#593 process (Patreon)

process on HFHH #593 from thumbnails to final.

right i forgot this one was another huge mess. let me try to remember what the fuck was going on

the original thought with this sequence was a vague "oh, if i have a knife in pepper's hand while he's cutting, it can be like a parallel to their last dinner-prep argument (in 268)." that had a bloody ending for achilles. there was a brief image in my mind where pepper grabs achilles with one hand, still holding the knife in the other—doesn't harm him, but the knife's presence looms large. but that image felt too aggressive for pepper, and i wanted more of a sudden instinctual reaction from him, not a pose that looks like a threat.

so at first i tried it without the knife at all, but i missed the drama of having it there, and it made me think i was sort of wasting the fact that pepper was holding a knife in the first place. i thought reaching to achilles' shoulders and being careless enough to drop the knife near achilles instead would be a better "scary" demonstration of his rare physical loss of control.

after settling on the knife definitely being an element, i went through a bunch of potential comps for the four panels. i was really, really tempted to use that new low-angle wide BG i had just drawn, but it just didn't end up feeling right for this sequence. it injects too much drama into the presence of the knife itself, which is exacerbated in the versions where achilles looks at the knife. it makes achilles feel like too much of a victim, while i prefer his energy here to be stubborn, standing his ground on his own unmoving point of view in the face of anything pepper can throw at him (figuratively or otherwise).

it's sort of interesting to me, because usually in a moment of drama at all, you DO want those high-intensity, dynamic shots. it's a little weird that i kept coming back to the flat profile shot for panel 3 instead. general shot philosophy dictates that flat shots are for comedy and dynamic shots are for drama. but not always, and sometimes you gotta do what you feel. in this case i really wanted both characters to stand up to each other equally, with the body language and expressions of each clearly visible and with equal power, and the flat profile shot seemed to accomplish that best.

along those same lines i wanted the focus to be on pepper while he delivers his bombshell line in panel 4, and it didn't feel right for him to have to share a spotlight with achilles or the knife in that moment. it needs to be all about him, and how scary his fear can make him look.

i always run these by my friends to get their input when i'm working through a WIP with this many options. often they will have different opinions. it's pretty common for the vote to be completely split. i'm okay with that, because it generally means that there was no "obvious best choice," and whatever i decide will be fine. so then i go with my gut. that's what happened here, and my "gut reasoning" is explained above. that said, i wouldn't be surprised if some people in my general audience, like my friends, would have preferred one of the other versions. it's down to preference at this point, and i guess there's something to be said for the fact that my OG thumbnails went with the profile shot. i guess it just felt right.

i do still have a home for that low angle wide. it's still comin'. it won't be wasted!!

by the way, i decided to just keep the momentum rolling and give everyone 4 comics this week. that means skipping next week entirely, so enjoy the feast tonight and tomorrow night. we'll pick back up last week of may.