DEV: From Hell's Heart (Sketches & Concepts)

Okay okay okay here we GOOO.

We haven't had MUCH time lately to really sink our teeth into creating a lot of new stuff so I'm reaching in the bin and collecting up a bunch of the sketches and process we have so far for this story! (I'm already working on an outline and part of a first draft. Maybe I'll even make a post for that. While we're at it. I'm segmenting some of the work we've done into a few different posts you'll get this month while we're hopping around!

Above are a whole slew of sketches Tas did when we were first talking about the project/when she first gave me Bonnie's design (the big cachalot werewhale) and I started doodling the added Lucy (whaler with the cap) and not too long the optional Jiminy (weregiantsquid). We weren't super sure where this story was going so we were having a ton of fun just canoodling around with character dynamics. If you're here peeping at Jiminiy's big werewgiantsquidform... shhhhh its a very loose-lipped secret LOL. May or may not be canon~

     Tas has a lot of art playing with Bonnie's were-design and her overall design in general. We've been answering a lot of asks about these guys over on our tumblr accounts that I'll be posting in another post for your convenience hehe! It's been fun watching Bonnie evolve out of all of these three personally!

     Jiminy (aka Jim)'s design has fluctuated a bunch since we started poking at her. This last image up here is my rendition (as you can see i am not the most avid beast designer LOL so watching Tas take on her design in the above two illustrations is absolutely rad)! We're still picking and poking around at all these designs, nothing's really set in stone until we start the comic hehe (and even THEN we're usually making changes up until we properly reveal them).

   Part of the Process is also testing out inking styles. We're still undecided. This sketch was done by Tas and I took a crack at inking them with a few of our newer inking brushes in Procreate. Not sure any of these fit the general vibe we're going for in this story but it was a fun try all the same.

I'm usually a very clean-lined inker and this story is so gritty and grimy we're struggling getting my inking style to fit the vibes here. Its a struggle enough we've been talking about potentially having Tas take the reigns on most of the artwork with this story and me on writing/typography and playing a bit more with the text and thumbnails and script instead. Not gonna lie I'm a bit nervous about it, not because Tas can't do a good job (I'll be posting a lot of her finished concepts illustrations.... you'll see how cool they are), but that means I'd be taking a pretty massive backseat & the process & shouldering a lot of the heavy lifting on Tas' shoulders.

She's fine with it of course, different projects to different strengths! Farewell Tour's probably going to mostly be in my wheelhouse anyway.

BEFORE I GO-- though, here's a few really cool tests Tas did of some stormy seas.... ough.

   Lots of thought going into this guy! These tests are insane tbh. I wouldn't even know where to start with something like this.

ANYWAY. We'll be back next week with another post .... with even MORE art~