Making of "Dumb Baby" (Part 2) (Patreon)

(...Continued from Part 1)

Here's where the fun begins -and a LOT of photo reference! It took 2 evenings of work to get it right, so I exported the timelapse video above to 60s instead of the usual 30s, so it doesn't all just zip by!

You can see I keep moving the photo reference around to be next to the panel I'm working on. I really wanted to capture the feeling of the original meme, so I kept bringing it back in so make sure I wasn't going off course.

I noticed that Pablo's 3 expressions aren't the same. I'll admit, I haven't actually watched the show, so I'm only going from the meme here, but it looks like he's going through some stages of grief. Vacant shock in the first one, then depression and finally more of a determined acceptance in the 3rd. I translated them onto Vincent's face and kept laughing at the results!

I considered also translating the locations to somewhere more familiar to Vincent, (eg have the Litterbox kitchen in panel 2) but the idea of Coop knocking him so sideways he had to go on a journey of the soul to Pablo Escobar's estate tickled me! 😂

I do not enjoy drawing backgrounds, so it's a testament to how funny I found this that I powered though drawing all the tiles and patterns! The 1st panel is quite blue and the second very warm, so I played with the colors to try to match it. Right at the end I realized I'd done my usual mistake of washing things out too much, so I did some quick adjustment layers to pump the colors up.

The whole thing took several evenings, so after all that I decided it didn't need a bonus panel and I was done! I showed it to my kids and 11yo said something along the lines of "Yeah, but that wouldn't work, because I'd just hit him!" Damnit. There it was -my bonus panel! I HAD to draw it! I tried doing it in 2 panels, but the timing was off. If I was going to land this thing I was going to do it right! So a whole extra comic came to be! I'm really glad I did it though -as mean as it is, it is somewhat satisfying to see Vince's relief at the end! 😂