idletry: september update #3

hi again. this is scene 5. there are now 50 pages sketched, if you count page 0... really surprised that it's been so cleanly divided into 10 pages each scene. i did cut several pages from this scene, and the last page i rushed, because i would have to figure out how to fill in an extra page and a half to end on an odd number...
the last image of text you see there is what was cut out from the second page of this scene. i'm not happy with the jump to the water tower as it is, but i am thinking of ways that i can fix the fact that it feels like the water tower could be right outside her home without adding an extra two pages for the walking sequence. depending on page count, it might just get added in anyway. i expect this scene to receive some significant changes to its structure.
in addition to research and reference gathering for the park, as well as finalizing its layout, because it reappears A LOT, i also had to finalize the water tower's design, and the design of the front yard.
i still don't have all of the plants nailed down for the yard, either; it was only the general layout. even just figuring out what plants bloom when, and what grows well together, and how large they are, and what they look like from different angles -- it's kind of exhausting.
they are currently in late spring. jessie meets shiloh at the start of summer. the flower in the last panel of the scene is a dahlia -- most dahlias bloom in the summer, but some varieties bloom earlier in the late spring. the particular variety i chose is called "lights out."
the butterfly on the dahlia is a viceroy butterfly -- a monarch butterfly mimic that tastes equally foul. it feeds on many things, but with flowers, it feeds on plants within the asteraceae family, which includes dahlias. monarchs feed on many plants, but prefer milkweed varieties, which are not in the same family, and will only lay their eggs on those.
despite needing to finalize a lot for settings and backgrounds, i am annoyed at how long it took to sketch this scene.

page 42/43 is also the first two-page spread of the comic. i remember going to an outdoor seder at that park... but the layout is changed significantly in the comic, along with the roads around it.

on a fun note... this is the last scene where i have to care about jessie's dominant hand; she is completely ambidextrous starting in the next scene. i wonder how that happened.

i didn't bother to upload any thrown away sketches; there weren't really a whole lot anyway, i think...