I really want to say all of Book One is 100% drawn… but the truth is there’s one last thing I want to do before print. The image of Jesse’s wall of conspiracy. It’s not done, because it’s so explicitly lore. People who love lore love consistancy, so I want to make absolutely sure that I’m not going to have to go back and change anything on this diagram.
Intro, Page 4 – The lighting on Kaya’s face in the last panel’s improved.
Intro, Page 6 – I don’t know what I was on when I put those really dark shadows on Kaya in panel 2. They weren’t consistent across the image, and made her face look weirdly narrow. The weirdest thing is that I didn’t do them in literally the next panel. I clearly knew better, and I did it anyway. Better-ish now.
Intro, Page 20
Intro, Page 7 – Pushed Kaya’s features around be a couple pixels in panel 2 (she looked like one of my friend, and it was weirding me out.) Widened her neck in panel five, while I had it opened. Raised her shoulders in panel six, because her neck was too long,
Intro, Page 20 – Finished panels three and four. Three was a struggle, and I didn’t really get what I wanted. But I’m a big fan of how four turned out. There’s just too much happening in three… the bones on the floor, Kaya stepping over a chair, the Chief’s confusion. Oh well, at least it sets up where they are in space again. Ultimately went with a lightly edited version of my sketch for panel five, because everything else I tried lacked the same energy.
Intro, Page 21 – Inked and colored. You can really see how I’ve let loose with the adjustment layers now. Historically, I’ve avoided using dodge, burn, overlay–all those settings that make it hard to control what the color output is going to be. I saw too many young artists use them inappropriately and end up with hyper-saturated mud instead of coloring. But I’m starting to get used to them. And they make the kind of crazy lighting effects I love (all those years doing portraits off concert photography) way, way faster. Side note, speaking of lighting effects: blue light on people is really, really hard for me for some reason. When I figure out why, I’ll let you know. It’ll probably be interesting.
Intro, Page 22
Intro, Page 22 – The last page I finished, because I was just not into dealing with those guns. I’m still not happy with it. Their arms and posing are just really janky. I just really wanted it done, so I’m putting up with it. Since I went apeshit with the colored lights I got to really pump up the colors though. Pretty into that. A part of me is still trying to tell me that I’m “not being realistic” about what colors things are. For instance, the light in the murder room at the top of the scene is a cold color, but I switch to a warm color after the first little fight. But I’ve always been told I’m a little too obsessed with realism, so that voice needs to shove off.
There’s one other change that isn’t apparent online. While reading through my print mock-up file, I realized I’d added a black spread between scenes, and it offset all my page turns by one page. Something had been bothering my about Jesse’s scenes for a while, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Turns out, the emPHAsis was on the wrOnG sYllAbleS. I mean, that scene is still weird because it’s the first one I drew, but It’s much improved, reading it the way it was actually designed.
Okay, gonna go work on that conspiracy. Gotta add some detail to Senator Marv Ibson’s relationships with the ex-pats from South Rutah, and figure out what kind of documents a college kid could get their hands on that would suggest the existence of an illegal corn cartel.