Process for Saving the Family Farm (Patreon)

Since the last time I talked a bit more about the technical side of what I do to create a picture, this time I figured I'd try to explore more of my creative process. While it's something I feel a little more comfortable talking about than the latter, a lot of it is just wandering thoughts because I'm slow at actually producing the art. Fair warning upfront, this will probably get long & meander-y. But maybe it's something somebody would be into

Starting Out

Initially, the groundwork for this started back in October. I'm sure there are a few astute folks out there might remember this WIP I posted. Usually, as I draw, I start to get the idea for a back story come to me, based sort of around the situation or pose. In this instance, I just knew I wanted to have a large blueberry attempting to walk with great difficulty. Beyond that, the only other thing that was coming to me at first was that it was fall, & I'd never seen a blueberry with a denim jacket before. And even though I know its definitely not always the case with jeans, I wondered if the stiffer material would help compress her arms a bit & keep a bit more of their initial shape. Other than that, I really didn't have anything. It wasn't coming to me. And even at the time, I think I prompted people for suggestions as far as a premise. 

But with a little more thought, it started to come to me. Slowly, but steadily. At the time, since it was the fall, I started thinking about ideas like "the harvest," as cliche or on-the-nose as that may well be. I started thinking that maybe she was out in the open, at a Farmer's Market. 

Even though I had some semblance of a setting, I still had a number of different scenarios going on in my head. Did she try out some free sample that didn't agree with her? Was she trying to escape from some wacky farmers at one of the booths? Hell, at one point I think I considered the idea that that particular Farmer's market was run by merchants that just resembled what they sold, & considered drawing a pumpkin girl & even maybe a cow-ish looking girl for a dairy/beef booth. At any rate, I didn't move on any of these right away. I wanted to let it stew.

I started a new blank image just to do a warmup shortly there after. Sometimes I just open the program up & start drawing to see what hits me. It's an old habit & one of my big resolutions this year is to draw with a lot more intent. But at times, going it with no idea of what you're going to do can help. I started drawing up this girl & the way I did the eyes kind of lent itself to a sort of wild, vaguely unhinged expression. I had sort of blocked out a ponytail on her already too. But then I started to think, hell what if she was a farmer? So I applied the hat over top. That led to this twitter post (& the first image here, as I don't think I posted it up on here before now) & from there, things started to come together.

Adding this new character to the WIP I had already shown, the story started to click given the disparity of their expressions. The farmer seemed pretty excited, raring to go almost, while the poor berry was giving it everything she could just to manage one more step. Don't know why this particular image came to mind, but the first thing it made me think of was whenever you have mascots at a theme park, but there's also a handler there that does all the talking & essentially handle everything else? And the idea of a berry girl as a mascot sounded both horrible for her, but a little too interesting to pass up at the same time.

The Back Story

I liked it so much, I started hammering out a little story on a whim. At first it was just something a little small, like I usually do to accompany a picture. But it started to get a little longer than that.

The first part I wrote was the initial stages of the transformation (although more of it happened in the cab of the truck in the first few passes). At first, the character that became Jules was still a bit flat, so I started hooking her up with attributes that contradicted the more archetypal farmer Jessi. So Jules was from the city obviously, & was more hurry up & go vs Jessi's more relaxed, take things as they come demeanor. And while as a farmer, Jessi produces tangible work through very visible labor, I figured something a bit more intangible like marketing suited Jules. And having met a few marketing types over the years, she sort of wrote herself in a lot of ways. 

One conscious choice I did make was to not have Jules protest too hard. I feel like my natural tendency with stuff, particularly blueberry type stuff is to play up the shock & not have the character very into the idea of what's happening to them. To me, that just feels like a natural response to something like this, but because of that, sometimes I've talked to people who think the stuff I do is intent on being a lot darker than I really mean it to be.

Here, I wanted to ride the line. Jules isn't about being duped into becoming the farm's new blueberry mascot, but at the same time, she's used to her cousin's hijinx. How she sometimes does "kooky" stuff. So while she might whine & not be into the idea, there's still a level of trust between the two. She knows Jessi wouldn't do this too her if it was really that dangerous, so there's no fear, just utter frustration. I hope seems natural enough without it maybe being a little too cartoony. Or at least cartoonier than it is already. 

Backburner

I have a chunk of short story written & the two characters sketched out next to one another. What do I do next? Shelf the whole thing until late December! I don't know why. I wasn't really feeling it, & also felt guilty & tried focusing a bit more on the 80's VHS berrygirl stuff (WHICH I ASSURE YOU IS STILL COMING!). And a couple of times when I did go back, the way I drew Jules's arms kind of bugged me in dumb ways. So I just let it sit, maybe hammer up another few lines in the story or do a revision pass to what I had. Wish I had more I could say about this but there really isn't. It's something I can be pretty bad about.

Finishing up the Art

So I don't know why, but after finishing up the holiday piece I did last week, I saw it sitting there & just said... well... "fuck it," & got back to work. I finished up the rest of Jessi's linework, while fudging in the wrinkles for Jules's jacket, & got to that flats image (presented her in the second attached image). From there I used the same sort of technique to shade & fine tune that ends up giving you way, way too many layers (if you're interested in that, check out my first process post where I go into detail on that).

The only thing different this time? I wanted to pay attention to textures a little bit more. Obviously the denim of the jacket & Jessi's overalls, but also Jessi's flannel. Flannels relatively easy pattern to make, set up a square, set up some guides around the edges, then snap different lines to the guides at varying degrees of opacity. Denim, I had to do some digging online.

When you get the textures, you could just apply them flat. A lot of cartoons do this & I do like the effect. At the same time, given the type of thing I'm doing here? The more volume you can show, the better, so it's good to at least try & match the natural curves of how the fabric lands on the body. That was just a lot of trial & error with the warp transform honestly. In places like Jessi's flannel, I did it in chunks. So her arms & body are two separate layers warped differently, but matted to just those specific areas. You can be a lot more exact with this & get really caught up in fine tuning until every fold & wrinkle is good. And while I've gone that bananas over trying to do that in the past, this time, I just wanted to get it close. It's probably harder to tell in areas with the denim, but I'm happy with the result.

Beyond that, the other thing I thought about was something to unify them. Like sure, they're very different characters, but they're both working to a common end & need some commonality between them. So I designed a really quick little logo for them. The idea was it was an old one they had kicking around from when they were little, thus the Cooper font & all. The idea with it was to have two different berries, to show they grow more than just blueberries, but really, it just looks like it's "CO" to me. So I don't know, maybe this takes place in Colorado? In my head, I initially thought Jules was in Southern California, but I always specifically try to leave things like that vague anyway. It really isn't important. Anyway, I had a logo.

Throwing it onto Jessi's hat was a cakewalk. But Jules's t-shirt was a little bit more involved. Sort of like how I applied the textures, this time I had to think about how it started out on her shirt initially & how it would've stretched out with the rest of her. Again, it was a lot of warp transform stuff,  but strategically trying to envision how the stretch occurred while you're doing it. Coming from working digitally, I usually start off with the texture or the logo bigger than I need it in situations like this. I did that here. But thinking about it, it might be one of the only times where it's better to start smaller, just so you can visualize it even better. Then again, you'll end up with bad artifacting that might not really seem like "stretching" too so...?

As for the background, I had a quick brushed up mountain behind them the whole time, since their farm is called "Northend" I kind of played up that it was next to this ridgeline or something. But only having that felt a bit empty & not particularly "farmer's market-y" enough. I wouldn't recommend going on google to find a couple of different images to bash together into a somewhat reasonable perspective. But I got lazy & that's what I did, while also applying a bunch of filters to wash it all out.

The Blight of Our Age

So I was getting close to finishing up the image, & close to wrapping up the story. And in the story (at least in the first passes), it ended at the point where Jessi mentions they should grab a photo for social media, to which a mostly helpless Jules tries to protest. I thought "wouldn't it be funny if then the image is presented as a social media post?" to show Jessi had gone & did it anyway. And I figured I had the logo anyway! Why not?

Well because mocking up a Social Media page can be a lot of work. That's why not. But at the same time it provides a lot of opportunities to hide a bunch of little details too. This probably sounds dumb because I know I have plenty of failings as an artist, but I like focusing on believability with this sort of stuff. Here with something like a social media page, you can do a bunch of worldbuilding stuff. So while I might not be the best at realistic rendering, I can add layers of plausibility in other ways.

Take their page, attached as the third image here. In the original image, this is mostly all darkened out to provide focus to the post as if it clicked or tapped on itself. That's how social media works. But you can see their logo, you can see the cover photo mentioned specifically in the story by Jules, as if its a photo she took. And while some of them get covered, you even get things like the related pages. The Farmer's Market they go to is on there. "Organic Farmers 4 Lyfe!" or whatever. And coy little easter eggs. Like a certain 80's VHS production house &... wait... GOF Futures?! Why is that name so familiar?

When you look at the post itself, there's more things that push the story along. The fact that now upwards of at least 13 thousand of people have seen Jules in this state she was so embarrassed to be seen in? That can't be great. You also get to see more of the narrative from Jessi's perspective, as presumably, she's the one crafting this post with her own marketing acumen apparently.

And then you get to the comments, iso'ed in the fourth image attached. I know the Wonka scene left an indelible mark on a lot of us. So much so that even the sort of "peanut gallery" comments of what happens to Violet are such a big part of all this nonsense. And in a way, that's sort of what I tried to do here in the comment section, only through the lens of your typical social media posters (& please note I just randomly plugged first & last names together. No one is based on anyone). 

So take Staci up top, getting cut off a bit. Just kind of a rando. In my head, she's very much about GMOs. Maybe she's an antivaxxer. But also "aw, look at dem cheeks!" 

Then there's Caitlyn. Caitlyn's a bit more woke. She's concerned with fair compensation. Solidarity. Fun fact about Caitlyn, I thought it would be weird to throw in photos given the people are drawn. So her profile picture is a very tight, tweeked close up of the girl from "Miffed." 

Then there's Adam. Adam doesn't have a profile picture. Adam comes off as kind of a creep. 

Of course Gloria is here to represent an all-too-well chunk of social media: confused boomer. Thus the caps & lack of punctuation. And talk of grandkids. Her picture is actually the girl from my "Uh Yeah" picture. While that character was always intended to be a in her twenties, looking back, I feel like I left too many lines on her face, making her look older. But to drive home the "boomer-ness" I tried overlaying Old Glory too.

Then there's Jordie. I feel like Jordie's younger. Maybe has a flatbrimmed cap with Thanos on it. He is almost like our Mike TeeVee. But he's also a skeptic. So he's out there genuinely thinking this is a work & just a super realistic costume. Because those exist, right?

And lastly, I don't know if anyone even noticed this one. Buried, at the very bottom? It looks like some girl named Jules managed to unlock her phone & specifically leave a comment to someone named Jessi?

I tried to keep the comment as simple as possible, assuming the phone would auto-capitalize the "I" for her, but switching to numbers would be a bigger pain in the ass than just typing hate. Of course that all happened one-handed, somewhere back at the homestead, possibly in the shed that night. 

Her profile picture was pretty much the last thing I did & came out way better than I expected, & almost kind of wanted it too. Now, to save time, I figured the image was going to get cropped anyhow, so I kind of spaced on her hairline & continue the car interior BG (she's presumably in a front seat). Her hair's probably a bit longer too. But at the same time, I figured this was a fun way to hide just a tiny little sense of progression? Like here's where she was so you can see the difference now. I was just a bit worried it was so small & so subtle it went completely unnoticed.

So there you go! As promised, there was my thought process while creating this image/story/social media thing. In fairness, this particular instance was a lot more involved than the stuff I usually tend to do but figured since there was a lot of thought put into & it was still pretty fresh, I'd share. Hopefully somebody gets something out of this!