The End - for now!

As many of you know, GirlAMatic has been undergoing some server issues and that meant the last few of my updates (as well as everyone else's comics) were not showing on the main page. Or rather, they would sometimes pop up, but not when they were supposed to. I think that's fixed now, but I decided to "bump" this page now that things have been stabilized. But apologies to anyone who read this last week.

One other quick note before I forget. I recently did an interview with Jennifer Contino over at The Pulse. So if you'd like to read a little bit more of me yabbering, then please click here (the link will open in a new window).

Well, these final four pages of The Old Crow mark the end of the road to god knows... once and for all. Hopefully you've enjoyed them and hopefully they've helped round out Marie's world and her place in it a bit more. While some of her experiences are harsh and difficult to get through, I think that there's still some joy to be found in her life. Since, y'know, that is life - the bumps and the ups and downs. The good times and bad. And learning how to navigate them as best we can. That's mainly the thrust of Marie's story. Her ability to cope, from the first short story to the final page of road, is dramatically different. She can trust herself and she can trust her friends. And she can love herself for who she is. From where I sit, that's a pretty important coping skill.

What happens next? Quite a bit, actually. Right now I'm deep into doing art corrections to a number of pages. About 10% of the entire story will be completely redrawn and I'm almost finished that stage now. It's a lot of work, but it's satisfying work at the same time. The main reason why I wanted to do this is pretty simple: I've grown as an artist since I first started this story a few years ago and there were a lot of little things (pesky little things) that have bugged me since that time. Things like a poorly executed panel or page. Or just a drawing that doesn't feel quite right for whatever reason. Oddly enough, sometimes I can't quite tell the exact reason why a particular illustration doesn't sit well with me, but it'll bug me all the same. If it bugs me long enough, it's time to try it again.

Since I first started drawing road, I've gotten more confident with how I choose to execute certain things and I think my draftsmanship has gotten stronger. Same goes for my storytelling, though I don't think that will really come across until I start my next project. With draftsmanship, I primarily mean both making a drawing better (at least how I define it) and also bolder - a better use of blacks, for one thing, and just a stronger sense of composition. 'Course, being so immersed in it makes my ability to judge these things a little harder than someone else (you, for instance!), but I think it's true all the same. Art is interesting because it's both a constant challenge and a constant learning process. Being able to self-critique without being overly critical is incredibly important and learning how to do that has been one of the most unique aspects of learning how to draw, at least in my case. "When do I let a drawing go?" versus "I've got to fix it because it pulls someone out of the story" is the crux of my argument here. What's interesting is that these decisions change as you go along. There are drawings I simply can't live with now that I thought were perfectly fine when I first drew it. Only looking back, after giving myself enough time and distance, could I see the errors. It's fascinating. And more than a little humbling. The good thing is that I can at least see that I've grown and that's pretty neat.

It's probably easier to illustrate this by way of a few examples. First, I should note that these don't have the grey watercolour washes in them, mainly because I haven't done that yet with the corrected pieces. In some ways, though, these examples work better in black and white since you can see things a little better. The first example is a single panel from page 31. The top drawing is the original and the one underneath it is the correction. You can see that I've kept the basics the same. Same posing, same pacing and same dialogue. But the new drawing is executed better. I just handled the entire drawing problem better.

A similar thing happens on page 32. The original is on the left and the updated version is on the right. Instead of redrawing the entire page, I re-drew Kelly and dropped her into the page. Then I added more blacks to make the composition of the page that much stronger.

There's quite a bit of this throughout that 10%. Some pages were entirely redrawn. Sometimes it's just a panel or two here and there. The lettering is a different kettle of fish and that will be entirely new for every single page. I hope, when all of this is wrapped up, that road will be that much stronger. And I'll be that much stronger, too.

My plan right now is to update these GaM pages when the entire thing is finished. I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to "re-serialize" it or if it'll just be a massive update to the archive. We'll see. I'm also hoping to be able to at least put an announcement when the book version is finally ready. And hopefully, with the art updates, corrections, and re-lettering you'll enjoy the story that much more. And it'll resonate that much better.

With that, we come to the odds and ends. The PDF ebook verision of Li'l Kids can still be downloaded from my website - the direct link is http://www.vonallan.com/shop.html. And for those who are keen, the links to the print version of Li'l Kids are below:

Amazon.com:                        Amazon.ca                         Amazon.co.uk:

                       

The link to Barnes and Noble is right here, too.

As always, thanks so much for reading.

Von