SatG Page 01 Process (Patreon)

While I can't post very many of them, I want to show the process behind pages of Sprite and the Gardener every once in a while. Since the book was drawn a while ago (2019 I think?), I don't have very much of the process documented anymore, so while I'll give a basic rundown of the process, it's going to be more like a general discussion. If you find yourself wanting to see individual techniques/tools explained in more detail, I have two companion posts that can be used alongside this: this one explains my lineart process (drawing, coloring lines, finishing touches, etc), while this one explains my color process (flatting, shading, adding texture, etc).

Just for clarity's sake, I didn't draw each page start to finish before moving on to the next - I had to get approval for each stage of the book, so I drew all of the thumbnails, then all of the sketches, then inks, then colors, so I kept coming back to each page over and over.

1) The thumbnail, which was drawn in Procreate on an iPad 9.7. This was not only my first time working on an original story, but it was also my first time drawing multiple pages of something more detailed! Up until this point, the only long-ish comics I'd drawn were the monthly Steven Universe issues for Boom, and those were very simple, both in style and in panel layout, so I didn't really have a grasp of how I wanted to do thumbnails yet. But I feel like this more or less got the job done?

I wanted the opening shot to feel less like sequential panels and more like a singular moment, so I tried to arrange the panels symmetrically in a way that makes them feel like part of a whole rather than individual progressions of time. Also, at this point it had already been established that I wouldn't be lettering the book, so I just had to kind of guess and leave room where I thought the text might go.

2) While I almost always sketch in Paint Tool SAI, I think I actually did these pencils in Procreate as well. Around this time, I was doing freelance full time, and I got really invested in the idea of working at the library as a way of getting out of the apartment (this didn't last very long, since it turns out I'm way faster at my desk. Also, I had to draw these pages at 600 dpi, so I had to size them down for Procreate to open them. I imagine this would be less of an issue with an iPad Pro.)

Not a lot to report here - just some basic cleanup and rounding out the figures a little more. I ended up making the flowers some mysterious species of poppy.

3) For the lines, I finally swapped back to Paint Tool SAI. I drew the wings and sparkles on a separate layer, because I hadn't decided whether I wanted to do anything special with them. I feel like I went a little overboard with inking, and that affected what the rest of the book ended up looking like. This is where my fate was sealed.

4) I actually really struggled with the colors! I wish I'd kept my old color roughs, because this page went through it. Initially it was more colorful - brighter, more variety, etc, but ultimately I liked the idea of a more limited palette to help set it apart, since this section of the book is sort of like a storybook-ish flashback. Because of the plant life, I had to use green for sure, so I tried picking something that would contrast well. I was actually a little hesitant about this color palette at first, because I thought it looked like peas and carrots... but after I was assured that it does not look like peas and carrots, I moved on.

5) Line coloring! I went ahead and colored every single line, so there are no black lines left. I thought this would help set it apart from the rest of the book a little more and make it feel softer. As much as I liked the red sparkles and wings, they ended up becoming lost once the other lines were tinted red, so I changed them to a warm blue. This worked out, anyway, since it ended up balancing out the sprites with blue hair in the first panel.

That's pretty much it! I'm going to wait a little while before posting other pages, since the book is still new. Thank you again to everyone who picked up a copy!!