Process Q&A (Patreon)

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New mini-comic coming up shortly.  Meanwhile, here are some responses to Patron questions about process.

Some of the images below are clickable thumbnails. Sorry about that - couldn't add full size images to this already enormous post.

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Erika H. asked:

Actually, the image above of Daisy dancing is the perfect example for my question! Where do you find inspiration for the more abstract and design-focused parts of your work, things like fabric patterns, abstracted backgrounds, jewelry design? 

Thanks! Frequently, for smaller pieces especially, I rely on memory to sort of invent something while I’m working. Being immersed in the 1920s/deco subject matter for so long has that advantage, I suppose.

For bigger, more detailed pieces, I collect a bunch of reference and inspiration images into a sort of ‘idea pile’ bitmap which I keep open on my desktop while I work.   It’ll usually include samples of color schemes I like, examples of whatever sort of mood I’m trying to achieve with lighting, fabric patterns, deco designs, and photos of anything I want to try to depict with some accuracy (cars, guns, architecture).  As I work, I take some cues from those visual references and combine them with whatever’s in my head to build something different of my own.

 

Some examples of my reference compilations and corresponding paintings:

I’ve accumulated a number of books that have made for handy references, and I’m an insatiable internet image collector as well.  It’s useful to have a library of pictures on hand to  peruse when you're in the planning stages of something new and need to jump start your visual thought process. It’s pretty amazing what you can learn through mere realization too.  Stumbling across a picture that uses an unusual and bold color scheme you haven’t considered before, that incorporates lighting in a particularly effective way,  that takes some novel approach to combining an abstracted background with a foreground subject - any such thing can  make for new concept additions to your own toolbox. (I guess that was the long way of saying it's helpful to look at stuff.)

Perhaps, if Patrons are interested, I can make a 'secret' Pinterest board to share my collection of Lackadaisy related references. 

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Dana A. asked:

A little late to the party, I know, but I was wondering if you could explain a bit about how you go about with the backgrounds of your comic. They are more detailed than any comic I've ever seen! Do you use old photos of that era as reference, or do you just design them all yourself? Thank you, Tracy, you're fabulous!

A little of all of the above. If I’m trying to depict an actual place in St. Louis, I will usually gather photo references and work from those. The Bevo Mill, for instance, is a structure that’s still standing and looks roughly the same today as it did in the 1920s. That one was comparatively easy.

In other situations when a story setting is one of my fictional contrivances,  no longer exists as it did, or was not widely photographed when it did exist, it becomes a bit trickier to try to concoct a reasonably authentic looking place. The police station that Zib winds lands in is a pretty good example of one of the more involved processes I use to stitch together a background.

There were a lot of photos of the exteriors of the old St. Louis Metro Police station houses, but the interiors were another story. I’m sure they were pretty mundane on the inside, and though I dug around a lot for some pictures, it seems no one really bothered about photographing them in the early 20th century. With little specific reference material to work with, I had to fill in the gaps with a mix of references of similar places and some straight up fabrication.

Photo 1 (below) is actually the only decent period-specific station interior from St. Louis I managed to scrounge up. The office space in the station depicted on the page entitled ‘Lackadaisy Misdemeanor’ (above) was influenced by that. The image marked 2 is of a larger, more remarkable station lockup in Chicago. I really liked the combination of pipes and grimy walls, so I pulled some inspiration from there as well. Photo 3 is an old station house door repurposed as a museum door, and so I based the large door in my semi-fictional station on that. Of course, I did my best to make the police uniforms look authentic too.

For ‘Lackadaisy Sabbatical’, I was revisiting the same station that had appeared earlier in Volume 2. I wasn’t quite satisfied with how it looked the first time around - pretty dull - so I thought a lot about how I might make it look more interesting while I worked on the thumbnails and dialogue in tandem. (Draft versions of both:)

The short exchange between Dom and Zib on the stairs seemed like the highlight of the character interactions there, so I felt it called for some more visual interest too. Because everyone is moving around, it was also a little tricky to convey. I figured camera angles would be key, so I built a rough 3D model of the station to approximate the design I’d already been working with. This way, I could fly a virtual camera around inside to see if I could find some more interesting angles to capture this otherwise plain-looking place from while keeping the action as clear as possible.

I ended up settling on something that was pretty close to what I had come up with in my thumbnails - a moderate high angle and low angle of the staircase. Then I started drawing out the backgrounds for those panels, using the simple box model I had built as a perspective guideline. Once I had the background blocked in digitally, I composited the pencil-drawn character art into place, painted my lighting/values in, polished it up, and added color and texture.

It’s time consuming, but I find I’m enjoying the process and I'm thinking of environments more as characters unto themselves rather than approaching them like unpleasant chores. Hopefully it also means the comic's backgrounds have been looking a little stronger lately.