It could be worse. Federal regulations require employers to provide 60 days notice in the event of a plant closing or mass layoff. Therefore I will receieve my full salary and benefits through January 19. I will receive an additional four weeks of severance, and will be paid for seven days of unused vacation.

On my way home, my girlfriend suggested to me that if ever there was a time to devote myself to illustration, it’s now. While I doubt that in the next three months I can achieve professional-level proficiency, I can make some significant strides. I may even take advantage of the the extra time on my hands by taking an art class or two.

I was going to cancel the contest but then I thought, “Why?” Yes, I need to devote some time to searching for a new daytime gig. But there’s no way I can devote every waking minute to it. So it’s still on, baby. It’s SO on.

By the way, I hope everyone is approaching in this in the spirit I’d intended. It’s not a win-or-lose proposition. If you’re falling behind, don’t be afraid to say so. There’s no shame in that, y’know. If the contest spurs you to do more than you were doing before, I’d say it served its purpose well.

I hope to you will report your progress in this thread. I also hope you will share what’s worked for you, and what hasn’t. I think we can all benefit by learning from each other.

See, I started by trying to re-write the script for the first issue of a comic-book entitled The Victory Streak. But I kept falling prey to the temptation to re-write as I went along. So I began losing ground in a big hurry.

Then I found a copy of the first draft of the script, and decided to draw the first four pages. Then I dug up the pencils for page one — which I did about a year or two ago — and inked them with a brush. Badly. Very badly. An untrained monkey could’ve done better.

So when I said I’d finished one page, that was factually correct but functionally incomplete. The complete picture: we’re 19 days into this contest and I have little to show for it.

So last night I taped a piece of artboard to my art table and said, “OK, in two hours I should be able to lay out this page.” But I couldn’t, because I kept erasing, and redrawing, and erasing, and redrawing… oh, and also, swearing and breaking pencils and pissing off my girlfriend who was sitting about five feet away using her PC.

Then I had an epiphany: I realized whatever I drew was going to suck… and that’s OK. Unless you’re a f—ing prodigy, you don’t get good until you get your bad drawings out of the way. May as well do that sooner rather than later.

I don’t know if I’m going to make the Nov. 30 deadline but I am going to complete four pages of this comic, like I said I would. I’m even going to post them in this blog and discuss them a bit for anyone who is interested.

And, hey, if I study and practice hard enough and consistently enough, after a few years people may look back at these drawings and say, “Man, that Bill Myers used to suck.” As in, y’know, past tense.

Here’s where we stand as of last week’s update:

Jeremy_A: Project = Novel (Forum Everyone); goal = 10,000 words per week; word count as of last week = ?

Colleen Doran: Project = Novel; goal = 50,000 words by end-of-month; word count as of last week = approx. 14,988

Sarah Beach: Project = Novel (Godiva); goal = 50,000 words by end-of-month; word count as of last week = approx. 6,654

Bill Mulligan: Project = Screenplay; goal = ?; word count as of last week = ?

Sean Scullion: Project = Screenplay (Triangle); goal = ?; word count as of last week = ?

Laurie Sutton: Project = Short Stories; goal = five 10,000-word stories by end-of-month; word count as of last week = ?

Me: Project = Comic-Book; goal = four finished pages by end-of-month; page count as of last week = 1

It looks like Colleen Doran is owning us, hands down. Also, we’re missing some updates! That’s right, I’m talkin’ to you, Laurie Sutton, Sean Scullion, and Jeremy_A. (I’m not picking on Bill Mulligan because he told me he has walking pneumonia and I don’t want to be responsible for driving him into an early grave. He’d never let me hear the end of it.)

My update will be forthcoming in a separate post on Saturday or Sunday. Why? First, I’d like to post some of what I’ve completed, and as I write this I’m at work (on my lunch break, before anyone asks!) and don’t have access to my artwork or my personal scanner. Second, Laurie Sutton convinced me that some of my thoughts around what I’m doing, the obstacles in my way and how I’m overcoming them would be of value to others. It didn’t take a lot of convincing, mind you. Getting me to talk is easy. Getting me to shut up is the tough part.

I look forward to updates from my fellow contestants.

It’s time for our first contest update! For those of you who missed it, last week I announced an unofficial Contest for Creative Types to coincide with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The rules are pretty simple: at the beginning of the month, I asked the ”contestants” to commit to a creative project and work toward a quantifiable goal.

Our contestants:

Jeremy_A: Project = Novel (Forum Everyone), goal = 10,000 words per week

Colleen Doran: Project = Novel, goal = 50,000 words by end-of-month

Sarah Beach: Project = Novel (Godiva), goal = 50,000 words by end-of-month

Bill Mulligan: Project = Screenplay, goal = ?

Sean Scullion: Project = Screenplay (Triangle), goal = ?

Laurie Sutton: Project = Short Stories, goal = five 10,000-word stories by end-of-month

Me: Project = Comic-Book, goal = four finished pages by end-of-month

(By the way, Sean and Bill Mulligan, I believe you’ll get the most out of this contest if you select a quantifiable goal to work toward and announce it here.)

OK, now that we know who’s playing, it’s time for everyone to report their progress. Since I’m the “ringleader,” I guess I’ll start. I’ve got one page penciled and inked. I’m going to do the lettering digitally and I’ll probably post it over the weekend.

I look forward to updates from the rest of the contestants.

I’d been procrastinating because the last time I upgraded this blog it was a tremendous amount of work, fraught with all sorts of problems and resultant heartache. So imagine my relief when I discovered that my Web host, GoDaddy, makes it as easy as the click of a single button in my hosting admin panel! A lot of people hate on GoDaddy but as long as they provide me with tools like that I’m stickin’ with ‘em.

I also upgraded the plug-in that enables my readers to subscribe to e-mail updates. The plug-in hadn’t been working for God knows how long, but I hope the upgrade will resolve the problem. Anyone who signed up for e-mail updates should receive one shortly. If you changed your mind and want to be removed, you should be able to do that using the blog’s admin panel. If you have problems, e-mail me at bill dot myers at billmyerscreations dot com and I’ll remove your e-mail address from the subscriber list myself.

Of course, I haven’t the foggiest clue why you would do such a thing. Over the next few days I’m going to post some new sketches, some political commentary, and some other cool stuff.

The timing was uncannily appropriate, as just two days prior I had resolved to stop screwing around and commit to pursuing a career as a professional writer and illustrator.  I had all but given up on the idea and was feeling increasingly miserable as a result. I didn’t make the connection until my girlfriend, the lovely Jeannie, did a one-woman intervention and helped me connect the dots.

I’m going to be taking the first step come Monday of next week, when I begin taking advantage of a weekly figure drawing “open studio” offered by the Steve Carpenter Studio in Rochester, N.Y. I discovered this resource last Friday when two of my friends — one of whom posts here under the nom de plume “Keef Yourick” — took Jeannie and I to see a gallery showing/open house. For just four bucks an hour — less if you pay ahead — you get to spend four hours drawing from live figure models and having your work critiqued.

Steve Carpenter is also one of the officers of the New York Figure Study Guild. It’s a wonderful organization that provides weekly critiques, gallery showings of members’ work, and more. Come my next paycheck, I’ll be joining the guild as well.

I feel like a college student again, compiling a shopping list of art supplies as I get ready to pack my little art bin and head off to class once a week. 

I am also embarking on what I anticipate will be a very lengthy period of self-study in all phases of illustration. I expect it will take a long period of really hard work to get my skills up to a professional level. But to paraphrase JFK, we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

For those of you who aren’t regulars here, this is Steve Collins, a.k.a. The Victory Streak. He is the title character of my upcoming comic-book, and naturally the protagonist of the story.

I’m going to be posting character designs for this and many of the other recurring characters in the book, with the exception of a couple whose appearance in this blog would reveal a major plot point that I don’t want to telegraph.

I’m leaning toward dispense with the idea of the costume altogether, as I’m kinda fascinated with the idea of a hero who runs around in street clothes. There’s something about normal clothes that grounds a character, at least for me, and makes the fantastic all the more believable. I’ve also thought about using the tee-shirt as a running joke, placing a different logo there in each issue (or at least in each story).

Can I pull it off? Ultimately, I think it will depend on my drawing skills. If my drawings are dynamic enough, I think I can make it work. I think this drawing represents an improvement over the last two I posted. But there is still enormous need for improvement. For example, I did a lousy job rendering the character’s hair, hands, and sneakers. And while I’m getting better at drawing folds in clothing, I still have a ways to go in that department.

I’ll be aiming for completing at least three sketches a week, all of which will be posted here. Feel free to leave a comment below. I’m eager to hear your thoughts!

I have also decided to strictly limit the blogs I visit so I can redirect my time and effort to writing and drawing my comic. It’s not going to be much of a sacrifice, as I’ve gotten weary of the predictably silly sniping that characterizes so much of Internet discourse. I’m going to be updating my blogroll to reflect those blogs I’m still reading and feel good about promoting.

I hope and pray that more of my friends don’t join the blogosphere, because if they do I’ll feel obligated to read their blogs as well at that expense of, say, sleeping. That will of course drive me stark raving mad, causing me to begin going door to door in nothing but my BVDs, asking those who actually answer their doorbells if they have a monkey or a purple hammer they can spare.

Finally, I’m going to try to commit to posting a sketch every other day. That will force me to get back in the regular drawing habit and give you all the chance to weigh in with your opinions about proposed character designs and the like.

I may stray a bit into posts that are only tangentially related to my creative endeavors but for the most part I will remain quite focused. This will have the dual purpose of making blogging *fun* for me again, and motivating me to stay on course with The Victory Streak.

The next time I post, I’ll have some preliminary character designs for The Victory Streak, in “costume.” I think I’ve identified a look that’s distinctive without falling into the cliche of an outlandish spandex outfit. I look forward to your feedback.

Later!

Here he is with a jacket: 

What do you think?

Hey kids, sorry I’ve been gone awhile. To make up for it, here is the first ever sketch of The Victory Streak in action!

I’m afraid the scan is kinda crappy. After I scanned the drawing, I tried inking it and remembered that my inking skills are waaayyyy behind my meager penciling skills. I’m going to “recover” it by tracing over it on a clean sheet using my lightbox, and see if I can tighten it up with a darker pencil that will scan better. If it’s appreciably better, I’ll post it.

Gotta go. I understand a friend is having a crisis of confidence and I need to set him straight.