COMIC: Space Camp, page 4 (Patreon)

Letters From Space Camp is my memoir about going through a mental hospital program and for my  pitch to publishers I am revising the Day Two chapter, which covers my  second day in the program. This is my third draft of this chapter, you can read the first draft and second draft to see how it's changed (and it has changed).

➤➤➤ Catch up on the entire chapter-in-progress so far here.

Hoo-ee, this page really went through an evolution and, crucially, it made me figure out a missing piece that I'll be incorporating into all the pages going forward (and I'll add in to the first three pages once I've finished the rest) 

But, before I get to that, lemme show you how much this one page has evolved from the very first draft in August 2022. (Look through the gallery-thing in the web post to see the below images at full size.)

So, first draft I was just directly transcribing the notes I had taken while in Space Camp and plopping them into my comic page template, then filling in the imagery around it. For the second draft, I went back and actually tried to put some pacing and storytelling in there. In the case of this page, that meant letting my first draft's introductory panel (which shows off my outfit and brags about bringing my coat) have its entire own page before moving on to talk about starting class that day. Plus, I could use the observation about my coat to show that I was now in the facility, thus establishing the location for the reader. 

I thought my 2nd draft was the version that my agent would send out to publishers, but it turned out she had some really good notes to make it better (uhg) so then I got started on this third draft, which Matt was coloring for me because I am terrified of using more than one tone at a time. That's why you see the pinks in the sample below. One note my agent suggested was to show me transitioning to the facility, so we're not just in my bedroom one moment and then -bam- at the hospital the next. Hence, I drew in a little cartoony Erika leaving her very simple, cartoony house to catch a ride on the simple, cartoony bus. Done! ...Until Matt observed that the story is visually stronger when I keep the background and non-Space Camp characters grounded in more fully-drawn illustrations, to contrast with the really simple stick-figure drawings of the other patients and me. So that meant upgrading my really simple iconographic house and bus on this page into actual drawings based on reference photos of their real life counterparts. UHG.

Which is how I got to... this:

Which leads me to the piece I found that had been missing so far: 

Texture!

My pages so far have been pretty flat? I'm using a (digital) pencil instead of a pen this time, like I usually do, and that's helped soften up the look of my pages, but it still needed more. I experimented with adding some texture but nothing looked quite right. ...Until Ripley LaCross handed in a gorgeous comic to Oh Joy Sex Toy which contained exactly the kind of texturing my own comic needed. Kids, go check out the Grain Shader Brush Set from Texture True Grit Supply. That is the good shit.

Now I want to go and add it to the first three pages, but no. It's more important that I finish out this chapter first and then I can go back and tweak and twiddle to my heart's content- but if I start revising the finished pages now, then I'll never actually move forward >:P 

So! Onwards! To page five!

Erika