The Lady Cartoonist

Greetings, all, from somewhere next to nowhere in Nevada. More specifically, I am at the BurningMan production facility (here on: ‘the ranch’) building, well, The Man.
This is my third year on Man Krewe (and fourth man). My productivity has been waning in the cartooning department so I decided to add a little challenge while I’m up here. I am going to write and draw a comic every day of the build, from sticks and timbers to fully built Burning Man. I’m just taking photos so bear with me.
Pal Aaron Muszalski is liveblogging the whole build at the official Burning Man Blog (fancy!).
Here is yesterdays:

and today:

Hey, wanna see my guts? Well, my guts 5 years ago, anyways.

This is from a PET scan. They injected me with a radioactive sugar, then scanned me for three hours to see what parts of my body used the sugars the fastest (highest metabolism). It’s used to locate tumors (which have a high metabolism). Apparently, it’s also used to diagnose certain types of schizophrenia. I was the former, and this scan is pre-chemotherapy. I’m going to try to obtain the PET scan images from after chemo to compare. My tumor is one of the two large blobs in me chest, next to my heart.

(P.S.- doesn’t it look like I’m looking for my wallet?)

Momentum is a tricky mistress. It is extremelly dificult to start on a new project, and often just as hard to keep it moving. I have always grappled with artists’ block; it makes me miserable and useless.
Almost my whole cartooning career I’ve been a page-by-page girl. I would write, pencil, and often ink each before moving to the next. This is a terrible way to work- the end of each page affords a gap where momentum can brick wall itself.
I’m breaking that habit with this new (!) comic. Breaking a project down into steps allows me to see the whole book; reduced to easy-to manage bite sized nuggets. Each step leads into the next. If you must take a couple days off, having a whole book roughed out makes it infinatly easier to pick back up again.
Here are my steps:
Page/ narrative roughs; narrative fine tuning; full sized pencils; final narrative and pencil tweeks (and speech bubble placing); ink outlines; ink detail, cleanup, color.
I encourage all cartoonists- rough it out!

I’ve just added a bunch of illustrations to the gallery, go check it out! I am going to be a total watercolor walk-through soon, as well as a ‘tool box’ post with some more of my favorite bits-n-bobs.