I’ve revisited “The Dig” and decided to go back to color and see what I’d think. Sometimes you get emotionally attached to ideas (mine being the idea of doing this book in ink only.) Not that that may still be the case… but I gotta say, it is refreshing in color and it has been fun. I see more of the shading and dimensions when I go into color and it looks pretty good. I still like the simplicity of having the background in ink. BUt, there you go, part of the process.

Definitely POPS more.

Definitely has helped having that reference for the characters. I like the flow and feel a lot better. But it is as I lay it out I see that my little sophisticated one’s legs become longer on the proceeding pictures. Sometimes you get too close and don’t see the subtle issues so to have a standard by which all characters are set, I can now address that and fix it. 

I wish I could escape the frustrating process of drawing then scrapping that, draw again, scrap that, etc, etc… BUT, if it serves a point, in that you learn and grow, learn and grow, then I would say it must be totally worth it. With my story the DIG, I’m sure some, who have been acquainted with the project for years now, can’t understand why I seem to not get too far past the starting line when I head right back to the gates. If it weren’t for the thought that it will be worth it in the end I would go out my mind myself. BUT I believe that I have learned along this path and have come up with a more poignant and fun story as a result. Part of the beauty behind the best books in my mind is the thoughtful detail and that is what I hope to bring to this book.

Part of what I needed to do is what I did with my first book, The Farmer. When I started working through that book I waffled back and forth not able to decide upon the style of the book, be it more cartoonish, realistic… and that, as this project, has been a similar process. But when I got the way I wanted the Farmer to look I really had a hard time from page to page keeping his look consistent. So I when and figured out how to sculpt and sculpted a head of the Farmer. (I’ll have to try and find it sometime as it pretty cool). But from that sculpted head I was able to see the character in a 3D manner… more I was able to acquaint myself in a more intimate manner with the character. SO, with that done, I felt I needed to go there with these two characters and bring back the dog from one of my earliest pictures years ago. And this is what has come from it (above). I like the two color feel and think this is where I want to take it. 

So, this is where I am today in the story of The Dig. The very beginning, again, but yet far from the beginning. The hard work of this story is mainly done… its the polishing out the details, the details that matter.