Hotwire Insolve BTS: Bulletproof Drive pages 16-17 (Patreon)

alrighty, i've been talking the BTS on this spread up for a couple weeks now and here it is! sorta. this is the ORIGINAL pencils for these pages.

link to the final spread

several panels are much different from the final pages. maybe most notably is the 3rd panel on the first page. I really like that drawing of Kyrie shooting and I decided against it cuz it points pretty directly into the action on the opposing page, making it look connected. just don't be mad if you see a suspiciously similar panel somewhere down the line heheh....

i redrew that panel and i came up with combining it with the 4th panel too. luckily, i also really like this drawing of kyrie.

other panel changes are the 4th panel on the first page has a totally different angle and juno's leg action in the last panel is moving a different direction. there are pose changes on the second page in the first and fourth panels as well.

so i actually finished this version of the page and it made it to patreon:

buuuuuutttttt i couldn't stop thinking there was a better version of this. i've mentioned before i've been treating this comic as practice in many ways—including letting perfection go. when it comes to action, there's lots of rules and conventions swirling around, and finding the perfect way to execute it is a real challenge. i thought "this is good enough" and went ahead with it.

a peer of mine, E.M. Fields, brought up being a little confused at the action in the middle of the first page. originally i had kyrie shooting the same direction her bullet goes in the next panel, but i changed it and for some reason i convinced myself this was an acceptable flow to the page. it gave me the idea to redraw the 4th panel though.

ignoring my philosophy of making the damn thing and being done with it, i wanted the action to be as good as possible. i shared the updated pages with some other folks and got some additional critique. specifically, Moss Lawton gave me some suggestions regarding making the action line up between the panels more. so kyrie shoots a little higher to be similar to the bullet angle in the next panel, juno's foot in the last panel is going the up/right rather than up/left. they also had a couple of pose suggestions on the next page.

i knew that leg position in the 4th panel wasn't right for the final pose, but i thought nobody would notice... i still don't think many people WOULD have noticed if they were just reading and not critiquing it. BUT i decided to change it cuz the old pose WAS sort of similar to the hip pop inward knee thing kyrie is now doing on the other page anyway.

now that we're at this page, let's check out some exploratory sketches for this action.

the tiny sketch in upper right of that second page is actually the Original-original sketch of this pull-the-leg-kick-the-face move. I wanna say i scribbled it in a file last november or december. i've been looking for the right place to employ it, and i found it here! it's important to scribble out ideas. especially cool moves!

i think that's all! this spread is really a great showcase of how much crit helps! aside from the people i called out, several of my friends offered advice and opinions along the way as well. thank you, everyone!

and thank YOU, patron. til next time!