Page Commentary No. 236

Brellom: I really enjoyed working on this page, but can you guess what part I REALLY enjoyed?

Psu: The fact that Botz is alive?

Brellom: ... sure. I can distinctly remember rendering this one. I think I was worried about using too many warm, vibrant colours -- but in retrospect, I wish I hadn't made Penny look so blue near the bottom.

Psu: Actually, looking at it I bet that was my fault. I believe I covered them with a slight gradient map as the color scheme was changing. See, it's supposed to look all scary and dreadful.

Brellom: Yeah, it probably was your fault. But I think it also served to make Botz hugging Zeke a focal point, since it's the most saturated spot.

Psu: Using color and saturation was pretty important to guiding the eye across this page. High contrast to low contrast, plus knowing you're supposed to read it from left to right, helps. When it comes to having tall panels right next to each other, I don't usually like putting text at the bottom. But I got to arrange the design in a way that your eye should travel from Botz and Zeke hugging, to Penny pointing. And she just happens to be pointing at the things hiding just in the shadows of the next panel.

Gunwild: Alls I did was write about how I wish I had screwdriver fingers, 'cuz you always gotta go find the right screwdriver for stuff and I don't like it.

Psu: I actually really like the writing on this page too. I think it has this great sense of surprise, fun, and of course dread. Botz is adorable, like almost all our characters.

Brellom: Yeah. She's a good. She might've been my favourite character to work on in this entire chapter. Something about the hair...

Psu: It's a nice swoosh. I'm just glad we got to use her again! It was a pleasant surprise.

Gunwild: You never have to draw her human ears, that's nice.

Psu: I'm always drawing ears!

Brellom: ears are good

Psu: Oh, also another thing you did, Gunwild. You gave me a lot of robots to fit into the first panel.

Brellom: That was the part I was least enthusiastic about colouring, but I think it turned out pretty good for how simple it was done.

Gunwild: I probably woulda been fine with a few key robot components, but a mess of parts does rather get the message across better.

Psu: Yeah, artistically I've learned there are some things you can't take shortcuts on. But you also need to take SOME shortcuts. If I drew just a few robots that are completely indistinct, it wouldn't tell the story that they've been stealing a bunch of robot parts. But if I say... went ahead and colored every robot individually with lots of realistic shading. Then it would be information overload. Your eye wouldn't spot Penny on the right side of the panel in bright yellow.

Brellom: You mean if I coloured every robot individually...

Psu: Thank you for all the help Brell.

Brellom: That did worry me; it seemed like such a complicated bit of space to deal with. And I think this was the first page that I actually ever ended up doing so much work on. Even compared to the previous page.

Psu: Oh and speaking of robots and help, one of the things we should mention is that our friend Satellite9 gave us some designs to work with in the last panel. She actually designed a Minx derivative drone which I wanted to pay homage to. Each of the prototypes needed to have those familiar "minx" elements we'd established a few times in the comic. Pointy feet, tangram swords, they all had to look like Minx but slightly less human.(edited)

Brellom: Of course, nothing beats the proper Motor Minx design, which we can see quite clearly in Panel 3.

Psu: It was probably my fault that I had a panel where Botz holds up a pair of boobs for no real reason...

Brellom: :3c

Gunwild: I never saw it that way but I mean if ever there was a time, it's gonna be when you're copying a lady cyborg body.

Psu: I think I just wanted to reiterate, I really love Botz on this page. I think this is another page where we successfully gave an individual page a whole arc. Even if half of it is full of just a lady complaining to herself.

Gunwild: Yep. Again, I had become an owner of the book Make Comics Like the Pros and that idea needed some field-testing, so I'm glad it worked out. Sometimes you try a concept for the first time and crash and burn.

Psu: That sounds like something Doctor Botz would say.

Brellom: I wish I could make comics like the pros.

Gunwild: I'll buy you a copy if you want.