10 Fun Facts about If A Tree Falls (Patreon)

Hope you guys enjoy some of these behind the scenes nuggets about our little two man Alaskan camping team comic!

1 SHILOH DESIGN

Shi from the start had a punk rock look and style/hair kinda sorta inspired by DmC reboot Dante (best game, fight me) and I finally got a character with a neck tattoo that I’m sure I won’t regret having to draw all the time! For a while during creation he was blonde with a black shaved side but after a ton of recolors (and the fact MCs Kimrick and Noah are also blondes) I thought the dyed red would look more punk and pop against all the forest greenery cuz COMPLEMENTARY COLOR THEORY Y’ALL *flashes graphic design degree*

2 ROWAN DESIGN

I wanted Rowan to look kinda boring 😂 Like an average I-don’t-wanna-stand-out kinda guy based on his introverted/independent personality. I also knew from the start I wanted him to have dark semi-longer hair to kinda “hide” his ears as a symbolic vulnerability. Shit’s deep bro. Also the red shirt was chosen to go with Shi’s hair so they match like cute widdle boyfwends

3 NAMES

‘Shiloh Reed’ was the name of a vampire OC I made waaay back in the day and always thought that name sounded like a cool celebrity/rockstar name so here we are.

Rowan was chosen cuz y’all know I like nicknames (‘Row’) and ShiRo/Roloh are cute dumb pairing names. His last name was taken from my favorite figure skater, Kevin Aymoz (pronounced ei-mohz), no relation (look at my FUCKING SON: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQh9nk3DKX1/ )

4 THE ROCKSTAR

Early plot ideas had Shiloh originally be a privileged and overly dramatic actor/celebrity but given the themes of deafness, I thought it’d be more fun of an ‘opposites attract’ to make his whole life dedicated to sound so he became a famous singer/guitarist instead. Who can still be overly dramatic.

5 COLORING

I’m trying my best to make the color style (mainly backgrounds) fast/painterly while not making it look rushed/amateur and a great inspiration has been the video game Firewatch if anyone’s played it. I have a whole album on my phone of forest scenery screencaps for potential references. Who knows if I’ll stick with this though, I feel like artists that try to force a style change often gradually just go back to their old ways or learn their own new ways in time 😂

6 DEAFNESS

Here’s a quirky backstory story for y’all. ALL in 2015 I:

1. Got obsessed with the anime/manga Gangsta and the main character Nic (who’s deaf)

2. Got obsessed with Nyle DiMarco (who’s deaf) from that year’s America’s Next Top Model season

3. Was one applicant away from adopting a deaf dog that Christmas (like I even started teaching Hastings commands in hand signals to prepare, which he still knows to this day). It was just funny how all that happened so simultaneously and ever since then, I’ve always had a huge interest and appreciation for the deaf community so I hope I do right by them as a writer 💪

7 THE BAND

Shiloh’s band Black Siren is world famous, up there with chart-topping household names like Linkin Park, Green Day and Blink 182. As for genre, I picture they’re a punk/hard rock band but also a bit emo but also modern rock. Basically if Sum 41 and Linkin Park had a baby and it was raised by the nanny Palaye Royale and weird uncle Måneskin. There’s 4 guys in the band: Shiloh (vocals/guitar), “Bandit” (bass), Danny (guitar/keyboard) and Alex (drums) and I bet I’ll make character bios for each of them here on Patreon one day!

8 GOAL: HAPPY TIMES!

If you’re reading Tree Falls and thinking ‘holy shit Red skipped over a tragic plane crash pretty quick’ welp same, it was intentional! My goal with this comic is to make a mostly light-hearted story focusing on two boys surviving Alaska and falling in love versus them overcoming plane crash trauma (there will be some high stakes drama llamas later on, they ain’t getting out of this wilderness scot-free). The crash gets brought up throughout the story tho so it’s not totally forgotten.

9 EARLY CRASH IDEAS

Speaking of, early script ideas had the big crash being a smaller scale helicopter or cruise excursion boat but those got scrapped cuz 1. I didn’t want the boys to know each other beforehand and I feel like those are situations you kinda know/know of your fellow passengers, 2. Why would a famous rockstar be solo on a dinky helicopter with strangers in Alaska and 3. That would’ve put the crash site too local and rescue would be up their butts in a heartbeat.

10 ALASKA FACTS

Here’s some fun facts I jotted down in my notes about Alaska (specifically in summer when the comic takes place). I know Alaska is more known for extreme cold and snow but that would’ve made a very short comic with the 2 boys freezing to death on night one lol

SUMMER HOURS: 4:30am-11:30pm

TEMPERATURES: 65°F (18C) high, 50°F (10C) low - can feel higher if sunny, lower if cloudy

-Ocean/river/creek water temp: 45-60° F

COMMON WILDLIFE: brown/black/grizzly bears, eagles, Canadian geese, beavers, mice, mule deer, moose, bison, wolves, horned owls, mosquitos. Ocean/rivers: black bass, salmon, trout, seals, orcas