Lets talk a tiny bit of process...

Hey everyone~

We're currently working really hard building up the Augustine buffer for Chapter 2 and I'm thinking a lot about our process and definitely think it would be a fun thing to share with you~!

So with a lot of our current projects our process is a little like this:

BRAINSTORMING

Tas and I are both IN IT on this stage, the two of us sometimes spend hours talking just about the story itself and where it could go. We talk through different scenarios, we spend hours asking each other questions about characters: 

• what sort of hobbies do these kids have?
• have any or all of them dated before?
• have they all dated each other at all?
• who is the most to least responsible of the group?
• how was the group formed/who started it and when?
• how old was each one when they got there?
• what kind of family life & upbringing did they have?
• whats their motive/incentive/driving force?
• what kind of attitude do they have on the world?
• what kind of religious/superstitious beliefs do they have?

The last one was definitely pertinent to Augustine proper since the characters have to deal with mythos vs the current religion of the Eye in the Crater. We also admittedly ask a lot of 'shit post' questions (what kind of blog would each character run/ are they into fanfiction/ what kind of music do they listen to) which helps inform what kind of humour each of the characters might employ. A lot of the Actual Answers to these aren't going to make it necessarily into Augustine proper but it helps me with the writing part after the fact, it makes it easier for us to be on the same page and really grasp them.

These little facts about them also made it extremely easy to build up jokes and gags and filler ideas for AUGUSTEENIES which can bring up some of the funny little scenarios we thought up for them.

These obviously aren't the only questions we ask ourselves, there's a lot pertaining to the plot and the antics of the characters beforehand, how do we want this story to start how do we want it to play out.

And in THIS CASE we also had an editor (Since we're teamed up with Hiveworks) who also helped us work out some of the harder plot points in Augustine early on! Gisele does Star Trip and their storytelling skills are phenomenal (if you haven't read their comic you shouLD).

SCRIPT WRITING

The next step is straight up writing the script. Since its easier for just one person to handle this part it often gets put into my hands (Hi its me Winter). Both of us CAN write, obviously but Tas entrusts me with this task as its something I enjoy doing & don't get too overwhelmed with. This part is not the MOST straightforward though. Usually I write out scenes and read them out loud to Tas so we can both get a sense of the pacing and the dialogue. Tas often tweaks my script at this stage and will let me know if something sounds out of character or if we might be able to play something a bit more different/interesting than our original plan.
The script dialogue is ALSO not entirely set in stone in this stage. There's a lot of dialogue that remains the same but sometimes you write something and on the page it Feels Right but then you put it in the comic-page context and there's missing something or it reads in an ultimately different tone than you originally expected.

Here's a few examples of my script from the first chapter (pages 55-59, i'll be using these pages throughout as the same example):

I also do not script using a traditional comics script. I use a 'screenplay' style which generally means a script intended for TV/movies without all the camera direction and then I split that script up into pages once the ideas are all down in a first draft. Maybe this is ass-backwards to some, but since both of us are illustrators it feels weird to describe things panel by panel since we live together and can explain things.

Besides ... I also do the thumbnails.

THUMBNAILS

So I'm pretty sure those who are here already know what a 'thumbnail' is but in case you don't, these are small compositional drawings of page layouts. Putting pages and actions and bubbles down on a tiny scale lets you assess how the story is flowing and progressing without having to rework big pages.

At least that's what most people for. I'm a little bit Cursed when it comes to thumbnailing I really do NOT give Tas a lot to work off of admittely (I'm trying to do better... Augustine Thumbnails are uhm... more involved than the ones I used to give Tas for Paint The Town Red... HAHA;;;

Maybe I'll make a couple PTTR posts showing off that process too because woof Tas is made of magic transforming my thumbs into the sketches she produces.

ANYWAY. This is what some of my thumbnails looked like for Augustine Chapter 1

My process here is to mostly keep panel arrangements interesting while also not distracting and flowing with the movement of the page. Admittedly Tas was pretty leery when I said I wanted to make Augustine in a landscape format. It doesn't work super well with the ~mobile~ platforms online but a landscape page does fit a computer/desktop screen much better than vertical pages and this in particular would be a greater test of my panelling abilities (and get myself out of my own head). Plus its a desert... that shit is long and sprawling you need big long wide pages to play that up hehe.

SKETCHING

Ah! This is where Tas steps in to save the day and do the part I dislike the most (mostly from a confidence standpoint). She somehow takes my scraggly little thumbnails and turns them into this:

Insane right? I explain the best I can often in person what the thumbnails are trying to do and she delivers (often in ways I might not have been able to personally). That's what 10-15 years of comics making experience does to a guy. Hehe.

We've also shifted a bit of our process recently since I'm hand-drawing the bubbles for Augustine, Tas will finish her sketch and then place the text on a floating layer where the bubbles should go. It'll look kind of like this:

(This would still have the panels i just delete the panel layer when I ink pages and we don't have this example to show otherwise woops!)

We also started realising how much easier it makes things on me to ink when I have a bit more context to what the characters are saying. I have a rough idea since I did write the script BUT usually by the time I'm inking this we're weeks if not MONTHS from when I originally wrote it so I was having to decipher context from sketches can be a bit difficult.

INKING

Aaaaaand that's me again~! Tas tosses the pages back to me and I make them look like this:

As you can see.... not MUCH changes. I refine the sketches as I ink to keep the characters on model and make sure everyone's scars and such are all kept uniform. This is my favourite part of the process, I've been told I'm a bit of a freak for it.

At the end of each page I also add in the bubbles with a transparent colour layer so that Tas can do her magic and give them an outline in the colouring stage. 

What I give her looks like this:

And that's it! Next is colouring~

COLOURING

And nearly-last but certainly not least, Tas puts all the wonderful colours on these bad boys (I've been told that's her favourite part) and finalises them with all the bells and whistles and bubbles.

So they look like so:

Phew~! What a process! Working this way seems a bit chaotic but it means we're both working and producing for parts the other one either dislikes or isn't the most fond of all the while getting to do the parts we enjoy! It also means we get to split the heavy duty work on two shoulders instead of one. IE: Sketching and Inking are both extremely strenuous on an artist's hand so splitting those two helps. Thumbnailing and Colouring also require their own strain which is nice getting to split up as well.

But wait... who does 'the rest'??

THE REST

So from here, Tas usually does the uploading to the website & that sort of formatting and I'm the one responsible for formatting book pages and print-related shenanigans.

(Here's what the print layouts look like for this sequence)

(I DO plan these layouts out in the thumbnailing stage, which pages will line up next to each other, you'll notice in the script 55-56 is labelled like a spread bc the framing of these panels works best next to one another)

The two of us split the load on scheduling social media updates to remind folks to read our comics!

Otherwise that's it that's all. Its generally how our process works for Paint The Town Red and Augustine. 

We might make a few 'shorter' versions of this post as we make these stories. Because I like sharing process and having somewhere to show thumbnails which are a sight to behold in and of themselves.

Thanks for the read~!