Stuff I did today:
I drew this. It is based on an amateurish porn drawing a friend linked to in her private Twitter. Which I will not link to publically because that starts to feel like bad form.
I sketched out the panel flow of the climactic chapter of Rita, and was kind of dumbstruck by that. I’ve been working towards the visual trick that happens in this chapter for almost four years; the enormity of finally getting to this point is a strange thing to grapple with. Other people might have shaken it off and just kept drawing, but I am kind of a slacker, so I put the stylus down and went to get some paper towels. Because I was out. And when I finished that errand, I puttered online for a bit, then ran off to circus class.
On the way there I nattered about the weird sensation of being Almost Done With My Biggest Project Ever on Twitter:
I just roughed out the framework for some Rita pages I’ve been planning for four years.
It is still so damn weird to see the end of an artistic journey i’ve been on for four years coming close.
Kinda hard to keep working. I am so ready to be DONE with Rita and move on. And have a vacation.
For what it’s worth, the plans for my next comics also have definite endings.
I dunno. I feel like I want to discuss these end-of-long-project feels with someone else who’s been there.
I guess I was sorta here six years ago when I finished the Tarot deck. I had an external deadline for that, though.
With Rita, there’s just the work.
Wonder if I could push myself to have the whole ending roughed out before my Monument Valley vacation.
Kinda feel like a solid month of NO WORK might be a good idea after I finish Rita.
Maybe clear out old lingering commissions at most. Go somewhere else. Or just enjoy a month of Seattle summer.
I dunno. I’m just sitting here on the bus pondering this, and using Twitter as a place to dump these thoughts.
My blog would probably be better for it.
Also I have a couple games I backed on ks dropping the final version soon. That will help vacation.
I also kinda want to… Not THINK for a month.
I’ve got plans for what I’ll do after finishing Rita, but I think this near-future plan of “take a damn vacation to clear my mind” is a very good one. Once it’s all drawn and I’ve recovered, then I get to deal with edits, the volume 3 Kickstarter, picking up Absinthe, and starting Drowning City. And those things will probably keep me busy for another five years, at least. After that? Who knows. I’ve got ideas for future comics lying around; maybe I’ll work on one of them, maybe I’ll take a break and make a video game, maybe some other crazy opportunity will pop up as a result of all this comics-making. It’s way too far off to make any decisions; mostly I just need to keep myself moving forwards until I’m actually Done Drawing Rita.
Circus class today was Strength and Flexibility. And it was brutal. Among other things, we did one of the most gruelling exercises I know of, the burpee – a horrible hybrid of push-ups and jumping jacks. And because that wasn’t bad enough, we then went to to do something known only as RUSSIAN ABS. I wrote about that beautifully hideous exercise on the bus home.
I had some supper on the way home; when I made it inside, I went straight to the living room and plopped my ass in the giant beanbag chair for a while. I played Pix the Cat (recommended, it’s like a puzzle version of Championship Pac-Man DX, which is one of my favorite modern arcade remixes; also it is very French) until my eyes bled; now it is time for sleep.