July 10, 2008

Woot! Look at me, following the update schedule! *does a dance*

So yes, just a short omake before we dive back into the story : ) I could have crammed all the text into one page but you would have had nothing but squares with talking heads and word bubbles. Nobody wants to see that.

Man, was this page a challenge! I started working on it at 11 this morning, and didn't finish putting everything together until 1am. Most of that time, I spent doing the first rough sketch. The thing is, I normally use reference pictures for everything, but I really don't have a method for proportioning or "building up" the characters. Getting the proportions right is especially hard when adults and children need to interact together... and I've always had a hard time with natural-looking positioning. So I decided that today was gonna be a real practice - no shortcuts. I'm not gonna lie, it was hard! Walking poses without a reference? That's when we realize just how crooked the human body is : P

I'm sure it's not perfect, but I'm proud of myself for this one... Sometimes I get everything right but I know it's luck, while today I really took the time to build the structure properly... It's almost a shame I had to cover their anatomically correct bodies with clothes : P What makes me happy is realizing that three years ago when I first started this comic, I could not have pulled this off.

My sketch ended up being very detailed, but then the detail was lost again at the watercolor stage of course. It looks flashy but ironically, experimenting with the watercolor pencils was the easiest and quickest part of the whole process... It's always the most fun, though ^.^;; Ah, one day I will get real watercolors...

~Biev