Mad Rupert

SAKANA 552 and 553 process

Added 2019-03-06 18:11:49 +0000 UTC

Howdy, y'all!

552:

This was a fairly normal page! Jiro's hat breaks the panel border in P2, which is a trick I sometimes use to make the page look a little more snazzy and pretty much only works if there's not a lot going on in the panel being invaded. Here there was plenty of negative space in panel 1, so it was safe to jazz it up. These tricks highlight things I think readers might like to see. In this case it's me saying HEY, HERE'S THIS CHARACTER YOU LIKE!! HE'S CUTE!!!

Once again I tried to do something fancy in the background of P5 and ultimately decided to black it in once more. I feel like I used to do a lot more hatching in the backgrounds in the first few years of Sakana, and I was trying to recapture that feeling. But maybe the art style has moved beyond that?? In any case, I keep trying and it keeps looking bad. :/

Here you can see me grappling with a REALLY BAD tangent. Can you find the tangent?? It's P3 and P4, where Chie and Jiro look like they have very short arms and are already holding hands. I decided to GIVE 'EM THE LINES in P3, to try and separate the panels a little bit more. Maybe I kind of like the metaphorical aspect of this tangent, though. Jiro wants to hold hands and is looking at people holding hands so maybe it will HAPPEN?? (spoiler: yes, it happens.)

And done!

553:

Another normal page! Pages with lots of heads and hands are my favorite {because they're the easiest}. In the original thumbnail for this page, I didn't have Jiro reminiscing about how gross their job is in P6, which I feel was a fantastic addition to what would have been an otherwise uneventful page. Jiro is CUTE!!!

EASY PANELS FIRST. I'm not entirely sure why I decided to drop the panel border in P3 except for the bottom right corner but I like the effect? Normally I'd just drop the border completely and extend the character to the edge of the page, but I like this little vignette effect. Maybe it's shorthand for a very small action (a smirk)? IDK i'll probably use it again!

Not a lot more to say about this page except you can always watch me avoiding more complicated poses/angles and panels in all of these process breakdowns. I'm nothing if not a creature of habit.

And done! You can tell the memory bubble in P6 was a last-minute decision because it definitely needed a much bigger panel than it got, which makes it a little tough to view online. But it'll print bigger in the eventual book! (which will be kickstarting in June aaaaaaaaaaa)