FOWP Upwards-Dating: To a Worm in Horseradish the World is Horseradish.

That was an expression on TED.com that I liked and missappropriated.

Horseradish = drawing.

I have never felt so committed to anything as I have to drawing, if I'm not drawing, I am thinking about drawing and if I'm not thinking about drawing I am getting distracted by thoughts about drawing.

What little meditation I have done allows me to be semi conscious of the process of thoughts popping into my head and drawing thoughts flash by like those flourescent lights in a car tunnel. (On my bike the effect is somewhat less bewildering, perhaps train tunnel is more in tune).

Anyway where was I, yes I'm up to page 70, and I'm starting to produce pictures I'm exceptionally pleased with as an amateur but immensely dissatisfied with as an aspiring pro.

That said I surprised myself yesterday in my determination to finish page 70 before I went to bed which happened to be a full page spread. Its meant to be one of those dramatic moments but falls on an even page such that even though I think I skillfully compressed a bunch of 'chase' scenes onto a page to build up the sense of pace before 'hitting the brick wall' in a moment of realisation someone can see the big reveal in their peripheral vision.

It's just one of the many things I'm unhappy with but need to press on with anyway because the visceral scene follows over the page and I like the idea of my reader gagging (not that my artistic abilities will make that a real possibility) at the horror after briefly glimpsing the eye of the storm.

Anyway enough about composition and story structure, fact is those decisions were made long ago in the writing phase and fucking with that in the drawing phase is a highly compromising approach, shift an even page to an odd one and the whole visual storyline is fucked.

I did surprise myself though in terms of coming up with a new and amazingly effective technique. I had to draw a spider-man esque pose you know the ones where spiderman is crouching on the ceiling looking up/down at people standing on the floor. Getting the right perspective was one of those constantly interrupting thoughts that plagued me all yesterday.

When it came time to draw though, I simply turned the page upside down and drew in the centerpiece as if they were the right way up, and made the small clothing adjustments and whatnot for gravities sake. Then After the focus was done I simply flipped it back the right way up and drew in all the other elements.

The whole page (one of those pages I've been dubbing a 'money page') took me 30 minutes. Half the time of a regular page.

Anyway I'll probably lay off the updates until I'm either done drawing or into the inking phase.

I really wish I could put up some WIP scans but there's two factors pushing me away from doing that:

1) I don't want to give much of the story away.

2) My scanner is broken.

But Grandma had a look at a page where a guy was getting cut in half last night (after I'd repeatedly told her not to look as it wasn't 'family friendly') and mentioned that my 'proportions looked very correct'. My sister also did the dirty and flicked through my work thus far and was able to determine the key story elements which is good given that there's no dialogue at all yet.

So that's promising, who the monster is is clear and my proportions look correct. I'll take what I can get.