Making of "Locked & Loaded" (Patreon)

With 2 children, 3 cats and a puppy in the house, it wasn't long until this idea was written down! it was originally going to just be Vincent and Beans (the pug) psyching each other up about how they'll play properly this time, but them both succumbing once the first shots were fired. It wasn't quite working for me though, so I left it alone until one of you requested in a poll to have more comics where the kids playing with their friends. More friends! That was the answer!

I knew this was going to be a nightmare composition puzzle, so I wanted to make sure I had the last panel figured out before I bothered doing the 1st two. I brought in some linework of Beans freaking out on a slipper from one of the Patreon comics, but while looking for "dog tearing up" reference photos I found the following and was reminded of the delicate, careful fashion our puppy actually destroys darts!

Drawing feral Vince and Beans went pretty fast, it was drawing everyone else that was difficult!

Vincent has sat with the turtle and chicken at lunch before, so I assume they must be friends. Turtle seemed like a good one to have a serious face for the first panel. J suggested having someone emptying a clip into an entranced kid's heads, so I made that the chicken. I wanted to give him a really puny NERF gun, to make the headshot funnier, but later on I realized it's one of those single shot guns, so I removed the 2nd dart bouncing off Vince's head.

3 aside for the teams seemed right, so I needed 2 more kids. I looked though old comics to see if anyone worked. The white rabbit girl has appeared a few times before, but as Vincent made her cry at her Elsa birthday party, it didn't seem like she'd want to come play NERF!

I thought about what kind of animals would be funny and came up with a sloth and a chameleon. I found this couch fort online and thought it would be funny if the chameleon was hiding in there, changed to the same color as the coach.

It wasn't until later that I realized the LB coach is a boring brown color, which means the chameleon would be a boring brown color too! I decided to swap the sloth and the chameleons positions and have him color up with camo and dress like Rambo! I also changed him to laughing at the situation instead of the original annoyed -seemed more fun!

The guns were the hardest part. I wanted all the guns to be different, because you rarely own 2 of the same NERF guns. Drawing them from the side was easy enough, I could just trace over product pictures, but drawing the sniper rifle angled towards the camera, or the turtle's gun pointed towards the floor was really hard!!

Right towards the end, J suggested having Vincent looking at the dart in the 2nd panel, I think it really makes it! This one was definitely a labor of love, wish it had done a little better engagement wise after all that work, but looking forward to doing more with the chameleon and sloth now they're designed!