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Rewrite the Stars || BTS1
🕑 Added 2023-01-02 17:13:13 +0000 UTCHey guys! So as you may have noticed, the first two pages of the third issue of my comic are out, so this is now the first Behind the Scenes, where I basically show you the outline I used to work with in these two pages, the WIP sketches, and just shared a bit of my process.
In terms of outline, I mainly work with a general overview of the story, where I summarize page by page what I want them to convey, and then I work out the specifics and the panels' layout when I'm sitting down and actually drawing them. I do, obviously, have an idea of some specific panels or page composition that I know I'll get to, but for the most part I feel that's something to work with at the moment of drawing the final version.
The general story outline says:
PAGE 1
> Lincoln is now a teenager. On a videocall with Lori. She mentions how handsome and grown-up he's gotten. It's <REDACTED FOR SPOILERS>, and they're all excited. But Rita wants him and Lynn to do some last minute shopping at the mall, so he needs to get going.
PAGE 2
> He peeks into Lynn's room. She's training, sweaty, beautiful. <REDACTED FOR SPOILERS>, he's just transfixed. Lynn sees he's there.
So the first thing is to note that there are two "REDACTED". I'm simply removing those sentences cause when I sat down to write the dialogues and outline the definitive page layout, I decided not to reveal these things yet. They're not big spoilers or anything, but there's no point in addressing something that will be shown/explained next week.
Since the beginning, I knew I wanted Lori to mention how he's handsome. Mostly cause I had the idea of Lincoln getting embarrassed and saying "Don't make it weird". This doesn't translate to my notes because it's been in my head, but the idea is that this prompts Lori by saying "It's not weird, I'm your sister!", and that's significant for Lincoln cause he's dealing with his feelings for Lynn, who's also his sister. I think his embarrassment might have been a bit more clear in the original sketch:
The sketches are supposed to help me figure out the whole page and how it flows from one panel to the other, so these working sketches are SUPER messy, cause I need to look at the bigger picture.
Some other notes from this first page sketches:
- Bun-Bun being left alone is a way for me to indicate that he's a teenager now.
- I really wanted to show the trophy from the animated movie, cause I love that movie and I wanted to make it canon in my comic lol
- The panel with Lori didn't have much changed until I realize it would be STUPID for her to be on a video call while she was driving. So I changed it so she's in the passenger seat. I just wanted to show her in Bobby's van to let everyone know they're still together and that she helps with his work. I thought it'd be easier to show/imply it with one panel than use precious dialogue/exposition to talk about it.
- I know it's stupid, cause the page is there and one sees him immediately, but I imagine the different panels as a sequence of shots in a movie. So the big panel with Lincoln is his reveal. After hearing him off-screen and seeing Lori mention how grown-up and handsome he is, we get the Lincoln reveal. Don't know if it translates well to the page, but in my mind it's cool.
Regarding the final product, I liked adding a reference to David Steele (the poster behind him in the fourth panel), and then figuring out the technology for 2018. He has a Nintendo Switch (I'm pretty sure it came out in 2017) and he has an iPhone X (came out in 2017 as well). Little details.
And then we have the second page's sketch:
This one looks a lot more polished simply cause I kinda had the layout in my head defined already, and I was instead trying to figure out how much detail I could put into Lynn's toned body while still staying mostly true to the show's art style. There's not a lot of change when compared to the final product. I removed the sparkles in the close-up to her core, and figured out the background would be just the interior of the room.
There's not a lot of details or anything to point out here. I also left a reveal panel for a full-body shot of Lynn. This time, though, it's the last panel, so I could develop a sequence of close-ups and detail shots, and also so when the two pages are spread out, they mirror each other on the outer, bottom corners of the page.
That's pretty much all the author's commentary I can give to these pages, but if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll reply to them!
Comments
UnderratedHero
It mostly depends on the backgrounds. There were some exterior shots of the house in the previous issues that even by tracing the general shapes, it took me like 4 hours just to do the lineart with all the details. This one wasn't so bad, the last panel with the full body Lynn took me the longest because I needed to draw the bed, the nightstand, the window, the curtains... Several hours to get it done in a way I was happy with.
Jonathan Sharp
Holy damn your sketches are amazing! How long does it usually take to finish a page from sketch to the final product?
