Too much History/Background details?

[APM]

Hi people! At the moment I'm trying to develop and publish my series: The Sky Travelers at least once a week, but it's been hard to do it. Because of the sceneries complexity and constant art improving, I finish spending a lot of time changing aspects of the history and the background art. Sometimes I think I'm putting too much and unnecessary details, but I still doing it and I'm getting stuck.

Confidential Archives Ahead! o.o

For example, I did a map for the "Capital" and the "Mother Island", knowing that all these fall down in the prologue.

A scheme for the architecture and symbols engraved in wood.

And even all the architecture and functionality of the ships (based on real old english warships).

It's ok to spend a lot of time with it or it's too much for a comic? Someone help me! I'm drowning in leaves of paper! ;-;

[jmhenry]

It's ok to spend a lot of time with it or it's too much for a comic?

Personally, not at all! As long as you've already decided on a release date for your comic, do all the planning you need to. It's only a problem if the planning becomes your excuse for not making the comic, if that makes sense. My only advice to you now, given the level of detail you work in, is to work on a large buffer in advance(maybe one/ two chapters) so you'll have the time to work on more pages without having to drop in quality to post faster.(I'm stuck with this problem right now, ATM)

[AngieVX]

I was drawing an artwork with a guitar and actually counted distances between frets, so it's OK while you have fun doing it!

[shazzbaa]

If you enjoy working out maps and architectural details, there's no reason you shouldn't do a thing you enjoy! It's not strictly necessary for the comic, but we all do unnecessary things that we enjoy, because part of drawing a comic is getting to work on things that are fun to draw. Some people design entire closets of outfits for their characters because they like fashion. Some people develop their characters' entire childhoods even though you'll never see that info in the comic (guilty!). Tolkien could've easily used gibberish for the language of the Elves, but instead he built his own language, because he freaking loved linguistics. The things that you enjoy doing extra work on will add some really cool details to your comic!

If you're doing it compulsively because you feel like you have to in order for your comic to be decent, rather than out of enjoyment, that's when it becomes a hindrance. And I definitely agree with @jmhenry -- if it becomes a thing for your brain to obsess over that keeps you from ever moving forward, then it becomes an obstacle to actually creating a finished story.

I don't think this is too much work! but I do think drawing and redrawing and redrawing a map every time you improve and feeling like you can't move forward because of that is something that's okay to let go of and move on.

[J.Lovelace]

There's never too many details, so keep planning!
I rather read a story that has lots of thoughts put behind everything, than one where things contradict each other or don't make sense when you take a closer look. Maybe a lot of people don't care, but there will be those who appreciate it, or will ask for how your world and objects work.

Those are some cool sketches you made there, especially that ship!

[UrMom]

Lol, you kidding? That's great! Even if you never see that stuff in the main story, it's good to fill in all the details when creating your own world, it makes things easier on you to know everything ahead of time rather than fly by the seat of your pants. Not only is it fun as hell to create your own world with different cultures, wildlife and such, it's also a cool extra to look over for your dedicated readers... assuming you'd post it all somewhere for everyone to look at.
Can't tell you how many sketch books I got, dedicated for world building, only to have them end up like regular sketchbooks. It's great that you have the discipline to dig in, and get all that stuff worked on, keep at it! The only time you can have too much detail is if you smoosh all the info into the story, showing the aesthetics of your hard work is fine though as long as it doesn't take over the main focus.

[Doubtcent]

The more you know about your world, the more interesting it can be. It's a different world, so there must be different cultures. By having it all in place, it can help with your world building, and the more the world is fully built, the more your readers might want to go there or want to explore.

[APM]

Thanks everyone for replying! You're all helping me a lot!

@jmhenry Yeah, I really need to revise my planning, and advance some pages to work without too much pressure to publish the pages.

@AngieVX In this case I think you did right...

@shazzbaa I enjoy working with these details but I don't just do it because it's fun, it's like I need to make all the pieces to fit in and complete all the system (make the world more "realistic"). It's really compulsive.

@jutawi These ships are hard to draw, but it's one of the essences of the story. I love it.

@Bloomer Yes, create worlds is awesome, I'm still thinking in doing a novel about some of the protagonists of my comic. But I have a problem. When I'm writing a story, suddenly I get a new idea for another one, then I get stuck with two unfinished works.

@vincentprendick Your comment gave me an idea. Sorry, I don't know how to explain... but anyway thank you so much. PS: Your series "Tapastic 101" is helping me a lot too! ^^

[monotone_ink]

I don't think there's anything wrong about this - in fact, I think these papers may actually help you as an author understand your world with more familiarity. This planning can contribute to making your world feeling more real, subconsciously causing you to add little details that make the place seem alive.

One cool thing you could do is release a few of these pages in between chapters, like old historical documents that readers can go through.

[Jabbage]

I agree with what other people are saying - also, those kind of things would make GREAT prints/ extra art in a print version of your comic. Maps and cross sections are really appealing to fans!

[APM]

That's a great idea, thanks a lot! I'll definitely do it...

[avalonmao]

Yeah honestly technically there's no such thing as "too much planning" so long as you have the plot set up. Like the background is supposed to support the story, if you know what I meant ^_^