Page Deconstruction #5: Moments Apart

It’s time for Daisy’s birthday, in Moments Apart!!

There were a few areas in this chapter that I altered, some while I was still scripting dialogue on my notes, some at the last minute. It’s so nice to be able to.. think about a chapter and not be in a total rush to publish it. It means you come across problems you wouldn’t have otherwise thought about if you didn’t have the time!

The top-right page where Abbey and Daisy first speak was tweaked a bit. It was full of Daisy apologising, but then saying “We can still be friends, right?” At the time I wrote that I thought that sequence would show a growth in Daisy and just seem.. I dunno, wholesome enough. Daisy cares about Abbey!! Abbey is getting his closure, the final panel of that sketched page was him smiling.

As I continued to thumbnail, I thought maybe I should make Abbey frown instead.. and then later I was all “Actually, this is totally unfair to Abbey. You shouldn’t be friends with your ex if you don’t want to/if the relationship is harmful”

There seems to be a lot of encouragement for people to remain friends with an ex, like that’s the “grown-up” thing to do, but life doesn’t work that way!! Sometimes you don’t want to keep being around your ex!! It’s too weird!!

I’ll be honest, this did get influenced a bit by me reading the Something Awful breakup thread. PEOPLE NEED BREAKS. PEOPLE NEED TO SEVER. Sue’s dialogue with Abbey included a lot of that kinda thing, because Sue would totally feel that way. Why the hell is Jasmine dragging Abbey into this????

Also wouldn’t Daisy’s mother be wary about her ex potentially crashing her freaken birthday party????

Which brings me to this

The final page is me inserting Daisy’s mother showing concern, which was used in the final product.

ANYWAY

This page was a nightmare. Souppy tried to get me to draw in 1600dpi which basically ruined my life. THIS PAGE TOOK LIKE THREE DAYS TO FINISH BECAUSE OF THE EXTRA SPACE I HAD. I had to beg Souppy to put me back at 600dpi. I became obsessed with the linework.

EDIT FROM SUITCASE: I still don’t know why this was an issue!! I doubled the brush sizes, her computer can handle 1200dpi just fine, but.. for some reason she said it felt much worse! So yeah, back to 600dpi for drawing, though my Photoshop actions upsample to 1200 so the text looks crisp.

I was in the middle of sketching this page when I finally told Souppy to change me back, which is why the linework looks so thin in a lot of these panels :-[ 

I just liked this face a lot :(

OH ANOTHER THING

Notice pages 3-4. While I was sketching the page on my tablet, I was agonising over how I hated the pacing here. It feels like Daisy’s friends aren’t being friendly enough!! They’re a bit sad for her, but Daisy is feeling MISERABLE.

The transition between Rachel teasing Daisy, then Daisy becoming depressed, and then Paulo showing up felt too quick for me. It made me feel icky, like these people around Daisy should care more about keeping her uplifted. We’re all friends here!

Which is why I extended the scene and added the group hug in the final product

Oh, yeah:

I kept Paulo’s sketched faces in this page in the final product because I dunno, I JUST LIKED THEM. I don’t want to do emoticon-faces all the time, but I feel sad at how sometimes a sense of cartooniness is lost when I’m inking :(

The final panel went through A LOT of revision. I used references for how a scared person jumping back would look, I tried to just draw it free-form with whatever came at the top of my head, and it still couldn’t translate well in inks. I didn’t feel it fit the pacing for the next page with Abbey showing up, so that’s why I settled on him just being behind Daisy and Mike quietly. That reaction felt more consistent and.. less violent than the original sketches.

Trying to position the bodies from outside the panel, as I try to do. It’s easy to make characters look like they’re floating otherwise.

That angle Abbey was sitting on was a nightmare. Pretty much impossible to find a pose like that :-[

Here’s a hugely noticeable change!! The final panel was meant to have Abbey solemnly walking towards his friends, ending on a somber note. Souppy has made it a habit to stress to me how OFTEN CHAPTERS END THAT WAY. This was the same issue I came across with Model Girlfriend!! It was originally going to end with Mike feeling depressed because Sandy didn’t text him back!!

Here’s even the original text:

Abbey: doesn’t she realise how bad he is for her..?
Sue: maybe, maybe not But it’s not your life to live, huh?
Abbey: .. That’s why I wanted to make sure while we were together--
Sue: that wasn’t your life to live either then, too.
Abbey is taken aback by this and doesn’t respond (Mike and Jasmine are calling Abbey to play a game together with them)  
Abbey: but he’s.. But they..

(Abbey sighs to himself)

Abbey: I guess so..  

He fakes a smile and goes off to see Mike and Jasmine, chapter ends

I didn’t know how to change this, I was conscious about my habit of ending chapters this way, but I couldn’t think of any other way to end it, and Souppy didn’t offer better alternatives. This sequence was still in the thumbnails and I pretty much resigned myself to thinking it was “good enough”.

When I got to sketching the characters a second time, I realised I could make it more positive, while also showing that people CARE about Abbey. People aren’t all stupid and oblivious!

Which lead to this. I feel Mike would empathise with Abbey most, and reach out to him. They are the closest friends. I thought this ended on a nice note, it’s still a little somber, but it’s not.. I dunno, whiny. HARD TO EXPLAIN.

Also fun-fact Paulo and Daisy were originally meant to doze off together instead of continuing to playfully bicker, the scene transition to Abbey was meant to be him watching them asleep, and Sue justifying that it’s “platonic”. 

I thought it was absurdly cliche and just.. too PauloxDaisy for my tastes. They’re still pretty close, but it doesn’t have to be THAT on the nose. Souppy didn’t make me write them sleeping by the way, BEFORE ANYONE THINKS IT’S JUST HIS INFLUENCE.