Sick Note, New Direction, More Art

Let's try that again...

Long story short - Writing a new piece of fiction and creating an original illustration every week was a fun, motivational challenge for a while. At first the words flowed and the pictures drew themselves. But after a few months story ideas became harder to find, as did the inspiration for new art pieces, and the challenge became a chore. My mindset changed from one of joyful creation to ‘just get it done and shove it out the door’, and as a result the quality of my writing and drawing dipped. Then, one Monday morning, I just couldn’t bring myself to try and make a post, and that feeling turned into a two month hiatus. Burnout is probably the right word.

A couple of experimental trees - these were drawn with cheap felt-tipped pens and watercolour paints. I stick sketches like these in a scrap book so that over time I am building a library of reference images.

Aside from a few commissions, I’ve spent the last two months drawing and writing for myself, without worrying about creating post-worthy pieces. This process recharged my batteries, and last week I finished the outline for what will either become a graphic novel, or an illustrated novella. The story is set in a forest (as all my stories seem to be) and follows a group of robots who are navigating life in a post-human world. These are the sort of robots we will probably begin to see in real life soon, they are small and built for utility - cleaning vents, delivering packages, maintaining factories, painting houses. With all of those tasks gone, the little robots’ lives revolve around caring for and maintaining the few remaining solar charging stations they rely upon for power. These charging stations become akin to holy relics or temples to the robots, and as you can imagine, protecting them from the elements, wildlife, and natural catastrophe is a challenge for little machines designed to empty bedpans.

A digital sketch of a little robot peeking out from behind a tree root. Drawn in Clip Studio Paint

Now that the story outline is finished, my next job is to figure out what direction I want to take the artwork, and this is the process I will be sharing on Substack for a while. Over the coming weeks I will be working on character and environment designs, and begin sketching out specific layouts for what will be either graphic novel panels or chapter illustrations. I have a vague idea of what I want this to look like, but have yet to decide whether to go pen and ink or digital; colour or monochrome; cartoon-y or realistic. There’s a lot to figure out, and I thought documenting and sharing this discovery process might make for interesting Substack posts.

Some initial robot sketches and name ideas - drawn with pencil on paper

I’d like to apologise to my subscribers for going silent for such a long time, but I hope that taking some time out will, in the long run, result in a better and more interesting publication, especially for those who followed me for art, rather than increasingly shoddy short fiction. With that said, I’m back and looking forward to getting stuck in. The little robots and I will be back with another post very soon…

A couple of experimental panels, drawn in a sketchbook with with my trusty mechanical pencil