johnnywander

it's the FINAL POST OF 2023!!

It's the ephemeral space between between Christmas and New Years, my health keeps on backsliding, and I get to draw WHATEVER I FEEL LIKE!!!!

(what i wanted to draw was a fun power imbalance drawing with Leeds in the gladiator helmet)

I was thinking about the nice damask i drew in photoshop with the symmetry tool for the New Years illo and wanted to do something like that again, having a nice bold pattern can be fun on a drawing that might otherwise have a solid background. And actually, a big chunky compulsion really tiles well! I like this pattern a lot, maybe I'll keep it in my pocket for the future.

Thank you again for your support this year! In the spirit of The Holidays I'm gonna make this available for all patrons, have a beautiful New Year!

we're still playing bg3 (11)

YES IM STILL MAKING THESE THANK YOU FOR BEARING WITH ME

One thing Ananth and I were really disappointed in for BG3 was the dearth of fancy party missions despite there being a plethora of beautiful outfits that had no benificial stats or purpose other than looking like fancy party clothes. Maybe for DLC??

Anyway we decided to play a specific mission (Cazador's mansion) like it was an invite-only ball and we had to dress up pretty to impress Astarion's dad. It's been really fun to add flavor to the game ourselves even if the game itself doesn't acknowledge it. (rube goldburg machine deathtraps are always a delight)

Anyway, happy holidays to you all!!! I hope you're finding some time to relax this season. I'm going to take some time to visit my folks for New Years as always, my dad always like to cook up a storm to make some osechi (though never as pretty as in the photos). An auspicious and healthy new years to you!!!!!

Wallpapers! Happy holidays from BARBAROUS!

Happy holidays! Gosh, everyone's offering Percy a drink!

Lot of ups and downs this year! But making comics was very exciting. Our collaboration evolved a lot, and in a way that will probably unfold across the next few years. We're developing a new project! We'll talk about it with our patrons when there's enough to share.

The wallpapers are for desktop and mobile! Please enjoy! 

we're still playing bg3 (10)

FINALLY in act 3 of Baldur's Gate - the end of the game - Percy finally hooked up with someone!!!! And it was one of the weird unexpected one night stands, too! Extremely in character, I'm proud of her. I tried not to be TOO spoiler-y with this but, well.

By the end of the game (full disclosure: we're currently in our second playthrough lol), Percy had hooked up with a total of 7 people (well, entities) with a lot of hard work and perseverance. But you're TECHNICALLY supposed to be able to hook up from the start of act 1, so, she got it all in at the 11th hour

I keep thinking "is this too risque to put on social media are people going to be weird about it," but I'm probably going to do it anyway. Wish me luck. U___U

THANK YOU & HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM BARBAROUS

HI EVERYONE!!!! Thank you to everyone who read the new chapter, and thank you for everyone who supported us this year!!!! Here's a big process post preview of this year's ✨NEW YEAR'S ILLUSTRATION✨ Do you recognize all the hands? :D :D

How is this New Years themed you ask? look im just here to have fun

This one came out of a bunch of disparate ideas coming together of playing with a frame within a frame within a frame, and one of those frames is literal. I downloaded a gold gilding brush just for this illustration AND THEN I HATED IT, so I made do

I wanted a nice damask in the background but didn't want to look for a free pattern or anything so I just MADE IT WITH THE SYMMETRY TOOL!!! It was surprisingly easy!!!!!! I shared a pretty high res screenshot of it up there so if you need a damask for something feel free to use it if you want, unless it's for big money or advertising then you should make your own symmetry tool damask

⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️

If you've read this far, thank you! Since I'm posting this for ✨all patrons at all tiers✨ I wanted to reiterate there's some stuff only you guys have access in the Johnny Wander shop! (also speaking of, today-Friday-the-8th is the final day you can order with guaranteed US domestic delivery by the holidays! You can still order after today but it's the wild west)

⭐️ First: don't forget that as patrons you have a 10% off code from our store that works RIGHT NOW! To reiterate the image below, that's JWHOLIDAY23

⭐️ Second: only patrons are given links to the secret items in our online shop, namely ANY OF OUR 18+ ZINES! This was where I was going to link to our BARBAROUS 18+ zine and then saw that we're actually sold out aaaa

For future reference here's the link! The password is FANBOOK if you'd like to see the out of stock listing 😔

THERE'S ALSO A DIFFERENT 18+ ZINE THAT ISN'T SOLD OUT, an Overwatch Reaper-76 zine I made with my friend Nicoise Salad in 2017! It comes with two stickers!!

Here's the link! The password is Reaper76

(also just as a heads up warning to anyone who's actually up to date with overwatch lore, there's some bisexual stuff in there, this was made long before jack morrison was revealed to be ONLY into men)

⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️ ✨ ⭐️

I'm sure there's more shop-centric stuff I'm missing but just to close out thank you again for being our patrons, this year especially! I had to take a decent chunk of time off work this autumn because I was so ill, and I wouldn't have been able to do that without your support. As I'm able to work more, I can't help but be grateful that there's people who enjoy what we make and want us to make more! Because that's what I want, too! 💖

Happy New Year! (yuko it's the first week of december)

Pixels of You on super sale at Amazon!

Hi everyone! Writing to tell you that Pixels of You, the book by Ananth, Yuko and J.R. Doyle, is currently on sale on Amazon at 76% off! You can get the hardcover for $5, or the paperback for $7! It's a great time to pick it up as a holiday gift!

PIXELS OF YOU came out just before generative AI hit mainstream media, and imo it wound up being pretty relevant about the ways minorities are treated by technology.  But also, it's about drama between two young artists who take themselves way too seriously :)

And most importantly, it asks the question: what if we kissed in the robo dystopia 💋

[EDIT TO ADD] Hello we're back again! I wanted to add the reason we've been pushing these holiday book sales. Essentially, we get the same amount for every book sale from the publisher, whether it's discounted or not! So, no matter how you've gotten it, thank you for picking up our book. :D💖

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 31

Early update!

Chapter 8 / Page 21 breakdowns

WOW THERE'S 10 PANELS IN THIS PAGE!!!

This is one of Ananth's thumbnails, I think he did a great job of giving flow and interest to an information-heavy conversation between two sitting people. In the end, this wasn't a super challenging page to draw - medium shots of people emoting with little to no background is a candy page for me! - but the color was kinda a nightmare!!!!!

I really like to keep pages visually balanced unless something narratively calls for it, and I wanted the value and color in this page to be pretty balanced. In the end, it just came out to endless noodling. Dark neon pink on the top left and bottom right corners to begin and end the page. In the other diagonal, the dark purple of Hyewon's backlit hair in the bottom left, center and top right. Pale blue on the top and bottom. It's all a puzzle!!!!! (I feel like I complain about doing colors in almost every one of those pages lol ... I try to keep a lid on it but irl I do frequently complain about how much I miss doing black and white comics ... I yearn to go back ....)

Also while I'm here, the last two panels are two of my faves in the whole chapter. THE BALL HANDS HAVE FOREVER INTEGRATED INTO MY STYLE, BALL HANDS SUPREMANCY

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 30

Early update!

we're still playing bg3 (9)

LOL somehow this has been the longest one of these drawings has taken me, but I wanted to commemorate this moment!!! We've been leaning into summoning so you can just have a jillion weird allies hanging out with you (it absolutely destroys NPC pathfinding lol) and it is ... extremely fun. Highly recommended

From left to right:

Percy's mummy
Jaheira's dryad
Jiheira's dryad's woodwode
Jaheira's flaming ball
Percy's 4 ghouls
Shadowheart's cambion (flying)
Jaheira
Shadowheart
Karlach (can't use magic)
Percy :)

Chapter 8 / Page 20 breakdowns

This scene is so WORDY! We tried to make the scene imagery fun despite all the information/history we were trying to convey. Conversations shouldn't be a slog to draw or read!

One thing I failed to mention on page 19 at the beginning of this chapter - as Percy moves through this chapter and interacts with different people in different circumstances, she changes her look subtly. As soon as she meets up with Hyewon, she puts on this flannel and puts her hair up to push her and Hyewon further apart in presentation. Hyewon gets to be the queen of femme, no one may stand above her.

We try to make Hyweon increasingly angelic in this scene!!! I said before, she exists in a different genre of story so she can summon her own fairytale bokeh at emotional peaks. If you pay attention, it continues throughout the rest of her scenes!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 29

Early update!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 28

Early update!

we're still playing bg3 (8)

WYLL NOOOO!!! Wyll's act 2 romance scene was so cute, but also hanging out with him DOES make anyone you're dating get mad at you. :,) The same happened with Gale, but it seemed so much more innocuous with Wyll because you're just doing a little line dance!!

Ultimately we wound up choosing Shadowheart for Percy (half-elf, long black hair in a braid) because she'd be the most understanding if Percy played the field a bit lol (it was important!! for character reasons!!!)

anyway this game is a very fun dating sim

Chapter 8 / Page 19 breakdowns

YAY we got to page 19! This probably wound up being my favorite page of the chapter! I just like the breathing space and visual interest of the slow zoom into a new environment (in this case, NYC K-town in Herald Square ... you'll see the Empire State Building later in the scene to confirm it, for the New Yorkers in the crowd)

The thumbnails were actually split duty between me and Ananth this time - I thumbnailed the scene with Cerberus, and Ananth thumbnailed the bar scene with Hyewon and Percy, so we passed the file back and forth a couple times making this one. You'll be able to tell the difference between our drawing styles in the thumbnail sketch too lol (I shared a lot of the previous Cerberus scene earlier so I figured I'd skip the breakdowns of page 17 & 18. If want to see you can scroll back a ways to see them!)

I thought a lot about the scene color transition in this one - Leeds' scenes in chapter 8 are purple and yellow, and Percy's scenes are purple and pink. As the night goes on the scene gets increasingly neon and unreal as the girls polish off a bottle of soju. Looking for color reference for some reason my brain got stuck on my hazy decades-old memory of the drunk elephants scene from Dumbo so that wound up being my touchstone lol

Also, that bubbly ball-hands style I started drawing in for the Elden Rings comics strikes again in the second panel haha ... it's been fun to use!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 27

Early update!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 26

Early update!

we're still playing BG3 (7)

Hmm, did you know that when you go to the elf graveyard and dig up all the graves, the elfs get mad at you, very unexpected

maybe the elfs should not have buried all these very rare spells and magical amulets

Chapter 8 / Pg 16 breakdowns

YESSS who can resist a fashion breakout!!! We've had a couple of those in this chapter, but this is the most bombastic one. :D

Ananth thumbnailed this entire scene and was definitely going for an escalation of shoujo vibes. I definitely expanded on it with the exploding bouquet haha - it felt really appropriate especially introducing Hyewon, who is basically living in a completely different genre than everyone else. 💐✨

Neither of us caught it until the page was mostly done but this is technically AN ILLEGAL LAYOUT when reading left to right!!!! When formatting a page, you're supposed to make breakout panels on the side you start reading from! Otherwise the eye gets confused about reading sequence*. I think in the end this page wound up fine, I added a bubble overlapping and bridging panels 1 & 2 so your eye is forced down and then right.

(*there are obviously ways to circumvent this being an issue, rules can always be bent and we bend this one constantly lol)

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 25

Early update!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 24

Early update!

we're still playing BG3 (6)

YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED, PERCY GOT AN ENTOURAGE OF GNARLY DUDES :D

It's been fun finding the story parallels we can between our different game journeys and point excitedly and cackle. Anyway now Percy can summon some weirdos to fight with her and sometimes explode into a pile of gore?? It's fine, we're all friends

PSST our Black Friday Sale is happening!!!

Please take a moment to appreciate the OTHER graphics I spent my entire Monday hand-lettering. Please enjoy the unnecessary amount of bubble letters that I drew when I could have instead used the type tool.

As I hinted to earlier in the week, THE BLACK FRIDAY SALE IS HAPPENING RIGHT MEOW!!! It's only running from November 10 / 11 / 12th, so the window is short! But a lot of our books are on pretty hefty sale right now AND the 10% patreon coupon code should also help!

• BARBAROUS chapters 1-5 with extra are on sale with all prints for free 
• Offhand Standard & Limited Editions are on sale 
• Johnny Wander: Our Cats are More Famous Than Us (the autobio omnibus) is on SUPER SALE 

The Omnibus is SUPPOSED to be on sale for $19 but it's currently listed as $14 so definitely take advantage of that because I don't know if someone will notice and fix it hahaha - honestly these books are so large it would be nice to have a few more of them out of the warehouse, they take up more space than you'd expect 😭

Don't forget, use this code at checkout

JWHOLIDAY23

we made it just for you!!!

Chapter 8 / Pg 15 breakdowns

YAY I've been excited to show off this the breakdown of this page!

Ananth did a great job doing the thumbnails on this one, it's really fun and kinetic! I really enjoyed doing the moment-to-moment action here, and the character interactions. I don't get to draw kissing very much and it's always a fun challenge when it comes up!! >:D

I did two different passes at the first panel, one with peach tones (the obvious choice! more romantic!) and one with teal tones (breezier! breaks up the pacing! visually balances the last panel!). The teal version won out in the end, but I wanted to have a chance to show off the first version! I worked really hard on it! COLORS ARE HARD!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 23

Early update!

OUR WINTER SALE IS UP! Here's a code for you ~

YAY the Johnny Wander winter sale at our shop at DFTBA is now live!!!! A bunch of our books and prints are on sale! ALSO we have an extra 10% off code for patrons!!!! Please use this code at checkout!!!!!

JWHOLIDAY23

These graphics are all on the Johnny Wander website already BUT I spent my entire Monday hand-lettering ad graphics so I figured I'd share these here as well. I tried my best to make them cute!!!!!

ALSO BETWEEN YOU AND ME!!! We're going to be running an additional black friday sale on November 10-12 that this code will ALSO work on!!!! That's a secret!!! But please look forward to it!!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 22

Early update!

We're still playing BG3 (5)

Apparently you're supposed to have "magic users in your party" and "not lean too hard into one class" BUT WHAT IF YOU JUST HUNG OUT WITH A BUNCH OF PROFESSIONAL ASSASSINS AND MADE EVERYONE GOOD AT SNEAKING

the answer is: it's very very fun but also makes everything like 10x longer to do lol

maybe we'll use gale the wizard on the next playthrough but no promises

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 21

Early update!

BARBAROUS Season 2: Chapter 8 Page 20

Early update!