100 days of making comics Day 50

2/1/2021 - Day 50: 40 minutes went into sketching and arranging sketches that I did earlier into panels today.

Progress Screenshots: [Everything is still WIP, I see some things about the panel layouts that I'll probably change later. Right now though, I'm focusing on just progressing through the story so that I have an initial 1st draft to edit later.]

[Oh, it's day 50 already!? Guess I might as well talk a little about how I've gone about keeping track of the days for this challenge.]

• I like a visual and hands on approach when dealing with more abstract concepts. Which means that any way to make a more tangible, visually interesting, interactive, or regularly changing calendar is helpful to catch my attention every day.   
  

• For that, I went back to my childhood roots, and pulled out the old colorful bricks. It's not the first time I've called upon stackable plastic blocks for a task of this nature. [Tracking college days was the other time.]
  

 

This was the initial layout for the lego day tracker, and I used it up until day 22. By then I was getting tired of recounting bricks every time I forgot what day it was. The layout was compact and creative to look at, but wasn't particularly beneficial. I did use something bigger and very similar while in college, but I used scrap pieces of paper to track every 10 days. I would recommend marking at least a few specific day increments if you intend to build this kind of calendar in the future [A note to self.]

Below pic: the large rectangle of 100 LEGO bricks represents 100 days. The incomplete rectangle below that, represents each day up until day 46, which is when that photograph was taken.

[Finally, here's what I'm using now. Conveniently, the colors represent the general quantity of time spent during a given day, and the quantity of bricks represents the number of days. The question mark day [day 47] was when this photo was taken, as everything beyond it is speculative and a bit idealistic.]

 

[As a side note on challenges and maintaining a daily streak, I started a Duolingo streak 42 days before I started the 100 days of making comics challenge. Today, I'm on 92 days. Doing duolingo [or anything with a small time commitment but a daily deadline each day] can help add some structure and consistency to work around when trying to complete other tasks.]

 

Key takeaways: [That I personally used.]

• Task stacking can be especially helpful if there is a regular habit or routine already in place, because other tasks that don't have a defined deadline throughout the day can be stacked around tasks that you already have a routine for. [example: using Duolingo back to back with the 100 days of making comics.]
  

• Make the predetermined commitment as small as possible, and work beyond it each day. [For the 100 days of making comics challenge, the goal is to do at least 30 minutes each day. Personally, I try to surpass that each day, even if only by a few minutes, because in the long run, my goal is for the minimum to be closer to 3 hours.]

• Readily adapt, and actively change your approach if things aren't working or are going to be unsustainable. I found that it's easy to spike in focus and energy, then burn down to the bare minimum again shortly afterwards. This works for random and especially exciting moments, when working on something inspiring. but in the long run, it isn't the healthiest approach.

• Finally, these two are the ones that I struggle with the most; scheduling procrastination, and setting self-imposed deadlines. I tend to be a goal oriented person, but I'm also a "productive" procrastinator. If I don't determine an hour to complete something by, I may not even start, in favor of other tasks, like sweeping, sketching for a side project, or writing that thesis about snails I've had in the back of my mind. But I also need to take breaks, and if I'm working too much while procrastinating, there's a risk of burning out before starting the "real"/intended work. I could explore this topic further in a future blog post as I learn to apply it more.
  

Today's random interesting animal: 

• What are the star sand beaches of Japan? They're beaches where the many tiny star-shaped calcium carbonate tests or "shells" of  deceased Foraminifera wash up on the beach to form part of the sandy substrate. Sounds beautiful doesn't it? Well, beach sand tends to have a lot of interesting little things in it, but I digress.
• The distinctive star-shape of this Foraminifera is characteristic of the species Baculogypsina sphaerulata, which is rare in most other parts of the world.
• Baculogypsina sphaerulata is a microscopic amoeboid protist species that grows a test [their version of a shell essentially.] that has many little holes through which it can catch food and interact with the external environment by pushing out streams of its granular ectoplasm pseudopodia. Welcome back to marine bio 101. :)
  
  
  • I'm convinced that Baculogypsina sphaerulata is the zooplankton version of Konpeitō. Nobody knows how long I've been wanting to say that. hah hah.
  • And yes, I am happy about using the word "amoeboid" on this blog. it's some kind of accomplishment... Some kind.
  
  
• TOOLS USED for the art in this post: Autodesk sketchbook on the ipad pro, and yes, paper of course. Also LEGOs too apparently.
  

  Thanks for checking out the blog! :) 

  Links to find me in other parts of the internet:  

  • Check out the Turaco Creative Cast! New livestreams each Wednesday!

  •  Anna Raub's Linktree.