Early $10 Preview: Page 240

GOBLIN CHILD.

Thanks to Whyaylooh for Trisha and Madiso for Finn! Yay, patron cameos! 

Artist Commentary: 

Bally Bluffs changed a lot as I was doing the background for this scene. Not really conceptually; it was always supposed to be a snowy ruins. But there's a thing that happens a lot for me where I get kind of a visual or conceptual snapshot in my mind of how a place will look, and then it... doesn't actually make sense in the story. That, or it doesn't look good, haha.

For Bally Bluffs, there was going to be a lot of importance placed on the inside of a cave, which had been formed by walls and buildings having collapsed together over time. Turns out, that's really hard to communicate AND make it easy for characters to traverse AND not have to draw a billion different angles.

So I decided I'd feature one bit of ruin, and see if I can weave more stuff in as I go. Now I have to look over the script and make sure everything makes sense, and revise what doesn't, haha. 

Also, Piper wanting to hunt ghosts was something that I added to the script on a whim, as so many little character moments happen. But now with the weight placed on it on this page and the following page, I gotta revise the rest of the chapter AGAIN.

Double-also, the page where they're traveling, in order to show passage of time, I had the lighting go from morning to evening. This makes perfect sense as I imagine that it takes the carts about 8 hours to reach their destination (going at a canter, stopping frequently, some high elevation, etc). But then I realized I imagined the next chunk of the chapter happening in like, noon-ish time.

I don't think Jason would recommend they go hiking at NIGHT, so I gotta reorganize all that as well. Basically the next chunk of story is kinda up in the air as I figure out how to squish and moosh things together until it fits how the narrative is going.

This is what happens basically every other page or so. Something new crops up that changes everything and I have to readjust XP The good thing is Tamberlane is my practice project, and I've learned A LOT from doing this. I could probably do a project with many fewer variables if I started over now, and though comics will always involve a measure of variance from script to page, I think I've learned how to conceptualize a lot of things now that I've gone trial by fire.

This is why my advice to folks wanting to make good comics is just to Make Comics. It's never gonna be perfect and live up to your expectations, and if you are a Pantser like me (a "by-the-seat-of-your-pants" writer, as opposed to a Plotter, self-explanatory), you're always gonna be surprised. You just have to get experience learning to take that information and running with it. 

Anyway. There's your peek behind the curtain! And speaking of Peek, another bit of trivia:

His request for orange pigment rock was born purely out of figuring out how to make the barter request work. Now I put enough emphasis on it that Belfry has to, y'know, actually get orange rocks. So that has to get into the story somehow. What have I done??? lmao

And one last little thing: there's been some question as to what the building is that's in ruins. Since I doubt it'll come up in the comic itself (although WHO KNOWS??? I think I've proven that I HAVE NO IDEA), I can tell you here that it's an old church!

Here's some of the reference images I used when I painted it:

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy all that rambling! ;3 And, like, the page I guess!