I just drew 252 Comic Pages in 8 months. Here's how I stayed on track.
Lessons, Rituals, and Survival Tactics from My Desk to Yours
Issue 203
It is FINISHED!
For the last eight months I’ve been working on a graphic novel for Scholastic’s Graphix imprint. Two Fridays ago I delivered the last batch of the 252 pages and then took a nap. I delivered it on time, and it’s all work I stand by, no sloppy pages.
I gotta say, working on this graphic novel was an exhilarating and at times harrowing experience, a creative misogi even, but I loved it. It was those things because not only did I draw more comic pages than I’ve ever drawn in one year, but I also did the ROBOTS book (which was fully designed, printed, and shipped to 1000+ people), and helped launch the all-new SVSlearn.com community. *phew!*
The graphic novel comes out later this year, but I’m contractually obligated not to publicly disclose what the project is until the publisher officially announces it. So it will have to remain under wraps until then!
However, let’s take a minute to get into how to finish a massive project like this and not lose your mind.
Page Mileage
I added up all the comic pages I’ve drawn since I started drawing comics in high school and it came out to 1109 pages. In this year I drew that 25 page comic for the Robots book and this full graphic novel. That’s a quarter of all the comics I’ve drawn in my lifetime…in ONE year!
This blows me away, because it tells me what’s possible if I get out of my head and. JUST. DO. THE. WORK.
The side effect of that is I’ve gotten faster, more confident, and somehow even better at drawing. I thought I had kind of reached my peak, maybe even washed out a little, but turns out I still got that dog in me. (Hoping that’s a comforting note anyone over 40, that there’s plenty of time and space to master your craft later in life).
Staying Motivated
I drew this book digitally, but after I finished each page I had a little ritual I'd do that would be my reward. It would go like this:
1) Fill in the squares on my progress sheet:
This progress sheet was indispensable to helping my image-based brain understand how much I’ve completed and what still had to be done. I can kind of understand what 25% means, but when I see a row of 10 columns with two and half of them colored in I immediately get it.
2) Write down how long the page took me to do on my calendar:
I use this planner and have used a variation of this for 7 or 8 years now. I know there’s all kinds of digital time trackers and calendar apps. But you know what? I hate them all. In an age where more and more of my life is getting entwined in a vapid digital dimension that I do not control, I crave analog solutions to problems.
You know what never happens when I’m in my planner forecasting things and recording events? Pop up ads. Suggested accounts to follow. AI slop. Notifications. And maybe the best part: I never have to do Two-Factor Authorization when I open the planner, even after a week of not using it because I was on vacation.
I love seeing my handwriting. I love flipping back through it and seeing what I did on a Friday 3 months ago. I love having a stack of them from the last several years that are a catalogue of what my life is.
3) Check it off on my weekly to do list:
I do the weekly to do on Sunday afternoons. It’s a way for me to mentally dump everything I’ve got to do on a paper so I can chill Sunday night and not stress out about the week. And can I say, checking boxes is such a delight.
4) and lastly, print it out
I do this so I can see it at print size to make sure it looks good, and to more easily spot mistakes. Plus it’s fun to watch that stack of paper start to pile up.
Small Wins, Big Gains
I know there’s someone reading this that has a big project like this inside of them, just waiting to be unleashed. I’m here to say that you can do it. Whether it’s a graphic novel, a children’s book, an animated short, or something else entirely, the key to finishing it is staying consistent, staying deliberate, and finding the mood boosters in the process. Even if it’s the little rituals like filling in squares or checking off boxes, they actually help!
Comments Section: What are your little rituals or rewards for finishing a task on your project?
All right, I can’t wait to show you the finished graphic novel when the time comes. Until then, here’s a few things that I thought you might find cool:
STAYING IN THE LOOP:
3PP Podcast: What’s Your Illustration Level?
🚨Jake’s Shop Clearance Sale🚨: Massive Discount on Stickers and Pins
1) Sentinel of the Fifth Sun
From the Drawings Unit
Last year I drew this Mayan Battle Mech for a Youtube Livestream: LINK
Over the last few months I ended up using that drawing as a base for a more polished/finished illustration. I wanted to try painting a little and do some sharper linework for the drawing. I'd work on it bit by bit, maybe 15min-30min at a time.
When I delivered the graphic novel I had some downtime and finally finished coloring it.
Full process post over on patreon: LINK
2) A Collection of Cool Freaks - Helicopter Edition
From the Air and Space Division
Found a bunch of cool freaks on pinterest and wanted to share them here to remind you that there may be a wrong way to design a helicopter, but there’s no “right” way to design a helicopter.
Think about that the next time you design a character, a vehicle, or an environment for your project, that while some approaches are clearly flawed, creativity and problem-solving often allow for multiple valid solutions.
Don’t be afraid to make it interesting.
3) Ambrosia - A Honey Magic World Building Project
From the Illustrators Division
Concept artist Airi Pan is a skilled artist with an impressive resume. However, this personal project about a world built around magic honey really caught my eye.
You know, I sometimes wonder if all the good ideas are taken and there’s nothing cool and new out there, then I see something like this and realize the only thing that limits your creativity is your imagination.
More images here: LINK
Website: LINK
That's all for now. Thank you for reading this newsletter and hope you have a great weekend!
-Jake
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Weekend reading:
The new Transformer series is so, so good.
Volume 1: LINK
Volume 2: LINK
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252 pages in 8 months…that’s incredible! Congrats. A friend once told me that the work expands to fill the time (in response to me feeling like I’m too slow), and we are often capable of more than we realize. Also, yes to analog. Love your progress chart. I like to staple a sheet to the inside of each project folder with timelines/milestones and other top-level info. I get crazy with highlighters and check boxes and strikethrus… I love that it is not on a screen because most things in my phone or computer cease to exist (even with constant notifications!)
This is incredibly helpful thank you! im on my second illustrated book on mythical beasts and have 55 characters and three times that amount of spot illustrations to do. I keep getting overwhelmed but this came just a the right time! Im heading off to get myself i calendar like yours and also will be doing the colouring in chart! thanks for sharing