More Pages and Progress

Things are progressing as they do...

Unsurprisingly, most of my waking hours are spent working on Across Thin Ice. I'm just over a third done painting the 100 some pages of the first book, and when I'm not painting, my sights are turned onto layouts for the next one. It's a ton of work--probably 15-20 hours per page to layout, sketch and clean up, then another 20-25 to ink and paint. I've hit my working stride and things are progressing as they do--slow, but steady. I haven't had much time to do anything else, but it's actually been quite zen.

Looking at the time line now, the release date might get pushed back a few more months. I'm deep enough in now I think I'd be annoyed at myself if I rushed or trimmed a bunch of pages just to meet an early deadline. But such is life--somethings you can't rush and it's better to just enjoy the ride. The plus side is, if I keep on working as I am, with a summer release I can have a preview out for the second book when the first debuts, and there will be significantly less time between their releases.

Here's few more pages I finished earlier in the month!
Page 29 and 60



Some progress photos of Page 29:









Lastly, here's the original concept sketches I did ages ago for this page and page 28.

Pages in Progress 3

Steadily onward, page by page, panel by panel...bottle by bottle of wine.

Here's a couple pages in progress (which again, demonstrate the awesome power of masking fluid,) plus a few other odds and ends.





Here's a couple crops from page... urh, 50 something.
(I realized the other day my page numbering was all cattywampus due changing around a few pages. Numbers, what good are they anyway?)





Here's one of my set-ups from earlier this summer. It's nice to be fairly mobile, so I can move around the house for a little change of scenery while I work.

Lastly, I realized I never posted the reference sheet I made for the sled many, many months ago. It's been an invaluable piece of paper. Also, Freki's design is now sporting some new eye dots, since in some lighting schemes, she was difficult to tell apart from Nickel at a distance.