New OilCan Drive Piece

As promised the other day, here are a few photos of the work being done on the newest OilCan Drive piece that I used for the blog header this month.

I didn't do this piece for any real reason in particular other than I hadn't drawn the characters in a while and I simply missed them. It also gave me a chance to look at each character and think of ways I might change little details here and there as I looked at the finished piece. Some things I love but other little things bugged me so this piece helped me sort out some of those problems.

I also gave myself a few free hours yesterday to sit down after lunch at Einstein's Bagels and write a good chunk of the Exit 6 collected book. It felt a little weird to sit there for about three hours in the corner typing away but the people working there like me and came over to chat a few times as I worked. For some reason I have a hard time sitting at home and writing anything of length other than a blog post or an email. So it was nice to sit somewhere else for a while surrounded by people and just write.

The good news is that, because I sat there and gave myself the time to do it, the first draft of the Exit 6 book has been completely written. There is one more part I want to write about the people who did pin-ups for me when the original comics were published but the bulk of the story of how I worked on Exit 6 and what happened after is now complete. It felt good to write those last words and feel like I had completed something of worth in telling my story. Now I just need to go through the whole thing again and fix whatever needs fixing and then give it to someone else to read and see what they think.

But, after counting pages last night, depending on how I format the book, it looks like there will be about 230 pages of art with about 150 pages of the story behind Exit 6. I'm really looking forward to getting all of the writing done so I can get to the fun part of designing the book. But, one step at a time. I felt like yesterday I made a nice giant step.

OK, back to work for me. I have a few pages of a kids book to finish up today.

Have a great day!