So, after several days of lettering, and as a result of the temporary financial (and therefore mental) security of having a job, I was able to dip into my head just far enough to start doing anatomy studies. I have several anatomy pieces in the works for Comic Tools, and one in particular is a lesson on the pelvis, so I doodled stuff for that. Nothing emotionally involved, so I was able to concentrate and draw.

After awhile of that, I started feeling secure enough to dip down slightly more and start working on the likenesses of characters in the story I'm working on with my friend Emily. I hadn't drawn in some time, so the results were crude, but my hand was loosening up. I still couldn't draw for very long without sinking into my head and being caught in the gravity of the unapproachable ball of sadness, but still, some work is more than no work.


Things went on like that for awhile and then around Christmas I started having an idea for a story set in the world of Emily's stories, so I bought a little notebook and starting taking down every little thought that came. The following two pages describe the premise of the story. While it does address my own breakup and my feelings about it, which in recent months I've been slowly able to approach, it also concerns friends and family members whose lives were altered forever by the effects of losing a lover. It's sort of a theme in my family, not ever fully recovering from these sorts of losses, and one I wanted to explore visually.
Lately I've found that the bakery near my work is a great place to get drawing done, and every time I have a late shift I arrive early and draw a page's worth of anything, and send it to Emily. My hand still keeps trying to make marks like I'm drawing Acorn, but slowly my hand is drawing more and more like it's supposed to for this story.



Comic Tools always follows close behind whatever I'm doing with my comics. I'll hit a problem, overcome it, and then write a tutorial. The anatomy entries were the product of my frustrations with the anatomical teaching materials available to me. And it will be like that with this project. As I go along, the things I teach will likely follow close behind the obstacles I overcome in making it. For now, my obstacle is making it through every day with less pain and more art, so that's what I'm posting about.