Brave 3 is finally turning one!!! Well, kind of. We’ve been working on Brave 3 a lot longer than one year, obviously, but tomorrow (October 1st) Brave 3 will officially have been released out into the wild for a whole year! We’re not exactly sure when Brave 3 was created so we’re just going to have to make due with October 1st being the BIRTH. With that being said, Brave 3 is not just ours anymore. It belongs to every person that gave it a chance by reading it and following along. Hopefully you’ll take the time to celebrate a bit with us by taking a look at the amazing illustration Ombray is working on to commemorate the anniversary.
Now, before I launch into my planned topic of this blog post, Ombray, Jen (our amazing editor, website designer, first supporter, etc.), and I would like to thank everyone for reading Brave 3. It means a lot to us that something we created together is enjoyed by someone outside of our circle. We have a ton more in store to keep us going for the next few years so there will be many more Brave 3 birthdays to come!
Onto my main desire for writing this…Putting a comic together is not easy and I know that is rather obvious to state. Besides having the ability, it all comes down to motivation. When your comic isn’t the source of your income, it’s hard to make it the center of your attention. I know I got lost along our year of releasing because I prioritized working my day job over working on the comic. After I got recalled back to my job when covid started to loosen its grip on the U.S., any amount of hours my job offered I took. Somehow I worked twenty-two days straight at one point. I did it all thinking I could make more money and work on Brave 3 once I got home or that rare day off, but I wish I had someone tell me that was not going to happen. Eventually I wised up and started to slow down all the overtime I was taking because I didn’t find any of that fulfilling. I was more annoyed than anything from the lack of accomplishment I felt from it all. Sure, I went to work, made money, but that was literally it. No one is going to remember or care that I worked all those hours after it’s done. Working that much was just exhausting and it left me a bit annoyed with myself because I wasn’t doing anything to make myself happy.
A very good friend of mine that is working on his dream of making music best summed it up for me one day when he was offered a new job opportunity that he previously inquired about by saying out loud “Here I go again doing something I don’t want to do.” That made me pause and realize I was doing the same thing. By taking all of those extra hours I was leaving myself too tired and unmotivated to work on Brave 3. All I truly want to do is work on Brave 3 and make it into a bigger success. By now you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this (and if you’re not then thank you because you get me). My main message from all this rambling is that you should take time to make your project a success no matter what it is. My buddy had to point it out to me during our conversation, so I want to point it out to anyone that took the time to read this. Working on Brave 3 is what makes me feel a sense of accomplishment that I do not get anywhere else. If you have a project like that, regardless of the medium, then you need to feed the beast that is your creativity and desire to bring it to fruition.
I’ve put off writing a blog to supplement the gaps in between our Brave 3 releases and I will endeavor to write more blog posts. I do plan on breaking down what worked for me when I learned how to letter, in a post or two. I had no idea what to do when it came to lettering because I never gave it too much thought whenever I read comics or started planning Brave 3 with Ombray. I figure it might help someone else that is just learning how to letter or is just curious how lettering works from someone that is still in the process of getting the hang of it.
Hope you enjoyed this and Happy Birthday Brave 3!
-Ed (writing-boy)