I could model you know.

Tak woke up early and rode her bike to the futbol fields in the public park next to the market to do some sketching of the players during their training. Tony just happened to be around there, for real, and he went to her to say hi and hang out with her for a while while she drew.

"You know, you could draw me. I can pose as a model."

He said and she laughed. She's the only one that always laughs at his jokes.

You know. It may not show. But this silly thing is the hardest I've worked on a piece in a while, relative to the final product of course.

Between commission work I worked on this for like a week and the reason for that is I just couldn't get it right. Conceptually it started as a little 1 panel comic, then 4 panels, then 6, then 2, then a little animation, then a big illustration. Then a comic again. And finally I arrived here.

The problem I had is that I knew exactly how it had to feel, but I couldn't get it right. I redrew the composition like 7 times. The number of characters involved changed. The concept actually was also very different at first. It had to do with an observation about songs that end with a chorus going "Haummmm" (The observation is that they're cool) But it eventually changed as I kept working on it. And then when I finally nailed the composition, as simple as it is, I had problems making the characters look right. I drew Tony like three times, but Tak I did like 15.

But it works.

I guess I went through a little bit of an art block with this one. But it worked out actually.

This picture, conceptually, ties into a silly comic I've been working on and I'm very close to finishing. I'll be posting it soon I hope. Chronologically I think it can be read as this happening both before and after the comic but the Implications change with either one of them.

Lore wise the description I wrote covers it pretty well I think. I mentioned that Tony had a huge crush on Tak during highschool and he may still have it, who knows. I'm not even sure he's sure.

The background for this piece ended up being a throwback to an old pandemic comic of mine that happens in a very similar setting, though I wanted to use it to give a very different feel. And there's a little bit of an Easter egg there as I put my signature as one of the graffitis on the roof. I read an artist suggesting to start hiding one's signature on the backgrounds besides the regular one and I thought it was a good idea, but I also like the Implication that I happen to be in the world of my characters somewhere.

Actually that's true. I have hidden my parrot fursona in crowds on my art at least once or twice. Some of them I'll be posting soon!