Behind the Scenes for SPUN OUT by Hien Pham

Please enjoy this Behind-The-Scenes post by Hien Pham! He is sharing his creative process of how he made his OJST comic, Spun Out.

-Erika

Hey everyone!

Spun Out was a real labour of love between me and my editor Ziggy with great help from OJST's Matthew and Erika. I'm was honestly super anxious about putting it out but the reception has been really lovely! Let's get into the making of this one!

Getting the script right

Back in April, I went to a one-off pole class put on by the Bears at a local studio. I had a rather complicated experience... but I still enjoyed spinning on the pole enough to want to pursue it as a comic idea. Unfortunately the negative feelings I had from that event only continued to worsen when I attended a couple of trial classes on my own.

The beginner's trial classes stated explicitly that they were meant to build my body and confidence up to doing beginner moves - that anyone at any stage in their lives could thrive in this environment. However, as you can see in the comic, the experience did not live up to its expectations.

The script started at a pretty raw emotional stage when I was focused on what happened and how I felt. Ziggy and I then worked to find nuggets of positivity to hone in on to balance out the big negative. Matthew and Erika helped me with some restructuring of the speech bubbles, and gave me some tips on how to phrase certain things. The writing of this comic kept changing until the day I handed it in, at which point I felt brave enough to not just give reasoning for my feelings, but to note specific criticism of the subject like I would in a toy review!

These changes are most evident in the first 2 panels of page 4:

Timelapse & art-only

Check out the timelapse above, or at this link: https://youtu.be/hZhEBlnNMDU

I was sick for a whole week while working on the art for this one. It's not an uncommon occurrence unfortunately, but this comic was so grounded in specific physical locations that the colouring process went pretty smoothly. The only part that I'm a bit iffy about is I feel the outdoor colours aren't as polished as I would have liked. The tree overhead is over-rendered while some other areas could use more rendering? Alas, a deadline was a deadline and a sick Hien needed to just get on with it!

As you can see in the timelapse, I also went through two versions of that big landmark panel on page 2! My first take felt a bit too posed and one dimensional, so I turned the face forward which helped me express not just joy but some playful nervousness at the same time.

The lighting in the studio was as pink / violet as it was IRL, and the park I sat down in was somewhere I used to walk dogs around regularly! I really wanted the entire comic to inhibit in this darker, more heavy atmosphere until the very end when the page opens up - as I let my feelings go - into a big bright blue sky.

Thank you for reading!

I had been so anxious about this comic, but the reception has been very warm, kind, and thoughtful! Thank you for allowing me to tell these stories and for making them possible!

There are a bunch of comics I want to tackle next, but the one capturing my attention the most is a story about affectionate queer friendships. It's a story about having a crush on a guy and yearning so badly to hold his hand, failing to have that crush be reciprocated, but still getting to hold his hand anyway as a friend.

Please look forward to updates on that one! Til' then, take it easy and take care everyone!

-Hien