It's been just over a month since I made the first post about Sovereigns, at which point I had 4 pages ready to upload. I was an utterly green amateur then and, now that I've reached the lofty heights of yellowish-green amateur, I figured I had enough perspective to comment on what the process is like.
First off, this isn't about the creative process or the technical process. That stuff is innate to me, and talking about it will only serve to bewilder people. Besides, if everyone knew about every little shortcut I take and every cheat move I use to get the finished page, they'd rightly declare me a hack. A little mystery is good for everyone.
Second off - some stats, hurled ungracefully:
In 35 days, I have published 17 pages of comic and 1 title page.
This represents approximately 2.5 pages of script.
The script is 26 pages long.
There are 8 completed scripts out of 24 outlined episodes.
With this information, I can infer the following:
Average time to finish an episode:
At 8 comic pages per single page of script, the first episode will be 208 pages long. At this rate, I'll be finished episode 1 in 330-odd days. This doesn't take into account a few different factors, including increased speed as I gain experience, delays from real life interference and delays from challenges as I encounter new technical hurdles. (There are riot scenes coming up. How the fuck do you do riot scenes? I don't know!).
Average time to finish the season:
330 days for one episode. Times 24 for the first season.
If nothing changes, I will be nearly 50 by the time the first season is finished.
Shit.
Estimated time to finish all 3 seasons:
65 years.
The year 2077.
I will be 91.
Important things to remember:
- I'm getting faster. I can knock a page together in as little as 2 hours, depending on its complexity.
- Currently, I work 48 hours a week in an unrelated, labour-intensive job. If that changes, there will be more time.
- I generally work on the comic for 3 hours in the evening and 4 hours per day on the weekend. Obviously, if there were strong interest in it, I'd have some clear incentives to increase that time allocation. (Note: This sounds like a cop-out, but it's not as much of one as you might think. It's very difficult to turn people down for demands on your time when you have nothing concrete to show for it. One a schedule and an audience come in to play, however, people are more understanding).
And here endeth this post. I really, really want to keep at this comic and so I will. Finishing it sometime before I'm 90 will just be icing on the cake.
