Book 1, Page 199

Here's the original script for this page:

A full page splash panel shows the car driving along and everyone in the car. I’m imagining that we’re looking at it from the front, and slightly elevated, so we can see the people in the back seat too. Lillian’s captions are placed near the person.

I tried a few sketches as written, but drawing full car inevitably left a lot of empty space on the page and meant that the characters were relatively small. Zooming in meant cutting off the whole front of the car. Drawing the car head-on looked kind of blah.

I decided to draw the car from farther away and give each character a close-up inset panel. I chose the Shepperd's Dell Bridge as a backdrop because it's a beaut. Luckily there are a zillion pictures online of the Historic Columbia River Highway so I've been able to act as a "location scout" from my desk.

My partner Naomi went above and beyond and made a 3D model of a car based on the 1917 Oldsmobile model 45! You can turn it around and everything. She said if anyone wants the file to play with, let us know!

It took a few tries to place the car on the bridge at a size and position that looked right. Once I was sick of making tiny adjustments, I traced--shh, don't tell!--the bridge and the car.

I knew that Barry or I might want to adjust the inset panels, so I drew them on separate paper. The Photoshop file has separate folders for each inset panel with a line-work layer, ink wash layer, and panel border layer.

And indeed, Barry switched Kansas' and Lillian's panels from their original locations to make better use of the space. I also like how he overlaps the two caption boxes and inset panels. I wouldn't have thought of it, and it's a nice touch.

I'm still listening to the 99% Invisible series on The Power Broker by Robert Caro. There's something about radio voices discussing intense mid-century municipal shenanigans that puts me in the mood for drawing SuperButch. I've also been listening to an audiobook of the novel Tom Lake narrated by Meryl Streep. It begins with hilarious/sad community theater auditions, so I was immediately drawn in. It's also a nice summery story if you want to hear about greenery and warm weather (as performed by Meryl fricking Streep).

Thanks, as always, for supporting me on Patreon!