I finally got around to doing a tutorial-style explanation of <a href="/the-process/">The Process. As tutorials go, it has huge gaping chasms of missing information and is not really very pretty on the eyes. I have trouble caring about anything that is not THE COMIC right now. Just ask the poor folks at the dinner party I had to go to last night... so very, very sorry for how rude I was.
Here is the final version of the page! :)
I hope the transformation makes sense now, and is not too jarring (the right amount of jarring? Jarring as appropriate to the story?). If I were a real comics artist doing big splash pages, I am sure I would have devoted at least half a page, if not two whole pages, to that change. But I was, as always, in a hurry TO FINISH, so it gets a little box. :P
And is not the first Nesbit drawing the most awesome cat I have ever drawed? :) Even with the tabby stripes and black expressionless cat eyes. I mentioned once early on in the comic that I actually used cats as the basis for Holly's cartoon style: the huge, almond eyes set far apart in a small, round face. Whenever I look at my cat, I always think of circa-1980s anime princesses.
wahoo!!!! i had forgotten cat and that made me smile almost more than kernan!!
Thank you (again) for the behind-the-scenes look at your work. Your coloring is lovely, but your line work is exquisite, and it shows so clearly here. And I'm sure you were only rude in your own mind at the dinner party. ;)
Am I allowed to go awwww?
Whose feet are those is the first panel? They aren't Holly's because she wears heavy-duty boots, and they're not Kernan's because he's not wearing stockings.
they look like the shoes holly wore before the fire...like those are the feet nesbit was looking for among all the others...
Not 100% what I was thinking, but definitely closer than all the other boot complaints. Cats and feet, no? :)
PS - did you get my email? Trip? 25th?
i did! 25th is great! its been so busy here and theyve been upgrading internet, so THATS going sporadically...i should be free most of 25th! cant wait!
I just got linked to this today and I have to tell you how moving it is, and how beautiful. That the cat came for her in the end - the smoke in the air like music, they seemed to be making a world - just seemed perfect. And actually, the fact that the grandmother didn't change her mind was good because it was truer to human nature. I'm glad she freed them, and saved all those people. I mean, I'm not sure I'm okay with her making that decision for a whole lot of people, but it was the only way to fix it.
All because of that poor little boy; his selfishness was apt: children are just like that. So it was terribly sad but you could see how he was driven to it, especially as he'd been kept so long that he wasn't really a person but just this manifestation of anger and regret. Although I must say I was surprised that a child would kill himself, that's so rare. But then, if he's growing up among people who know an afterlife - if he knows he's going to be free and that he'll find his father again, I guess that's enough? It's kind of sad though - that some people might have no one to come and collect them. What about babies? Because if the mother's still alive and the kid doesn't know anybody then who will come get them?
Great page. I really like the expressions.
aw this page is my favorite. my super favorite. :3
Thanks! I think Nesbit turned out way better than I had hoped. She managed to capture the boneless nature of felines, as well as the fluctuations between alert/excited and sleepy/happy. If only I could have drawn the dogs so well. :/ Also, I pulled out my hunter head sculpture for drawing Kernan (weird angles require reference materials), so he seems more solid in these pages than he does in a lot of the other (more lazily drawn) pages.
i found this comic this same afternoon, and just reached the last page. i love it, you're doing a great work!
Thank you! :)