Welp, here goes. May 7th is the projected big day.
DRAG PICTURES TO NEW TAB FOR FULL RESOLUTION

Not sure how to even start off this first post on the first day of my journey without sounding too 'extra' about it, since 120 days is a long way away. I guess I'll start by saying I've been grinding my art irregularly for the past two years until I was good enough by my own standards to begin making it... or at least thats what I was telling myself. Truthfully, it was the creatively-lethal mix of fear and laziness always grasping at some reason why I shouldn't get started: "You're not good enough yet" "the comic scene is over-saturated", "you need some endorsements from other e-celebs", "you don't have enough followers to support it", And a million other lousy self-imposed prerequisites...

But I recognized that if I were to die tomorrow, my biggest regret would be not sharing my art and these awesome stories with the world, not any of those other things - and thats the attitude I need to maintain moving forward. I'm making this thread to hold myself accountable to this perspective and share my creative journey with you all. My other thread is going to be for sharing miscellaneous art, but this one is reserved specifically for this.

I probably did go too deep with that, but I can't help it, I've been drafting these stories for ~10 years and don't want to waste any more precious time without realizing them. I'll update this thread at least three times a week, every single Sunday, Wednesdays, and Fridays until then, and I will update the countdown every single day.

The working title is "Citywide", a story about people participating in a race. More info very soon.

Follow the process!
twitter.com/GatlaShine

3/12 Update - I’m taking a mute for the next 2 weeks, but all updates will still be posted to Twitter.

Sunday update, as promised.
Here is a WIP of the main character for the story, Eli Citywide.

The pic was originally going to be much more of a closeup focusing on his shoes, but it wasn't as exciting. Also, updates won't always be new art. It might be a bit more info on the story or how my creative process is going. But you can still expect something every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I can’t stress enough how unsatisfied with this I am, but it’s obviously a WIP. I spent so much time designing so many different shoes I think I started getting deficit returns at a certain point. I have to pace this better. Gotta sleep for work now, but I might make a second update by EOD.

Edit: I should be asleep by now but I just had to make some tiny adjustments, didn’t feel right leaving as is…

Midnight edit: found a shoe form I’m comfortable with. Very basic designs, but a good start, I think.

sick, gonna follow this

in

You’re right, go for it immediately.

This has some tips about getting into a personal long term creative project, s*** can eat your life up if you don’t plan things well at the beginning. I’ve personally seen 2 months become 9 quickly

Design draft for Eli

This has been in my suggestions on and off for years, probably since it was first uploaded, but I never watched it. Thank you for posting man, that was a good watch. I wish I would have seen it earlier.

@celinee thank you!

You have a process ig or anything?

I have an IG but I hate it as a platform and medium for sharing art, so haven’t posted on that thing in like a year. I should probably start though, since it’s a giant one.

I totally forgot Sunday was my day, I almost thought it was Monday lol.

Here's the working color palette for the protagonist, Eli Obsidite. I had to narrow it down from about 100+ potential combinations and there are still a few others I really like, but I think this fits best for his character and role.



BTW I know how weird it sounds that I'm still making a design of a story I've had in mind for 10 years, but I was investing most of that time into one of my other story ideas that I'm saving for later, and pursuing this one now.

Here's the rough draft of a cover.

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: WIP for a character… working name Yaenidae. She’s been on my mind since the very beginning, but I never laid down the official design for her. I lost my iPad Pencil and totally wasted a few hours looking for it, so had to put something together in the last hour of the day…

Proud of you for chasing your dreams and putting your art out there. The concept art is great so far, Ima be checking this thread and following the journey

THANK you dude 😄

FRIDAY UPDATE

More on the above character, Yaenidae. It might not seem like a lot of progress, but I've been through a lot of drafts and ideas on paper for her since then but ultimately ended up sticking with the base designs with some alterations, although I'm not sure what I want to do for her wrists. I removed the eyebrows to align more with the more "bare" eyes seen in hyenas, but I'm not final on that. She looks friendlier, but a bit less expressive.

yoooo she looks sick as hell

@celinee Thank you + for your support itt 😄😁

SUNDAY UPDATE: Finalized design for Yaenidae! I’m pretty satisfied with how this turned out. I’ll color in the shoes later on.

Im tryna be like you OP

Youre art is sick, will be watching out for this thread 🙏🏽

Working on some projects myself, this giving me inspo

Hard

Heaaaaat you're good af

Wednesday update. Made a story plan for the first 20 pages + stick man drafts of the paneling. Pretty satisfied with this despite the revisions it took, but that’s just part of the process.

@Skiofficial @RollerBlade @TylerConan THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR POSTS!

FRIDAY update.
100 days until release of Citywide. Made some additional revisions to the first 20 pages, and completed up to page 17 of the rough draft. Turning out to have more humorous elements than intended, much to my surprise.

I keep coming back to see this one man.amazing s*** so far

@Skiofficial YO THANK YOU!

SUNDAY update. I had an awful day yesterday that really stunted my creative day to day flow, so I didn’t get to work on anything. But I did put this together in a few hours when I got off work earlier today. The last time I worked on it was the pic from above, so I made new line art and gave it some lighting which is still an obvious WIP.

Full version here twitter.com/gatlashine/status/1619964741002350592?s=46&t=BeKWQ5PvD2LssOxpoqzVcg

this is hard