Time for another round of everyone’s favourite Abominable Q&A (though questions need not be limited to Abominable things). Let’s get started!

As a fellow illustrator who has been trying to manage his own project(s) properly for some time (in addition to a full time job and life in general), but just can’t seem to get my act together. I assume that Abominable is not your full-time job but a labour of love, yet you always manage update every Wednesday despite having many other projects that you’re also working on. Can you offer up any good time management tips for those of us attempting to make a go of it? Thanks for putting out one of the greatest comics out there!
 
~Eben (from Victoria, BC)

You’re welcome, Eben! Thank you for being a regular fixture in this small community since its inception.
It’s true that my paying gig is drawing comics for DC and Marvel (as well as the odd illustration job for magazines, etc.) and The Abominable Charles Christopher is (as yet) a side-project. So juggling the workload has been problematic and occasionally stress-inducing. Here’s my advice, which may or may not work for you, depending on your situation:
Take paying jobs with loooong deadlines and of a limited nature. My current comics jobs allow me to be a bit more lenient with my scheduling because they’re not monthly releases. As far as the weekly strip is concerned, all I can tell you is that you have to treat it like the most important thing in your world. It’s your baby, and if you don’t look after it, no one else will, so make sure you give it the love and respect it deserves, and stick to your update day come hell or high water. Sometimes that means drawing in an uncomfortable, cramped space, away from home, and sometimes it means hiding from your family on Christmas morning.
But consider this: as hard as it is to wait, as a reader, for a weekly update, it’s just as painful for your characters, who are living, breathing creations, to wait patiently in the dark for you to realize them onto the page. They’re no less real than you are; treat them that way.

Hey Karl, I’m just curious-  have you had any training or experience in traditional animation?  I think that seeing Charles in motion would be really cool, plainly put.  I’ve been considering animating something small myself, in my spare time.  A walk cycle, a lumbering run cycle, a gesture, something simple that I’d have enough time to do well.  Your characters seem so well-constructed, though, that I imagine a rough animation by yourself would be quite lovely, if you’re familiar with any animation principles.  If not, perhaps we fan artists could bother you for a Charles construction guide/model sheet some day?  I’ll bet you’d see a lot more fan art crop up.  With accurate enough orthographics, someone might even pop out a 3d model of him.  Just a few scattered thoughts wrapped up in a question!

- Matt

Oh, Matt. I can’t resist a question like that. I love animation (witness the shameless homages to Miyazaki) and would enjoy nothing more than to see an animated Charles Christopher. Even just a walk cycle. I’ve had no experience in animation, but I’m very familiar with the principles and I’ve dabbled a bit with crude video camera experiments (right, Lyon?). :)
Anyway, perhaps I’ll do a quick turnaround model sheet for any aspiring modelers, though there are probably enough extant angles of Charles to cobble together into a working reference. I think half of the fun of it would be to simplify his form, smooth out the lines a bit more, to allow for easier, cleaner animation. No one wants to deal with all of that fur!

That’s it for now! I’ll be back in a few weeks to answer one of the most-asked questions, which pertains to…. the plot!

Stay tuned…
-karl