Saturday, March 8, 2008

Chapter 1: Page 017




This latest page is sort of an homage to my good buddy and mentor, Michael Vega. Molly is actually a character he designed who is featured in one of the very awesome Beast World art minis he made.

This scene takes place at Molly's residence, a carrot patch out in the fields (which is also in Mike's original art). So I figured, since she's technically his character, I should flex my art muskels on the background stuff on the second panel and make it the kind of page he'd be proud of.

I pretty much have him to thank for staying with the art stuff, and for pretty much any skill I have, so I sort of made a big deal about this page (even skipped a chance for a shift at the video store I work at to have time to make this).

What I like about Molly as a character is that Mike's style is so much more elaborate than mine, so she sort of sticks out design-wise, but it totally works because story-wise, she's a foreigner to the island, and thus seems very different than the other islanders. She dresses well, is less repressed and stigmatic than the other characters, and is more comfortable with her sexuality than a lot of the people in the world of Battle Holiday. This is all, more or less, informed by Mike's work.

Look out for Molly and this carrot patch later in the book. One of the more bad-ass fight scenes takes place in this carrot patch.

Michael Vega on GhostCircles: http://www.ghostcircles.com/mike

Definitely the best page so far. This one took me quite a bit to make. A little over six hours I believe, but I think it was worth it.

Also, it should be noted, that this is also the first page featuring Skwirl, the knife wielding little squirrel-cat psychopath bent on murder for/of pretty girls. He's kinda my favorite character, which may be another reason I felt this page should be special.