100 Days of Making Comics Day 1: Fear

Hi, I’m Sydney and I’m a perfectionist.

Like many other people, I have a fear of failure. I enjoy making mistakes as much as getting a filling at the dentist. Unfortunately, making mistakes is as much of a part of life as breathing or eating. We all do it. It’s how we learn. Despite hearing those words for my entire life (heck, I even say them all the time to students), I’m STILL trying to convince myself that it’s okay to “screw up” every once in a while. It’s okay to jump into the deep end, to take a chance every now and then, because with great risk can come great reward, right? On the other hand, great risk can also create a life-ruining event that can be so catastrophic—ARGH! I’m trying to focus on positivity, brain.

Anyway, there’s no doubt fear can destroy you as an artist. With me, I have no problem creating artwork. My problem is marketing and getting my work out there because of (what else) fear. What will other people think? What if no one cares? What if it doesn’t make any money? Well, the truth is, none of those things matter. All that matters is that I’m doing something I love. It doesn’t need to be profitable. I have a day job to pay the bills, after all. It just needs to be fun.

For the past year, I’ve had a story idea that was based off a book I made back in second grade. It began as a children’s book, then it morphed into a longer graphic novel. I’ve always enjoyed making comics, so I thought I’d try my hand.

However, I have another ailment in addition to being a perfectionist. I have that nasty habit of not finishing things, especially long-term self-started projects.

Enter the 100 Days of Making Comics challenge. I originally discovered the idea from watching videos made by challenge creator and comic artist Kevin Cross. The idea of the challenge is simple: spend at least 30 minutes a day for 100 straight days working on a comic, whether it be actually drawing out panels, writing your story, or simply sketching your characters. The final rule is that the artist must document their daily progress somehow, whether it be through video updates or posts on blogs or social media.

So I decided what better way to motivate myself to stick with my comic idea than to take on the challenge, starting today when I finished inking Page 4. My goal is to complete Part 1 of my comic and post it online by the end of this 100 day challenge. Hopefully I can stick with it, especially since doing this challenge will help me get used to constantly putting my artwork out there for the public to see. And at the very least it will help give me a piece of work of which to be proud. If you want to follow along with my progress, follow me on Instagram at sydbrownart or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sydneybrownart.