No Shortcuts

Ever since I joined Pottermore and was sorted into Hufflepuff, much to my initial surprise and disappointment, (I've since come to terms with my placement and embraced it) I've wanted to make a comic about it. I mean, what better premise than a girl who hates sunshine, plants, and yellow who is thrown into an environment filled with all three?

Unfortunately, I was not blessed with the artistic bug - at least not visually - and my sister, the artist of the family, is busy with her own projects, so mine fell by the wayside.

Until last week when I decided I'd give it a shot. Hence my absence...

I mapped out the first comic completely. So it was on the back of a library receipt, it didn't have to be perfect, right? Here's basically what the first panel looked like.

Then I took it to paper.

I figured I should be able to sketch out my comic then photograph/scan it in and do only minor tweaking. Thing is, I'm a little too much of a perfectionist and my 'minor tweaking' turned into completely re-tracing it. Which would be fine, if I had a tablet or something, but no, I just have a standard mouse.

So there I was, panel one completed, except for the text. It had only taken 8 hours.

Yeah, 8 hours.

UGH! At that rate, it was going to take forever. Might as well scrap it.

But then I thought, maybe I could streamline everything, just use the line and circle tools to cut out some of the steps. And then I'd be ahead of the next panel through the magic of copy/paste.

So I started over and came up with this.

Not very pretty. And the real kicker is that it took me just as long to do! And I'm still not happy with it.

Serves me right for looking for shortcuts and still expecting quality work.

Now I just have to decide if I'm still willing to put the effort in, or if I should scrap it and leave it scrapped. Why does XKCD make it look so easy?!

Teaser Tuesday

I know I did a Top Ten Tuesday last week,
and I might still do one later today.

But first here's a pretty spiffy idea from MizB at I Should Be Reading:


Teaser Tuesday
~ Grab your current read ~
~ Open to a random page ~
~ Share a short passage (around 2 sentences) from somewhere on that page ~
~ BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! ~
~ Share the title & author, too ~

High Wizardry
by Diane Duane

    PASSWORD?
    "Huh," she said to herself, as possibilities flickered through her head. Did Dad have the software encrypted somehow so that Nita and I can't get into it? But why? He wants us to use it. She let out a breath. Maybe it just wants an ID code for the user—there're some programs that do that. She squinted at the screen a moment, then smiled and typed in a private joke: the code name that a certain untrained farm boy used in his fighter run on the Death Star, a name that suited Dairine since she had inherited her mother's red hair. RED FIVE, she typed and hit the carriage return.
    PASSWORD RED FIVE ACCEPTED.

~Pages 48 & 49

Be sure to post or link me to your own teasers in the comments!

And go ahead and spread the word back to MizB on her post.


EDIT:
The Top Ten Tuesday theme is the tried and true
Books You'd Bring When You're Stranded on a Desert Island
I'll pass this week.