Sam and Fuzzy Extra - March 2020 (Patreon)

It's time, once again, for a brand new S&F Extra! Here's a behind the scenes look at what I worked on last month. 

Down here, I'll provide some info about each piece! And in the gallery above, you'll find step-by-step animated process GIFs, final illustrations, sketches, and alternate versions. 

Rexford Attack (Hardcover 6)
As you'll see, right now I am knee deep in production on the final two Sam and Fuzzy books! Yes, it's a set of two books... and it will be available in both softcover and hardcover forms. That means there are four books that need cover art! (And the two softcovers also need back cover illustrations.)

This piece in particular will serve two purposes. The full, finished scene will be the back cover art to one of the softcover books. But the drawing of Rexford himself will actually be the front cover art for Hardcover 6! (I did the same thing for our previous book, Sam and Fuzzy Missing Inaction.) As you'll see in the gallery above, I sketched Rexford's pose to suit the hardcover format first, then created the expanded full scene for the back cover afterwards.

Brain Cover (Hardcover 7)
Meanwhile, the star of our other hardcover is Brain! As our ultimate antagonist, it really feels to me like Brain has to be the character we feature on the final omnibus. But because his design is so simple and graphic (and black-heavy!), I've been a little torn about how best to handle his cover. You can see several versions in the gallery above!

Right now, I'm pretty partial to the version with the grey background. But part of me wonders if some people would be annoyed if 1 of the 7 hardcover S&F books was grey instead of red. (The spines would still match, though!) I think the red version still looks pretty cool, too, although I think the version without the lighting effect is just too flat to work as a cover. What do you think?

Mouth Cover (Softcover 6)
I drew this piece for the softcover version of Volume 6! But you won't actually see this particular colour scheme on the final cover. I like how it looks as a stand-alone illustration... but placed on the actual cover, I don't think it "reads" clearly enough. There just isn't enough colour differentiation between the characters and inside of the mouth, especially once the bright white text is placed on top, which makes it less immediately obvious at a glance which parts of the drawing are inside and outside of the mouth.

My friend Fred Stressing, who has covered most of the Invader Zim stories I've written, is helping me with a new colour scheme for the final version, which I think will play up the "inside the mouth" viewpoint much more strongly.

Fuzzy and Brain Cover (Softcover 7)
And right here, we've got the in-progress art for Softcover 7! As you can see, I sketched this one out on paper first. (I had a bunch of blank printouts of the erroneously spelled "Missing Innaction" that I made when I was doing sketches for book 5, so I used those!) But if you'll look in the gallery, you'll also find the final inks. Now, to colour!

Gert vs. Sasha Pillow Fight
This piece was one of several "backer request" drawings I drew for the Saucy Hippo tier last month! But since this particular one was relatively PG, I thought I'd share a process GIF here. I think this one was really cute! (Who misses Sasha from the Noosehead era?)

Pay Attention
And last but not least, here's the making of the Pay Attention to Me shirt! As you'll see in the process GIF, I tried many possible arrangements of the "pay attention" and "meows", which is probably why I ultimately wound up doing two out of indecisiveness. In the gallery, you'll also see some alternate colour schemes. I think they look nice, but ultimately, I think the grey was the best choice to pair with this particular kind of cat. MEOW

'til next time, friends!