Hotwire Insolve BTS: Bulletproof Drive pages 10-13 (Patreon)

I like these pages. it's when the action really starts and i don't have to draw so many cars hehehe.

to start, let's look at my thumbnail, because this first spread actually used to be just one page!

Originally, we go to the operating room immediately during all the commotion and Zack just kinda shows up off-screen. I thought it would be better to give our villain's introduction more space in the story. also i realized i sorta set up a chekov's gun scenario with the shotgun pointed at the front door. the callback assists the excitement of the scene with a little extra action AND we get a demonstration of subdermal armor in action! i'm a genius! ....just not on the first pass. 😅

link to final spread

Zack's name was originally Henry, but then i thought the mechanic seemed more like a Henry, so i gave the mechanic Henry and Zack was just the first name that popped in my head after that. Henry is the name of my neighbor, whom i had met shortly before writing the names into the page.

In panel 3 we see Juno was drawn behind Henry in the pencils, which didn't make it to the final page. i still wonder if i made the right choice there... i still might change it, honestly...

Zack shows up, we get a look at that computer console on the wall between the door and the garage door. his pose in the 5th panel is just a drawing from a layer in which i quickly drew a couple of concepts for him:

the file also has THIS drawing, which is a proto-zack that i decided against:

On the following page, Zack takes the shotgun blast, shrugs it off, gets to Henry. I injected the look into the operating room here, and just overlayed the previously seen onomatopœiæ (<---wowza, what a word!) for the surgeon to be reacting to. you'll also notice, as i mentioned in the last BTS post, the armatures above the operating chair are the exact ones from when we first see them copy/pasted in there.

link to final spread

i like these pages a lot, despite having to draw kyrie's skinlessness repeatedly. the surgeon using kyrie's detached chest to block a bullet was one of the beats i had in mind before i even thumbnailed the whole thing, actually. he's the original sketch:

i wrote a lot of the dialogue in here as i was penciling too. i'm repeatedly trying to use the surgeon to deliver some CyMod lore, and i was exploring what i could reasonably fit in. i decided it would be over-explaining (also i just plain couldn't fit the words in the panels), but basically if he reattached the skin to her after it was shot, she would be in EXCRUCIATING pain as soon as it connected with her system and she'd likely go into shock. hence why he has to "reset the nerves."

i felt the joke of the surgeon using a part of her as a shield was base-level funny, and the additional punch of kyrie being like "wtf my BOOBS" was good. seemed in character, and i think it's fuel for the more adult tone of the story. which, by making a world in which our heroes can shoot people and they don't die, i feel i'm already working at an adult tone deficit, so i need to take what i can get haha.

on the second page, we get a small callback to earlier with the assistant showing up and just saying "please." Also we get a cool shot of Kyrie with her gun. i don't always, but for a shot like this i like to make sure the gun looks correct-correct. i'll often place and distort a side-view of it and use that as a base for the final drawing.

one last thing, on the fourth panel on the second page—the one with Zack in the foreground yelling at Henry behind the car. it was a LATE decision to show that he ran out of bullets there. it was a real eureka moment for me, cuz i wanted him to have a reason to go get the shotgun at the door, and "just because" was a bit flimsy haha. seems like an obvious choice now, but that's just writing i guess! some things just fall into place like that.

...WOW this was longer than i thought it'd be... i think the next one will be shorter; just going over one spread cuz i think the pages of Juno kicking Zack's ass needs its own bespoke post.

'til then! thanks for reading!

PS: i'll be going back and adding the "link to final spread" thingies to the other posts. for comparison!