Behind the Blorange (comic process)

I posted this comic last Friday, but I started working on it about two weeks prior. And as is often the case, the idea for it had been floating around in my head for a few weeks before that. In October, while the trees were glowing in their autumnal prime, I was painting exclusively with black India ink, so naturally I was thinking about colour a lot.

My first thought was to have a bird talking about its favourite fall leaves. I have a history of including trees prominently in my comics (cough cough COUGH cough cough AHEM), mostly because I love drawing leaves, but also because I think there could be a great comic series that is entirely tree-based. Anyway what was I saying? Who brought up trees? Don't let me get distracted by trees.

In sketching out the comic I came up with the basic idea of the bird falling through the canopy to have the colours all blend together. (I was also researching colour names)

I then painted the sketch at the top of this post to try to visualize what I was trying to achieve in the final panel. Satisfied that I could work out the rest of the details while doing the final thing, I measured out my panels, penciled, and then started painting. This is a time that exists outside of the measurable universe. Hours and seconds are synonymous. Dumb ideas are sparks of genius. Hunger and blinking are abstract metaphors, etc.

I came up with these panels:

I didn't dislike them, but I wasn't satisfied with how they would work within the comic. They are very stiff when I wanted them to be full of movement. I wanted the colours to be vibrant but they're garish. I could continue trying in this style and eventually land on something I like, but it would take a lot of effort and time and, frankly, my gouache skills are far from being mastered. I blame James Gurney and Maddy (both incredible artists and fantastic art educators) for making me want to paint my comics with opaque gouache so badly.

At this point I was frustrated with how things were looking and for how long I had spent on it. Because of the way I've (loosely) structured my schedule, I was a week behind with this comic already. 

At my peak grumpiness–BAM! In pops Mélodie, kicking my door down. We talk about issues with the artwork and I realize that it would be best to basically start over. Mélodie is an integral part of False Knees and I don't give her enough credit for it. Having an outside perspective on something that you spend hours staring at allows you to cast off the tunnel vision that inevitably creeps in.

I kept the three original frames of the leaves I made, and changed the background of this frame above to a simpler watercolour wash.

I streamlined the hopping sequence, making it stand out at the same time as being less work! Often, backgrounds just confuse the situation. This is a lesson I will never learn.

I then made this little birdie out of moldable eraser to help me work out perspective of a falling sparrow:

The last part of the comic came quite quickly once I had all my neurons in a row.

While posting the final comic, I decided to remove the last panel showing the sparrow soaring up into the sky, thinking it was unnecessary and took away from the blorange panel.

But...

Probably should have left it, haha.

So that's it! That's the story of one strip. Even though I say that aspects of the process are frustrating, it's always interesting. There are always lessons to be learned from art when you push yourself to try new things.

- Joshua