Elf Blood

It suddenly strikes me, that the main disadvantage for somebody at my intermediate art level in working on long graphic novels over a period of time is that, inevitably, your art improves and your style may change. While this is inarguably a good thing, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that it introduces an element of inconsistency to your work. These differences may actually only be very small, and they may go unnoticed by others, but dammit if they don’t just sit and glare at you from the page.

Even halfway through a work, you can be sorely tempted to just scrap it and go onto something else. Innately, though, we succumb to the sunk-cost fallacy; That the amount of time or money spent on developing something means that, even if the outcome is not going to deliver value for money, you should continue on your current course. I must confess, I’ve sort of fallen into this with Lemon Candies: Even though, now, a lot of the art bothers me and I feel strongly compelled to move onto other things. Say, Memecasters Book 2 or another graphic novel.

That would pretty much be admitting defeat, though. Yes, some of the art may be dodgy, but that’s what revisions are for: This isn’t going to be the finished product, not by a long shot. If you want to make a quality product, you’re going to have to expect to spend a lot of time fixing all the flaws before release!

This is one of the reasons I  love Webcomics as a medium. Because I do the art a couple of days before each entry for each one, while I admit I’m ill-prepared for infirmity or other emergencies it does allow me to be a lot more flexible and rapid to respond to changes or improvements in my artistic style, whereas in my graphic novel I’m a little more bound to the choices I’ve made earlier on, even if they’re somewhat ill-conceived.

But hey, all part of the learning process eh? I’ll always take notes and move on!

M.