Heheh.... Yeah, this was a weiiiird page to draw, simply due to how it's especially transitional.
One thing that me and Martin have to cope with a LOT in writing the comics is the frustration of keeping things within page-formats. We often have things where scenes or moments are JUST too long for a single page or JUST too short, usually meaning we need to find a creative way to either cram them in or stretch them out. The Martina and Rick bit needed just a little something extra to wrap it up, and Lore waking up from a nightmare would have felt horrible stretch out to a whole page. Scene changes usually happen between pages, and to switch scenes within the same page without some kind of cue, you need a panel made to show the transition.
So I wind up drawing Sapphire City's skyline. This was admittedly, mostly because I loved the results when I had to draw the Atlanta Skyline in Wright As Rayne. I kinda wanted to repeat the result in Blues; like with Atlanta's skyline, this was a simple trace-job. I just took a picture of the skyline of an actual city (in this case Houston) and traced it. For something as complex as a city it's actually a pretty tedious and time-consuming thing to trace, so I don't really feel any shame in copping to it. Also unlike Atlanta I tried to make the buildings mildly more fantastic and comic-book-y to show that Sapphire City is fictional. I could've gone further with it but eh. Was really flying by the seat of my pants, but whatever. LOVE the result on that panel. Martin's color job and excellent job with the starry sky just sealed the deal. ^^
Speaking of panel-work, those four mini-panels being disjointed and jumbled about was me trying to capture the feeling of having a nightmare or sleepwalking. I dunno, that didn't come out as nicely; they're really not clunky enough. Mm. Either way, Lore came out adorable in that last panel. So did _______ in the first; threw her in just because Martin pointed out she hadn't been seen in this sequence so far. ^^
Yeah, this is kind of a weird page in that we don't usually do mid-page scene changes, though it's certainly not the first time. Tend to prefer to try to align this stuff more cleanly but hey, sometimes it doesn't really work out that way.
Pretty happy with this one on the whole, though not entirely sure how much I have to say about it. Particularly since this part is largely divorced from the rest of the chapter; the next page though will be making it more clear just what this chapter is actually about, really eager to see people's reactions to that.
I also like this further look at Martina's thought process - we'll probably explore this much further later but it does seem like the upbringing she had, being dragged around to see people like Rick's grandpa the Black Family, has had a pretty big impact on her tolerance for diplomacy. By comparison this new girl hanging around her seems to have much more of a mind for it by comparison.
Also, if you're reading this on Comic Fury, you might notice some layout changes - the big one is the new banner (which granted is just a remake of the old one with some adjustments) but the background is also a bit more vibrant now.
One thing that me and Martin have to cope with a LOT in writing the comics is the frustration of keeping things within page-formats. We often have things where scenes or moments are JUST too long for a single page or JUST too short, usually meaning we need to find a creative way to either cram them in or stretch them out. The Martina and Rick bit needed just a little something extra to wrap it up, and Lore waking up from a nightmare would have felt horrible stretch out to a whole page. Scene changes usually happen between pages, and to switch scenes within the same page without some kind of cue, you need a panel made to show the transition.
So I wind up drawing Sapphire City's skyline. This was admittedly, mostly because I loved the results when I had to draw the Atlanta Skyline in Wright As Rayne. I kinda wanted to repeat the result in Blues; like with Atlanta's skyline, this was a simple trace-job. I just took a picture of the skyline of an actual city (in this case Houston) and traced it. For something as complex as a city it's actually a pretty tedious and time-consuming thing to trace, so I don't really feel any shame in copping to it. Also unlike Atlanta I tried to make the buildings mildly more fantastic and comic-book-y to show that Sapphire City is fictional. I could've gone further with it but eh. Was really flying by the seat of my pants, but whatever. LOVE the result on that panel. Martin's color job and excellent job with the starry sky just sealed the deal. ^^
Speaking of panel-work, those four mini-panels being disjointed and jumbled about was me trying to capture the feeling of having a nightmare or sleepwalking. I dunno, that didn't come out as nicely; they're really not clunky enough. Mm. Either way, Lore came out adorable in that last panel. So did _______ in the first; threw her in just because Martin pointed out she hadn't been seen in this sequence so far. ^^