Repitive Strain Injury (RSI) and YOU

For the past couple years I've been dealing with repetitive strain injury (RSI) in both my wrists (well forearms really). It's been quite frustrating to deal with and taking long breaks from extra curriclar work (comics) just depressed me and didn't help much. Here are some things I've done that have helped - I should note that from reading stuff online it seems that no two instances of RSI are the same - so keep that in mind.

*Ideally you avoid these measures by always taking breaks (see number 4 below)

1. Doctor / Physiotherapist - I went to both a doctor and a physiotherapist. They ruled out carpal tunnel and tennis elbow and set me up with some stretches.

2. Braces - When I draw or use a computer I wear a wrist brace like this
Its ugly and gets uncomfortable - but it really helps the tendons. When both wrists were bad I wore them on both hands. When my whole arm was feeling bad I would wear an elbow brace as well. Thankfully, I'm down to just one brace on my drawing hand.

3. Stretches - I've tried a whole bunch of things. I kept up a good regiment with these stretches - but ultimately found they didn't help a lot. I used a resistance band to strengthen my wrists for a while, but eventually ditched the band in favor of 5 pound weights.



I do repetitions as in the above video EVERY morning, first thing before I draw. I actually keep the weights next to my drafting board.

4. AntiRSI software - This application has made a HUGE difference. It monitors your keyboard and mouse (or tablet) input and forces you to take micro breaks (I have it set to 12 seconds every 4 minutes) and full work breaks (6 minutes every hour). It can be very annoying to have to stop but the benefits far out-way the annoyance - and it's free!

5. Fat Grip - Scott McCloud's post on this very subject matter has this at number 1. And with good cause. I've got all my tools taped up and it is way more comfortable. Try it out!

6. Avoid Touchscreens / videogames - My wrist pain is really a result of very small movements of my tendons. I can place tennis with no pain at all, but scrabble on the ipod touch had to be deleted. Videogame controllers are also bad news. I spent a month paying for one night of COD with the guys. Lesson learned!

There are more things I've changed - and I will probably get around to writing about this subject a bit more in the future.

Process

I've been working on my first new sequentials since I took more then a year off to study. I'm quickly realizing that whatever my old process was, it doesn't really apply anymore. I've been doing my best to compartmentalize the steps, but I can't help but feel overwhelmed by all the different concerns - draftsmanship, storytelling, design etc.

It helps to look at the process of other artists. The Work in Process blog is a fantastic resource too study. I only wish you could pause between the different stages or manually cycle through them.

Modern Vintage

I'm a big fan of art that looks/sounds old, but isn't old!

I love the idea of digging into the past and finding some warmth and humour in outdated production techniques. It's something I'm trying to tap into with my new comics work.

Oh, the Horror - Title Design 2

I refined the rough title treatment. I tried my best to keep an eye on spacing and character weights and all that important typographic stuff, but sure enough some issues arose. I decided I'd do the drop shadow for "Oh, the" in photoshop as getting it dead on was a major pain. I liked the treatment for "Horror" but I felt the character weights were too inconsistent.

The end result:

Oh, the Horror - Title Design 1

For my EC Comics Homage I wanted to try my hand at some hand-lettered type. So I cracked out the graphing paper and found a bunch of reference for the title. Here are a few things I looked at. First up, title cards from Batman the Animated Series.

I also looked at some older horror movie titles.

And of course I had a good look at the EC titles themselves

Oh, the Horror - Pencils and Perspective

The big struggle with this image was figuring out the perspective. It's a 3-point perspective image and I used the shortcut described on James Gurney's blog to get my grid in place. This method keeps you from having to keep track of vanishing points that are way off your canvas.

*Note to anyone using this trick - If you are curious how to fill in the holes left in your grid (see this image), just temporarily extend your markings up or down off your canvas using a piece of scrap paper, mark off those missing lines and you're in business. Thanks to Mr. Gurney for clarifying that for me.

Oh, the Horror - Thumbnail

This is a thumbnail for a fake EC Comics style cover. I used the storyteller app to randomly get an idea for a morality tale typical of EC. The theme "Beggars can't be choosers" captured my imagination and I started with these sketches.