Details and Distractions

I'm guilty of making a "rookie" mistake - I'm over-thinking everything!

My assignment is a simple one, create a cowboy character then use that character in 3 panels. The 3 panels are classic in structure; establishing shot of a town, full shot of the character of horseback then a view of a second character looking at our hero.

No problem, right?

Wrong.

I'm spending way too much time trying to figure out where this old west town exists. Should I go for a mountainous, Dakota look or stick with the desert, Sergio Leone look? What time of year is it? What time of day or night? How large is the town?

And if you think that I'm spending too much time on the details of the town, imagine how much time I'm wasting on the character!!

A few years ago, I created an old west gunfighter (no name) that was blind. Actually, he has no eyes at all because they had been shot out (it's a long story). I was dying to use this guy for the assignment. Well, I began worrying that my instructor might not like a character whose eyes are hidden behind a blindfold. I mean, this assignment is to show off my ability to draw the human form and I would be covering up the most personality revealing feature on the character. But the blind gunfighter is so damn cool that I almost can't resist it!

See? Rookie mistake. I'm stuck on the details instead of focusing on the overall story.

On top of what I mentioned above, the wife and I were on vacation all last week. We stayed at home and painted the kitchen and living room, played the Wii till we threw up and had an EPIC party last Friday! I mean EPIC!! We had a bonfire in the backyard of Hearn's Half-Acre and ran out of seating so my buddy, T!X and I brought out a couch from the garage and partyed on. How "hillbillly" is that?

Oh, and we fed bats for about an hour with little bits of hamburger. The bats now have high cholesterol.

Things are back to normal now and my deadline is approaching quickly.

Smell ya later!
-Dave