It's A Date! (Patreon)

Y'know, I've been sitting on the last chapter of the Peachy/Skyla story for a long, long time. I wrote it, rewrote it, squinted at it, recruited beta readers to give feedback....but I couldn't pin down exactly what was wrong with the story. It was functional? Not a bad story, I guess. Got good feedback on it. So why did I feel so unmotivated to post it?

I finally figured it out! It's cuz it's boring. Not quite the story itself (again, it was functional), but the format! An illustration with a whole ass fanfiction stapled to it felt too limited. I'd have to draw one single snapshot of the story that had to manage to capture most of the mood, then weave an engaging tale in 4k words or less (Deviantart's description box does have a word limit, ask me how I know!), all while not boring my audience. It was a lot of pressure for just one drawing/chapter.

So I decided to try something new. I do believe the final "chapter" of this story will be a full-fledged comic! Not super super long, I'm aiming for 30 pages, but we'll see. Unlike my first iteration of the story, "Princess Charming", which stayed in one location and was veerrry dialogue-heavy, this comic will follow Peachy and Skyla through multiple locations in Ponyville, on what is not/may actually be a date. I'm tentatively calling it "It's A Date!". I don't want to hype you guys up too much since the script is still getting rewritten from the ground up, but I'm really excited about this project! :D

The above doodle is a style test, trying to give the characters simpler models that will be easier to draw over and over across many pages. I'm real bad at resisting the impulse to draw excessive detail/fluff/hair/sparkles and I'm trying to nip that habit/draw in a style that's simple, but still cute and charming. I actually had to force my brain to simplify the designs by starting out drawing with blobs of color:

cuuuuz otherwise my designs can and do end up looking like this:

The end comic probably won't be quite as simple as the doodle, and I think I'll use a smoother line brush, but I think I'm making good progress on figuring out the "look" of the comic. Ahhh I can't wait to get this thing off the ground guys