Chapter 6 - Ties That Bind (pages 11-13, Roughs, No-Text & Text-in-attachments) (Patreon)

Spent my afternoons this week working on the layouts for the next 3 pages!

Displayed are just the textless versions, but I've attached the textFULL versions in the attachments! That way anybody not looking to be spoiled can avoid it all at a glance (maybe don't read the comments too if you want to avoid Spoilers!)

There's a bunch of work you don't get to see behind these roughs, that I'd be too embarrassed to share! I try to fill my pages up with reference material; screenshots, photos of bodies, other artist's works (to help me see how someone might deal with a front-facing foot, or the insides of a maw, or heck; sheaths & dongs, for example), and a bunch of photos of my body and hands! Building up that material, then swapping it out, when I find some better, and slowly developing the page layout takes ages! And is unfortunatly something you don't get to see much of! I also think that a lot of my reference building is just one of these crutches of mine: I think I keep improving, but for the longest of times, I couldn't draft well at alllll, and finding work to emulate or lean on, was my way of having somewhere to start (this is one of the biggest reasons I started drawing Zootopia as fan art - there's a wealth of material out there to lean on!) I think I'm much better at drafting now, but it's still part of my process to find and collect references. Studying art and photos still improves me.

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These pages were tough to figure out tbh! Owen's got a monologue, and it's hard to keep things engaging when there's not much in the way of a back and forth going on. Especially when the things that are being said are so intense!

I decided to try and tell a physical story around the words: Owen should work a kiss in as we watch - engage with Judy intimately as he lays the law to Nick. 

For the first page too, I wanted to mirror a bit of the intensity of the zoomed panel of page 10, but increase that zoom-in as Owen intensifies - like the camera is getting closer and closer in as Owen digs deeper. There's a part of me that kinda wants to make them look more and more animalistic too - if I were braver I'd draw them as non-zootpopian foxes for that first panel - to REALLY push the animal-power-dynamic at play. But I think that might be too abstract. Still, I might tweak that first panel a bit to be honest - just so it's not so much of a mirror... Maybe turn the camera so it's 3/4's view? Or black the background to make it feel 'out of time and space'?

A lot of these pages hang on Nicks's expressions; So those too might change a lot. I got to find the right faces and vibe with him on these, that sort of 'vibrating excitement and fear' - it's tough!

Anyways, all stuff for me to figure out as I pencil. I'm looking forward to it!

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I'll be working on page 11 next; I like to do the layouts in batches like this -as it feels better to layout out the narrative in groups. 

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Patreon sometimes shrinks images, so check the attachments for the higher-res images!

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