Sketchbook (PAGE 27) (Patreon)

This page features a continuation of "It’s Not About the Mangoes", with three more pages. I drew them wherever they'd fit, kind of nestled between the prep sketches for said page. I was deliberately trying not to be precious with the whole project, maybe out of fear it would get mired down if I gave the chance to overwork it with my usual process at the time. Comics seem especially vulnerable to this because every panel contains opportunities to sink hours into framing, re-framing, detailing, etc. As soon as I could tell this sequence was on its way to becoming a modest comic I knew Mazia would want to get out of her clothes, which is only a shame because I felt like her traditional skirt and foreign tank top made for some interesting storytelling of its own. In the couple drawings where she's even wearing a shirt I meant it to evoke the kind of strikingly out-of-place novelty shirts that, through a long journey, end up in the street markets of, say, Zambia. And so there would be a thread (haha) connecting Mazia's life with those on the other side of the world whom she would never meet except through textiles.

Occupying the rest of the space are little studies of heads of various species (including a fox who looks suspiciously like Kalahari!) Some of these referenced pieces by other artists and at this point I definitely cannot remember whom... Standing upon the shoulders of giants.