Hello friends and neighbors! I just wanted to take a moment to give y’all an update on the progress I’m making on my upcoming webcomic series, Legacy. Starting any kind of creative endeavor is complicated, especially for one of this scale. But! Things are moving right along, and I’m finding myself getting into a groove. Or at least something approximating something one might call a “groove.”
I’m hoping updates like these will be coming to you either weekly or at least bi-weekly until I start actually publishing pages. After that, the pages themselves will be the update. Only seems fair, right?
Legacy is a one person show, so I’ll share a peak behind the curtain based on each “discipline,” starting with…
Pre-Production
World Building
Legacy takes place in the near future, in a fractured, corporate dystopian version of North America. I’ve written about 2,400 words detailing the collapse of the USA, and the rise of The Great States of America and its rival nation states.
Beyond just fictional, in-world history, I’ve also created advertisements, outlined media like movies, tv shows, books, products, etc that appear in the world. As much as possible, I want the world of Legacy to feel real and lived in.
Character Design
The major characters designs have been largely locked in, and their biographies and motivations have been captured in yet another of my Google Docs.
Writing
When it comes to writing, I’m an outliner. My writing process starts with a big, broad, and widely cast outline, getting the big, sweeping themes and set pieces for a story in place. And I have the first major story arc (21 issues at this point) roughed out as an outline. I can then drill into each issue of the outline to add bullet points for scenes or character moments where they best fit.
Next comes page-by-page breakdowns. Once an outline feels close to done, I move it into its own document and break out scenes into pages. This helps me set the pacing of an issue, and gives me a sense of how many panels each page needs. It also tells me where I need to speed up, or slow down to ensure each issue hits the roughly 22-28 page mark. More often than not, I’ve been finding myself adding pages at this point to let scenes breath, and give characters a chance to sit in their feelings.
Next comes scripting. This is where I lock in panel layouts, sound effects, and character dialog in a fairly formal comic script format. I have completed finalized scripts for the first three issues, and a page-by-page breakdown for issue four.
Art
If I’m being honest, this is where I’ve been struggling the most. Not only am I having difficulty finding a digital art workflow that feels right, I’m falling into some classic imposter syndrome where I’m feeling like my art just isn’t good enough for the story I want to tell.
That said, I’m working through it, and I know that I will get better in time, and I will eventually find my rhythm. But I’m not quite there yet.
But! Despite all of that, I have the thumbnails for all the pages of Issue One done, and page 1 is getting close to finished. I’ve also got the inks done of the cover of Issue One, as well as a credits page / intro page ready to go.
Here’s a little timelapse of my process for creating the cover of Legacy Issue 1. Still not quite done at this point, but it should give you a little bit of an idea.
And that’s about it! I want to get at least the first 12-13 pages of the comic done before I start publishing them publicly so I can have a comfortable backlog of content so any unanticipated events in my life doesn’t impact my release schedule. I also want to the first release to be at least a few pages of story so you all have a good sense of why you should keep coming back.
Thanks!
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