing research in detective novels and their author like sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. Just the research part alone stresses me alot. However, I am a type of person like to know things, I dont like to learn things, well I do in some way but what I meant is I like exploring things, informations, universe, the world, all of these fascinated me alot. I just dont like the ideas of studying, because somehow it puts pressures on you, because studying lately has the same meaning as scores and marks. Scores and marks are just numbers, determining your worth which I found ridiculous. I've never fond of myself strangling to those ideas and concepts of having a good scores, finding a good universities and have a stable job. Most likely because in 30 years, will anyone actually care?
I have rambling way too much and out of topic right now, I guess coming back to the point, comic is not easy, I knew that that's why I chose it. But I myself would like if I said I didnt enjoy it.

Now drawing may seem to be an easy part, but it's not really, it helps a little that I have been drawing manga style for the past 10 years but when it comes to draw a comic, each panel you have to draw:
      - background scenery ( I tried to make everything as details as possible, and shades every little part )
      - characters' design ( I have to remember every little details of each characters to distinguish them from the other, but I'm too lazy mostly so I just shade the background characters grey from the main characters haha )
       - characters' movement ( they are not just stand up dolls anymore, they have to move, their heads, legs, or body in general to fit with the story line, usually I made my friends stand up and do all these things for me then I just draw it again in manga style hahaha )

But the hardest part for me is the writing, because the key concept here is how to make it's interesting and captivating to the reader yet it's reasonable. I really dont want it to be just a mere entertainment or fan service ( you know what I mean ), something mainstream that everybody already see. Im not necessarily aiming for a '' genius piece of work '', just something that I'm proud of, and I'm fine with that. I talked too much, didnt I, I guess I should stop here and continue my works hehe!