Comic 365.15

A couple of weeks ago I had this incredible idea (“Sounds like you, Flicko”). I admit, it’s not particularly original (“Sounds like you, Flicko”), but as the Famous Five would say, I think it’s jolly exciting.

I know there are many off-the-shelf and established drawing challenges and exercises out there. Some involving a daily sketch on a particular subject (e.g. the Joker laughing), others a drawing-a-day for a month utilising a specific technique (e.g. the Joker laughing, in watercolour), others more collaborative in a relay race type way (e.g. I draw the Joker then you draw the next image in that sequence, possibly the Joker laughing?). And from what I understand, the intention of these various artistic undertakings is to bring some discipline and inspiration to the creative process, and maybe dare I say… fun.

Anyway, back to me. As we were slowly creeping towards the end of the year, I thought it would be fun (there’s that word again) to set up my own (possibly unoriginal) comic drawing project stroke challenge stroke exercise. If you’re still reading I’m going to assume you’re interested, so here it is:

– Draw one panel a day for 365 days (or in common parlance, ‘a year’).
– Each panel is the same size.
– Do not plan ahead, story-wise, but see where the images lead.
– No roughs or advance sketches.
– No dialogue.

Now, this is where the problems start, because once I started mulling (yuletide pun, relevant at time of writing) over the idea I invariably started to plan ahead. I began constructing a story arc! I couldn’t help it, dear reader! I had an initial image in my brain head, and from that I started to craft and fashion what I can only describe as, a spiffing tale. At least, that’s what me and Enid Blyton would call it.

But rather than beat myself up (which is actually quite difficult to do – no need to offer assistance, thanks!) I just revised my self-imposed rules. They were only self-imposed, after all:

– Draw one panel a day for 365 days (or in common parlance, ‘2015’).
– Each panel is the same size, but double panels are allowed (still counting as one day, mind).
– You can plan ahead for the sake of clarity.
– Minimal roughs only.
– No dialogue.

Y’see, I didn’t want to spend a year drawing something that I feared would end up being a rambling mess (“Sounds like you, Flicko”). I’m not as avant garde as my care-free off-the-wall regular musings may suggest. Stop sniggering! I wanted to make sure that anyone following this strip wouldn’t feel it was a wasted journey by the time they got to the thirty first of December. And when I say ‘anyone’ I probably mean ‘me’.

So, if the curiosity light on your control panel is currently flashing you’ll be pleased to know I’ve set up an Instagram account to record the daily panels. At the end of each month I’ll collate these images together nicely and present them here.

Post script: If it all goes face-shaped and I fall flat on my pear, I will immediately delete this blog post and deny all knowledge that I ever committed to such a task! (“Sounds like you, Flicko”)