I took out the trees in this page. I feel like they were more distracting than anything else.
As I’ve worked on various stages of this project, my feelings towards drawing comics have shifted back and forth. At some points I have been very excited about my characters and the story, and at others I’ve thought “I have drawn this little girl with her crazy pigtails and overalls fifteen billion times. I’m sick of it. How do people with long running stories find the patience?” Starting at page one and looking ahead at my outline and seeing how far I had to go was paralyzing. I desperately wanted to get through the story, no matter how long it took me, but I was terrified that I would not have the patience and this would become one more abandoned project.
In the time since then, I’ve found the patience I needed. It took me a little while, several hiatuses, the urging of friends and family, and creative framing to allow me to draw things other than the same characters faces over and over again, but I found it. I no longer groan when I turn a page and realize that I will be drawing Emma four times with subtle expression changes. It is delightful to me when I can tell the story using my characters faces instead of walls of text, and I have this story to thank for that realization and growth. It is with a great sense of pride and accomplishment that I look forward to digitalizing the rest of the pages and finishing the final chapter.