[Original comic] Trees & Hydrangeas (fr) + conception notes (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

The "23h de la BD" (lit. 23 hours of the comic) event I've been part of just ended today!

The challenge is: you have to make a 23 pages+1cover comic during 23 hour non-stop, with a thema and a special challenge announced at the beginning of the event.
As I'm not used to create stories I was quite stressed about being able or not to imagine something.

From the thema "winged creature" and challenge "have a non-sense sequence", I made this comic, "Trees and Hydrangeas".

I'm sorry, it's only in french for the moment, but I'll try to translate it in english soon!

I made light corrections on this version (like, 20minutes more), but if you want to see the very original one, you can find it there: https://23hbd.com/participants/2021/sedeto/

You can also check the 23 hour non-stop stream I made for that event!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/966305923

A few feedback about my process and feeling

 It's my very first time in the contest so I still be very few experienced, but I think it may be interesting anyway :)

1) Time

The two first steps are quite easy to measure :
- 1 hour for the concept and story (last pict of this post)
- 5 hours for the storyboard-sketch. I started by drawing directly the first 10 pages as a sketch I can line after, then I manage a small storyboard to balance my story steps in the pages I had.

After that, I alterned: first half of the lettering (about 2 hours), first half of the line, second half of the lettering, a few coloring (the nightmare part), line finish, and global colors.

I realized after the first page line that I won't be able to line it as I do usually, with some attention. I had to speed up a lot!

I fixed my color set before the event because limited color set is always more harmonious. Even if your drawing is irregular, a few color will blend the mood of your whole comic as one!

About sleeping and fatigue, I started feeling exhausted around 4 hours after it starts, because it's my average drawing session lengh, I think. It's the time I took a very small break for eating (actually I was still drawing/thinking about it a bit). I had another down time around midnight (11 hours after starting). I went to sleep the first time at 3, but actually, I wasn't able to sleep because my body still was into the action. But I rested mentally and physically. So I went back to the computer and started the second part of the line at that time, until I feel energiless to draw the last page, and I went to bed again around 9 and slept around 2 hours. I was feeling quite better after this! Even if I still feel my body kinda hate me for forcing a bit (but I'm quite weak, in general and on those last weeks), I feel already better tonight :3
I really ended just before the deadline, like 30min before, updated everything, then checked again everything, and updated 3 corrected pages.

2) Clip Studio Paint EX

I decided to get finally EX to enjoy comic page management before the event. It's really smooth for everything. I'm still defending Clip Studio as an amazing soft thought for illustrator and artists at a point that Photoshop never let me imagine. 

BUT.

Text edition is quite shitty. Each time I made a new text block, I have to put all my text parameter again: font, size, bold and italic, center... I lost time with it, just because it's not optimized. Maybe I didn't get how it works really? I ended copying text block in order to gain a bit of time. If you select a speech bubble then select the text tool, it links the text into the bubble, that is very nice... but why it's not automatically centered, for example ? I think occidental and japanese lettering are different (main manga speech bubbles have the text aligned to the top, as it's vertical, for example). But I'll be very happy if Clip Studio manage style of text, for example. I usually never use this tool because I use Adobe suits for most of my works, but for many reasons it seemed faster to do everything on the same soft for this kind of challenge, so I couldn't avoid it...

3) Rewards

- I think the most grateful part of this challenge is that you achieve something. Even if it's not perfect, you have the best excuse - being limited into time. But you did it!

- I'm often wandering about my artstyle, that I feel quite undefined. This kind of challenge force you to draw just as it comes, and it revealed my own artstyle to me, somehow. And I'm happy because it's a style that I like. It can sounds strange, but what comes naturally from your natural drawing is not necessarly what you aim for. Somehow I feel it joined on this project. I think it's quite inspired from Yuuko & Makoto artstyle, but in a more simple and cute way? I'd like to cherrish this experience for helping me seeing better what it is.

- I'm really consideering I'm not made to make stories. Actually, that's my longest SFW story! The last time I made SFW comics was in high school and it was 6 pages. Since then, I made two explicit doujinshi (Nasty Majesty and YumeOboe), but as the action is concentrated on sex scene, it's really a different exercice. What usually refrain me writing is that I'm criticizing the lack of originality, the lack of credibility of my stories. But as I didn't have time to overthink it, and have the excuse of the time limit, I went throught it. I'm still not confident about my skills for it, but it let me a positive feeling.
What I'm the most proud of, is that I've been able to give a positive and personal message throught it, tenderness, warmness that some people said they felt throught reading my story. That was definitively over my own expectation, and it came naturally through the story. I hope i'll keep in mine the confidence I gained with this experience.

- I'm so happy I decided to stream it! It was a crazy challenge to tell I'll be streaming non-stop, even if I knew I'll go sleep probably a couple of hours. But in the end, it was like if I was working in an open studio, with friends coming by, strangers praising my works and just passing by. Everyone that said hi, or jokes, or suggestions in the chat really made my challenge easier. I never felt it like a pressure, but the opposite, a motivation, to entertain you and not deceive you and spend a nice time together, the present time (hahahaha- oops).

All those are my personal feeling, I think it can not suit everyone, but if you're ever hesitating, don't forget that anytime, you can say "sorry, i feel bad, i cut the stream". It's something that I didn't get immediatly with streaming.

I think I told most of my debrief throught, freshly out of the challenge. I think I may re-read it before next year challenge, and I hope it may help some other people :3

See you soon! I'm sorry I'm a bit late on Genshin duet illustration because anatomy asked me a lot of correction. Next month I'll probably do the Sedeto 2Dlive avatar illustration, but i'll think about a little poll for april! It may be... some... Hololive... Because I felt into it harder lately... :'3