I’ve been playing with Manga Studio in preparation for the next chapter of The Otherwalls. While I could to do the kinds of things I can do in Manga Studio in photoshop, it’s actually a pleasure to be using a program designed specifically with creating black and white comics in mind.

I’m having so much fun working on Otherwalls. There’s something magic about making comics that I don’t get from any other discipline that I’m involved in. I write stories, songs and poems, I draw and paint pictures with pencil, oil paint and watercolour. And while I intensely love all of these things, they hold nothing on comics.

It’s only comics that will start my heart racing and refuse to let me sleep until I’ve nutted out the next sequence, the next bit of script, the next plot point. I can’t sleep knowing that my characters are locked in this moment, and I need to write them out of it. I’m emotionally right there with them and a single word, or a look, or a well-composed panel lift it right off the page and bring it to life for me. I’m in the middle of one of these right now. It’s 3am and I can’t go to sleep until I’ve edited (not just written, but edited) this next scene.

I know there’s still so much that I need to learn, and I’m hoping that this year I’ll be able to absorb and process a lot more comic knowledge than last year. I just love doing this so much, It’s all I ever want to do. I hope that whatever else my life throws at me I’ll always have at least a little pocket of it where I can sit down and bring my stories to life through words and pictures.

Recently I have become a little obsessed with crochet, specifically amigurumi. It started when my Great Grandmother gave me her collection of crochet hooks in April and has built from there.

From the outside they might look completely unrelated to the rest of my art, but there’s something about making them that encourages me to work harder with all my projects and give anything a shot.

When I first tried to make a chain it was the most impossible thing ever. The hook was awkward to maneuver, and I couldn’t understand for the life of me how to make my work look like a bunch of well made knots rather than a bunch of tangled ones. I was ready to put the hook back down and resign my amigurumi dream. Luckily for me, there was a power cut! I spent the 3 hours that power was out learning how to make a magic ring. By the end of the cut I not only had a magic ring, I had a small pink ball of amigurumi! Awesome!

There are few things as satisfying as conquering a steep learning curve, but where would I be without my trusty friend and teacher, The Internet? Not only are there some really brilliant and inspiring works out there (I especially love Melissa Stanley’s creations), but there is a sea of helpful advice in amazing communities all across the web. Youtube especially has been an excellent resource.

I am a predominantly left-handed person. A lot of lefties end up quite ambidextrous from the necessity of this right-handed world, but not me. I try and force myself to do double-handed things (guitar, videogames, and now crochet), in order to keep the analytical left side of my brain from becoming too sluggish and sleepy.

I also begin to think in three dimensions, which is something as a 2D artist I don’t do nearly enough. My work suffers from being “flat”, I’m hoping working with something in 3D will help me with this. Crochet is great because you get to see the shape emerge as you go, rather than knitting where you have to wait until you’ve finished all the pieces to see what it will look like.

So, after 5 months I’ve gone from this to this. I can now stitch while half asleep in front of the television. The two monsterbunnies are currently my crowning achievement, being made from a Frankenstein of patterns I’ve worked with so far. Having picked up this much of the craft in this short of a time makes me feel like there’s nothing I can’t learn more about if I dedicate myself to it. I also hope that eventually I’ll be able to say my amigurumi are art pieces, rather than an out of control hobby.

Sometimes, very rarely, I can feel when I’m growing as an artist. Now is one of those times.

It’s showing itself in small ways, like figuring out how blend colours more subtly, and an awareness of the importance of fixing a stray line I would previously have ignored.

This growth has come directly out of illustrating subject matter I haven’t worked with before. I have to be more aware of what it is I’m working with, I can’t create the same kind of image with the same little mistakes. It takes me back to the building blocks of what drawing is about – observation, reference, and really seeing something in order to interpret it freshly. And that fresh material ends up improving how I deal with everything, even things I’ve drawn thousands of times before.

The Otherwalls is presenting me with a new challenge each time I sit down to work on it. From storytelling and pacing to character design and backgrounds, I’m having to think critically about every line and colour and really know that that’s where I want it, and that it’s helping me to say what I want.

It’s a step outside my comfort zone, and it is so awesome.

So! If you’re looking for a way to become more awesome as an artist, I suggest you try drawing something different!