Drawing in my hotel room

Thanks to the marvels of bluetooth and cloud technology, I'm getting a lot of these random photos turning up on my laptop, with me in daft poses pulling stupid faces. Why could this be, you ask? It's because they've transferred to my computer from my phone before I've been able to erase them. And why have I taken them in the first place? Because Joseph.

If you look closely you'll see the hands from the above photo were what I used as reference for the first picture on this page of Joseph, the 23 page graphic novel I've written and am drawing for Bible Society. My deadline of the end of October looms ever close, meaning every spare moment in my hotel room has to be spent drawing. I also have, on my to do list, a drawing for the sleeve of a podcast CD and a rather elaborate Christmas card with 87 different drawings on it! Bloody hell Baldrick!

Working hunched over the little glass table in my hotel room is not, I'm sure, doing my spine any good. In fact I can feel some twinges and look forward to getting back to my drawing board next week, but at least this hotel has a table, and indeed very good light. So onwards and upwards.

Here, purely for my benefit, is a log of what I've drawn so far:

Script written during Hev's exhibition and sent to Rachel, my editor, Fri Sept 14.
Script amends delivered Sept 20
By Weds Sept 26 Pages 1 - 3 pencilled & inked, p4 pencilled
Sept 26 - Fri Oct 5 Pages 4 - 10 pencilled & inked before Denmark (with a few days off to put boxes in storage).
Oct 9 - 12 (in Denmark) Pages 11 - 15 pencilled
Quarter past midnight Oct 12th, Page 15 inked, 11 - 15 borders & bubbles inked, & one panel on each page inked. After a very good Socks Superheroes gig in Aarhus, might I add.

UPDATE: Sat Oct 13, 4 pages inked before lunchtime.
Page 16 pencilled between lunchtime and 5pm show, and inked by 9.20pm. Approx 4 hrs total.
Sun Oct 14, page 17 pencilled by 10.30am, then off to see Aros art gallery.
2pm - 3.15, page 18 pencilled.
7pm - 9.30, page 19 pencilled (I'm a lot slower in the evenings)
Mon Oct 15, page 20 pencilled by midday. Page 21 pencilled by 12.50 - fastest page yet!
2pm - 3.30, page 22 pencilled. Only one page left!
4.45 - Yes! Page 23, the final page, pencilled! Just in time for me to go off to tonight's Socks gig at 5pm.
Tues Oct 16, 3 pages inked between 9am and 4.15pm. So each page takes 2.33333 recurring hours to ink.
4.15 - 4.55/ 10.30 - 11.15pm a fourth page inked, finishing after the final Denmark Socks gig.
Weds Oct 17, 10am one more page inked, have to check out in an hour, so that'll be my lot
WOW! 11am - checked out having got another page inked!!

So my final Denmark work rate was...
Oct 9 - 12 - 5 pages pencilled
Oct 13 - 1 page pencilled, 5 pages inked
Oct 14 - 3 pages pencilled
Oct 15 - 4 pages pencilled
Oct 16 - 4 pages inked (3 still to ink)
Oct 17 - 2 pages inked (only 1 to go)

Allowing for a trip to Manchester and Bodelwyddan next weekend, and three days gigging on the 25th - 27th, I have 6 more drawing days left in October when I get home. And that's if I delay moving out of my office. Oh yes, and all 23 pages need colouring. God, the agony of being busy with comic art for once in my life!

Oh yes, and I do have to prepare and perform a comedy show every night here in Denmark, which in the case of the first three gigs has involved up to 4 hours travelling each day. Sigh. I tell you one thing I don't have time for, fannying about writing this bloody blog!