1: Organizing Thoughts

Hey, my Squids. I thought I would post a little blog with some random thoughts as I begin inking and coloring the initial pages of Taliah. One of the things that has been extremely important to me during this process is organization, whether it's been in the pre-production phase or, even now, as I'm working on scripts into the future while going through the process of putting out the first chunk of the tale. Writing and assembling large projects are not foreign concepts to me, as I've written novels and put together immensely collaborative stories before, but doing all of it alone can seem daunting. I believe that putting together a plan of action has been my saving grace during the beginning of this. A few things I did to help keep everything together:

1. Create a searchable document with tabs that allows me to quickly get to relevant information while writing, drawing, etc.

2. Finishing part of the pre-production before beginning another, i.e. finishing all of the sketching before I began line art.

3. Figuring out the initial art direction of the comic by doing side studies instead of trying to practice it while drawing.

4. Mapping out the big plot points (in my case, the way parts of the story begin and end) but leaving gaps so that I can adjust if I so choose.

5. Keeping everything in an organized folder that is reachable from any device I own while also backing it up every few days so I don't lose substantial progress if it disappears.

While there will be changes and ideas that come to me (mostly in the shower, where I do a lot of my acting and thinking), I feel as if I have a solid enough base to pull from thanks to organizing my thoughts as well as I could before laying down even the first line. I think my readers will greatly benefit from that.