smeallie

Softies 2-4_20 Layouts, Pencils and Inks

Not a ton to say about this one, but you can see the layout changed a bit over the course of drawing!

Witebox, Page 20

2-4_19 Layouts Pencils & Inks

You can see I changed this page layout on the fly again-- as I originally drew it, it just felt really poppy and disjointed to me. Restaging that joke to have Arizona and Diamond walk past the window, carrying the case and egg, made the whole page feel more like it had a coherent "thing" happening on it, but it necessitated changing the order of the panels.

Also I added some dialogue cus I realized there was not a better place for it later

Witebox, Page 19

I wrote sklugzaroony in the script and wrote "come up with something better" next to it and I did not

2-4_18 Pencils and Inks

A straightforward one, for once!

It bothers me how far Arizona moves between panels 3 and 4 but I'm not allowed to go back and change it now

Witebox, Page 18

Nevermind what I said last week actually, my buffer is healthy enough that I want to keep going with my normal update schedule :)

2-4_17 Pencils and Inks, and the Page That Doesn't Exist

Ok so like. This one is confusing, wtf happened here?

What happened is I was looking over the script for this story and realized it was long! Like, longer than I wanted it to be. There's a point in this episode, in my mind, where "stuff starts happening", and realizing that it took me 20 pages to get there had me concerned about the pace for the reader-- and the pace for me, the writer!

Page 17 and 18, as originally outlined, were just too anemic to justify them both. The combined dialogue of the two pages is less than a lot of single pages, and there's not much else happening, either. I actually struggled to fill page 17; the silent cityscape in the version posted here was my final attempt to fill that space between the Kay scene and the Arizona scene with. Something. Most of my ideas were very literal, showing Diamond and Kay getting off the train or waiting around.

Ultimately I decided to overrule my gut feeling that Kay waking up and Arizona reuniting with the rest of them had to be on separate pages. I still agree with that feeling, to some extent but this is just one of those compromises you have to make when narrative time is also space on the 2d page, and also a week of your update schedule, etc. etc.

The real sacrifice in this merger was the three-panel sequence of Arizona walking through the city with the egg, which was one of the main images I had in my mind coming in to this episode. It hurts a little to cut it, especially as I'd already basically finished drawing it.

The only thing really missing here are some sound effects and the neon sign in panel 2 (that's what's buzzing). I couldn't think of something for the sign to say.

I'm torn on the finished page. Part of me feels that it's too fast? I think there's a lot of value in lingering on a vibe, and this chapter is intentionally built around quiet vibes more than Stuff Happening.

Another part of me feels that this episode has already introduced and reenforced the ideas that all these cut panels were meant to communicate, and at a certain point it's ok to move on to the next idea. I think I made the right choice, ultimately, because I have other places in the story where I'd much rather spend this lingering time!

Witebox, Page 17

I'm probably gonna take a one-week break after this one for the health of my backlog, on the main site, but I might keep up the pace for patreon and let you get two weeks ahead? Not sure yet!

2-4_16 Pencils and Inks and some thoughts

Above are the layout, pencil, and ink of the final version of the page, but what you see is a result of tinkering while I was in the process of drawing.

The script called for Arecibo to simply be in the car- I think I may have originally envisioned her just subbing in to drive the car. When I was in the process of drawing and arranging the dialogue across page 15 and 16, though I had an idea that made me laugh, and that also helped the dialogue flow better and with more character, which was drawing Arecibo as a little cartoon angel.
 "I'm supposed to be an angel and you know that." is an extremely funny line to me, but I ultimately decided the angel thing wasn't going to work. I can't remember what specifically tipped me over the line, but it was probably one of the following factors:

• It's complex; probably requires at least one additional panel to make it clear what's even happening

• It's silly enough that it might distract from the mood of the scene and the dialogue. "Weird" is good here, "funny" might be counterproductive.

• The game console is already established in the scene, is already the focus of the scene, and feels a little more elegant to use as a potent symbol in Kay's mind

• I already had a cross hanging on the rear view mirror, and to some degree I think having an angel risks tipping that from "ambiguous, moody textural detail" to "kay is a devout christian so her mind is full of christian signifiers trying to deliver her from turmoil" which, is not what I want to do LOL

The drawings are cute though. It's interesting that moving her from angel to video game also means that in these drawings she's looking down at Kay, where she's looking up in the finished page. That alone makes me confident the change was for the best; I think this dialogue works better when she looks smaller and more vulnerable.

Witebox, Page 16

Late oops! Here's this one. I like it.

Witebox, Page 15

if it has a screen and buttons and you can hold it it's a gameboy

2-4_15 Pencils and Inks

in a sort of rare-but-not-that-rare celestial event, you can see me rewriting the scene here as I'm in the process of drawing it. this page changed incrementally to accommodate the following page, as I made incremental changes to that one ( you'll see that change next time, so stay tuned! )

I stole a line of dialogue from Arizona here, in that rewrite. That's not SO uncommon, sometimes I move dialogue to different characters just to simplify the staging of a scene- especially if it's popcorny dialogue from side characters; I flip-flopped some joke dialogue from Craig to Aberfallow or vice-versa, iirc. It does feel notable here, though, that I'm reassigning more meaningful dialogue away from one of my two main characters. I'm not sure how often I've done something like that!

I think if this weren't a dream I might be less inclined to do that, but we're firmly inside Kay's own mind here, so it doesn't feel so wrong to just move the words to somebody else's mouth.

2-4_14 Pencils and Inks

I think the most interesting part of the process on display here is you can see that at the last minute I realized "Drag her!!!" was funnier and more in character for Thestrich than "Gottem!!!"

Witebox, Page 14

2-4_13 Pencils and Inks

had to draw Thestrich a bunch of times lol

2-4_12 Pencils and Inks

The script for this one I think was just like, "Arizona gets off the train and starts walking". Sometimes the scripts I write just have placeholders where I'm like "figure it out later" lol

Witebox, Page 13

vroom vroom

Witebox, Page 12

Oh I forgot to queue this last week... this one will post tonight and the next one will be coming to this feed shortly

2-4_11 Pencils and Inks

I agonized over the camera placement on this page for an eternity because in the final two panels the camera reverses and the train is now traveling in the opposite direction on the page than it was before. this is an example of the kind of fundamental thing where you sometimes just go "ok well it's worth the sacrifice because I like the staging of the scene more this way", but feel free to disagree and dissect it in your local comics class

Witebox, Page 11

please move away from the doors

2-4_10 Pencils and Inks

Witebox, Page 10

eee

Witebox, Page 9

trane

2-4_09 Pencils and Inks

hokay, now the p&i should be back on schedule, ahead of the early comiczz

you can see in panel 2 i just straight up didn't bother to draw the incidental characters in the layout cus I was like. Well it's fine they'll be there

2-4_08 Pencils and Inks

Why did i do pencils in black, no wonder they're so weirdly tight

Witebox, Page 8

Forgot to queue my comics for last friday OOPS but look here they are

2-4_07 Pencils and Inks

You can see that third panel is basically a completely new drawing in the final, I was fussing with it a lot to get all the elements in panel and communicate that Diamond was, in fact, Climbing.

Here's the drawing underneath the final inks

Witebox, Page 7

Forgot to schedule this one for Friday, so you get it on Monday, oops!

Witebox, Page 6

🥚

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if you have either of those jobs you have to tell me so I can edit the joke and make them jobs nobody has