Here you have the gripping story of how Maria inks and colors a page and all the things that go through her mind in the meantime.
Step 1: The brilliant sketch. Time: five minutes, plus another hour wasted on Facebook, with a Tumblr detour, because you’re sure you booked-marked a post about drawing comics more efficiently.
Step 2: The necessary sketch. Now that you know who goes where on the page, the time has come to decide what they are doing and what looks they are wearing. Stop every five minutes to congratulate yourself on your amazing drawing skills, talent and work discipline, because you kept of the web for fifteen whole minutes.
Step 3: The final inks. The wailing and the gnashing of the teeth. Now that you must absolutely get something done, because otherwise there will be no page on Monday, you realize that not only have you no clue how to hold a pencil, you have also forgotten what the characters look like. Check older files for reference, then get absolutely depressed because before (meaning… last Tuesday) you drew better and faster. Wonder how you could afford to waste so much time yesterday, as if there was no deadline. Phone your friends to wail that you have no idea what you’re doing with your life, that comics are hard and that only very foolish people start a webcomic. Or go into comics. True friends will offer support and claim things are not so bad (except Ileana. Ileana said that indeed all the hands are wrong and Kronț is too fat. Boo Ileana!)
Step 4: Resigned final inks. You’re not allowed out of your room, or on the web, or cakes until you finish the page. You redraw a character five times and they still look like a rat on a stick. You have no idea how shoulders work. Or on which side of the hand the thumb goes. You tell yourself you’ll save it all in coloring. You’ll put everything in shadow.
Step 5: The flats. Hooray, you can see the end of the line. Plus, you checked in Indesign and there are so many speech bubbles that you effectively didn’t need to draw anything. Flats are easy, good for that much needed dopamine boost. You reward yourself with ten minutes on the web.
Step 6: BACK IN BUSINESS. Do we have a page? Yes. The rest does not matter, you deserve a small plastic trophy and cake. You schedule the page and give a short speech, thanking everyone who supported you in this long and traumatic journey, including Ileana who took a look and said, through clenched teeth, ”I suppose it’s oookey”. Champiooon, champiooon!
