I labored.
No, seriously, folks. I got this close to finishing the artwork on V#5. I pencilled the
last page, but I’m not entirely satisfied with what I saw, so I’m letting it sit for a while, and
am going back and making fixes in the rest of the artwork.
You see, one of the benefits of taking a year or so to complete a single issue is that you get to
really be anal retentive about the art. I am enjoying this luxury immensely. Why? Because ever
since people have started telling me that they really like this little faerie tale, I’ve been
totally sweating the ending. I’ve got a wallop to deliver to the reader, and I’ve got to
make sure that all the facial expressions come through correctly, or I’m not going to stick
the landing, and this crazy, twisting gymnastic vault of a story is going to be pretty, but all
for naught.
So last night I’ve got the pages to #5 all in a stack, and I’m going back and checking the faces.
I was heard to mutter several times throughout the night: “What was I thinking?!” “Was I
asleep when I drew this?” “When did I completely lose my sense of facial structure?!” “Who is
this grey freak and what has she done with my heroine?” So suffice it to say, I spent a number of
hours patching faces, eyes and lips to make them look passable. Not better, passable. I am
so glad I’m ahead of schedule, ’cause I’m not close to done, yet. I did make Messana cry
with the second to last page yesterday. No dialogue yet, and he already started to cry. This is
a good sign.
Another thing that I found out is how very very much I like my new style. I’ve mentioned here
before how bloody long it takes me to finish a page. We’re talking an average of 16 to 24 hours
per page, not counting pencilling, scanning, lettering and pasteup on the computer.
They’re fully painted, and take forever to finish. For the epilogue of the book, I decided to try
a new style of painting, one that was way more watercolor-dependent, instead of the thick,
wet-on-wet style I’ve used throughout the first four issues. I also chopped the pages down to 9 x
12″ instead of 11 x 17″ and started working at just about half the previous size. The result? I
love it. Pages are cracking along at 8 hours apiece, including pencilling. That’s a savings of
about 20 hours a page. The people I’ve shown it to actually like it better than the original
style, and once it’s reduced to black and white from the payne’s grey and that I use, you’ll
hardly be able to tell. It’s a little more black-line dependent, but not by much.
As I was going back and fixing the faces, I had to work in my original style again, and found
myself cursing myself. “Why did I torture myself like this for five years? I’d be twenty issues
in by now, if I’d only gone with this other style, first!” Still, my muse she is inscrutable.
Live and learn. I have, indeed, learned. When I was back to the old style it felt like I was
painting with Q-tips instead of brushes. I’d lost that much control. So suffice it to say that
any and all new V issues will be in this new style.
Something else that I did was count all the pages in #5. It’s currently at 31. This means that
there will be no black separation page between the end of the main story and the epilogue.
Sorry. It’s either skip that, or sacrifice a page of story, and I’m simply not willing to do the
latter. There’ll be an additional page and poem in the collected TPB. There will also only be
room for one single page of notes, printed inside the back cover in tee-tiny text. I’ll put the
notes that the story can’t live without in the issue itself, and then offer more complete notes on
the website, or free by mail to anyone that doesn’t have access to the web. The expanded notes
will also be included in the TPB.
So that’s about it for what’s going on with #5. Look for it in stores worldwide in November.