Making a new comic: Progress so far

Hello, it's been a while since I have made a blog post, and there are several reasons for that. To be very honest I have gone through a sort of depressive period where the motivation to draw, and even communicate with people have been low, so writing blog posts or posting on social media has seemed pointless. I even went to my editors at my publisher to tell them that Nordlys had to go on an hiatus for an indefinitely amount of time while I figure stuff out for myself. I guess I thought that when I stopped drawing Nordlys I would be filled with the will and energy to draw anything that I wanted, and come up with really cool new concepts I could draw instead of Nordlys, but that isn't exactly what happened.

In fact, nothing happened, I felt the same as before I took the break. I thought my lack of energy to draw was that I was burnt out on drawing the same comic for years and years without breaks, but when I actually took a break it didn't really solve my depressive slump. Then I sort of realised that if not drawing Nordlys didn't make me feel any better, and if nothing of the exterior world in fact could make me feel better, I was sort of free to do anything I wanted, and I might as well continue drawing Nordlys, because the story I had built so far suddenly felt like it had new meaning to me, amongst the meaningless I felt.

So now I'm on track drawing Nordlys 7, in a bit slower tempo than before as not to get burnt out, but I have learned that by just being consistent, the book will get done. the only way it will not get done is by stopping.

Anyway, even though I have pledged to continue working on Nordlys I am still in the works of developing a new comic idea I plan on doing on the side of my main comic. I'm taking my time with it because I want it to be a solid concept that I can start before Nordlys is completed and continue after it is. I had no idea how hard it would be to make a whole new concept from scratch, this process has really humbled me.

It's almost a little disheartening because the concept that I wanted to make a comic started out somewhat simple, it was gonna be about little witches in a harsh fantasy world, but every time I tried to actually make the story nothing about it made me want to start drawing it, and holes in the plot would appear everywhere. If I'm not even interested to make the first few pages, how am I gonna be able to make a whole epic length comic?

One more thing that has also kept happening is that I have changed the genre of the comic about three times, making it so it feels like I'm starting the story over every time. This is also why I found out that this wasn't a concept I could rely on yet, and that I needed Nordlys as a constant in my life to take the pressure of creating something new.

So my witch concept has evolved quite a lot, but I think I have now found something I wanna try to develop. I won't write about the plot or story here yet, because I'm just not sure if this idea is gonna stick either. But I have some sketches from the carious stages of the concept, and you can maybe make out what I'm thinking from the development. Or probably maybe not, but it's fun to share sketches and concepts anyway, even if they go nowhere. Every drawing is questioning if the idea works, and every sketch is one step closer to something palpable.

Week 1+2 of Nathan Fowkes Plein air watercolor course

A few months ago I decided that it was about time I took some kind of art class, since through my art block I feel like my art progression has stagnated a lot, and I needed to get out of my comfort zone to break through it and learn something new.

I really wanted to do one of those critiqued Schoolism classes, but there weren't many spots open, so I really couldn't even choose what I wanted to learn, it was chosen for me. Luckily for me, one of my favorite artists Nathan Fowkes (Bg artist for Prince of Egypt, Spirit, Rio) had ONE spot open in his water color plein air class, so I signed up as quick as I could.

Now I have never done plein air OR water color, which I feel like is almost sinful, as water color is one of the most versatile and eye pleasing mediums there are, so I thought this is the perfect class for me to get out of my comfort zone. And boy, I'm already out of it.

Each week we have to watch some instructional videos with demoes and lectures, and then we have to turn in some homework. The first two weeks we have only been using B&W black water color and white gouache, but we are moving on to color next! We also get video critiques on our HW.

Week 1 are studies from existing plein air paintings, mine are on the right

Week 2. These are all painted from life, the picture is just to show the teacher.

So my first experience with plein air is that it's HARD. It's a completely different experience being outside painting to copying an image at my desk. But I'm learning a lot, hoping I get to experience some progress as the weeks pass!

Sketches for a new comic idea!

For most of my comic making career I haven't dared to think about any new concepts or new comic ideas just in case I would want to draw that idea more than I wanted to draw my existing comic... Just thinking of new things have almost felt like cheating on Nordlys.

I have met more artists who kind of think this way, even if they get excited to draw something else they won't allow themselves to because they already have one concept... And I get the logic behind it, it can be too hard to divide your attention to two concepts when one is already taking up so much attention. I also meet artists who just go "Oh, I have many concepts and ideas I wanna do, I can barely choose!" And I really envy them because my brain doesn't seem to be big enough for more than one idea at a time.

Now that Nordlys is nearing the end, I've suddenly come to the realisation that it's probably smart to actually have a plan for what I wanna do after, so I don't end up jobless. So thinking of a new idea doesn't make me feel that guilty anymore. But actually more importantly, I feel like I need a fresh concept to make me excited about drawing again, after

a period of art block I've had for about 1,5 years. I've spent all of spring thinking about it, and I've basically just deducted things I don't wanna draw, until I had a tiny idea of what I wanted to draw, and make a whole story just based of that tiny idea. The very small idea was, I wanted to make a story about a little witch who was kinda bad at magic. After thinking about it more, the more concrete idea is:

A timid little witch who lives at a run down orphanage gets the chance to attend a prestigious school for magical children. But in this dark fantasy world, nothing is what it seems...

Here are some sketches I have done in the past weeks to explore the concept, I really wanna continue to explore and post my progress here to see if you guys like it, because it's really important to me that I make something people wanna read!!

Feedback very much is welcome!!