So here’s something from the deep archives that shows a bit of the creative process. It’s an older one (June 18, 2009) and what I’ve shown here are three versions. These were rendered over the course of about a month, from late September 2007 to early November.
Nicky and his family are characters have been under development for quite a number of years as I created strips in an on-again/off-again fashion. During the recent on-again that marked the actual beginning of the strip, I had the idea that Nicky would always wear a baseball cap and that’s what you see in the first rendering. Here the joke was the same (Nicky chewing on something tough) but it was all focused on us observing him – seeing him chew harder and harder. As you can see when his hat blows off, I was doing his hair in a more "real" style and nowwhere near as stylized as it eventually became.
Ken and Connie look quite different than they do now – I was still figuring out what to do with them.
The second version, about a month older, shows the same joke but with changes. It seemed more interesting to show what Nicky was experiencing in a visual analogy – hence chewing an inner tube or a golf ball. The hat had disappeared as I realized that I enjoyed drawing him more with big hair and Lex has replaced Connie at the table. Ken’s still directing his comments to her and we can see that I’d decided there would be a visual correspondence beween Lex and Ken.
Finally we have the third version. I’d decided that rather than the thought bubbles I’d frame each of the Nicky images for an interesting graphic image. Ken is now clearly looking off-panel as he addresses Connie so there’s no confusion as to who he’s talking to. You can also see that Lex has been reduced in height from the 2nd version. Early on I’d thought that there would be a size and age difference between Lex and Nicky which I eventually decided wouldn’t be the case.
Obviously none of the characters look "modern" here because as anyone who has studied comics knows, the central characters usuallly evolve a great deal in the early years. Certainly that’s been the case with mine.
- And that’s today’s word from the bird
Great to see how you develop your characters.
Thanks for sharing.
.-= Susanne F´s last blog ..A French 3 Course Meal w/ photos =-.
Thanks for showing the creative process.
You’re welcome! It’s always surprising to me to see how much my style has changed over the years and yet, at least according to my brother, stayed identifiable as what he remembers me doing early in my K-12 years. And that was quite a while back