Re-drawn Pages 80-86 (Patreon)

MORE RE-DRAWN PAGES!! (attached as a PDF) Guys I am SO close to the end of chapter 1, I can SMELL IT. 

One of you lovely patrons asked me last time if I'd explain a bit about what I've changed and why. Feel free to ignore this but for those who are interested, here's a little explanation of what I focus on in these re-draws:

1. Nick's character design.

When I first drew Heartstopper, you may notice, looking back on those old pages, that Nick looked quite different! Most noticeably, he had a slimmer, more angular face, and spikier/messier hair. As I got into Chapter 2 and onwards, he developed more of a soft face and neater hair - which I think suits him much better! So throughout my chapter 1 re-draws, I've had to re-draw almost every single drawing of Nick so that he looks like he does later on in the comic.

2. Charlie's character design.

Charlie's character design didn't change so extremely, but it still did a little bit! In the old pages, his hair is VERY messy (because it took me ages to work out how to draw his hair lol). And he looks a lot older than he should, because, like Nick, I drew his face very pointy and angular.

3. Colouring

While my colouring style hasn't changed LOADS, I have improved quite a lot since the beginning of the comic! I use a fill bucket for a lot of my colouring, since so much of it is block colour, and back in the original pages, if I was filling something black (like Charlie's hair or their school uniforms) I liked to leave the block colour with a little border where the fill colour hadn't quite reached the edge? I liked that style back then but I REALLY don't now, I prefer it to just be flat black. So that's something I've been going over and changing.

I also sometimes change background colours and patterns when I don't think they're working for a particular panel.

4. More background detail

I don't always do that - to be honest, I actually think 'less is more' sometimes with backgrounds - but it's been fun to add other characters into the background (not in these re-drawn pages, but a little while back I added Sai into a background scene) and also to sharpen up the background when it needs to be clearer.

5. Re-formatting the panels

Sometimes - definitely not every page - I do switch around and re-design the overall page layout. Like this one here, page 84! I've gotten rid of the bottom panel and just had Nick and Charlie by themselves on the page without a background. I think that makes them stand out more that way! If I get a new idea about how I can make certain moments stand out, or certain interactions have more emotional impact, I do change the structure of the page. 

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I think that's all the major things I've been changing, but there are so many little things too. Anyway - we've still got more re-draws to go. And I think I am going to go over a few bits in early chapter 2 before this book gets printed. Nothing as major as I have done with chapter 1, but there are still a few panels here and there that make me really cringe to look at!

HOPE THIS WAS INTERESTING! <3