Comic Report #45.2 - The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Patreon)

I genuinely don't know if I used this kind of wordplay already but I love light puns and these pages are all about flashlights.  I'll keep this update short so I can get back to work on the text- I say that all the time too but I love my work and it's hard to keep myself away from it.

The most interesting point about this page compared to the Friday update is the first panel. I saved this panel for last  since I knew it would be a pain to paint, but I got it all done today by just breaking it down into layers.  When I paint I have to go slower the more precise my work needs to be, so sometimes what I'll do is put big shapes on their own layers so I can make big sweeping paintbrush strokes and just have them go right underneath the elements I would otherwise want to paint around.  Like for example, all the bus seats are their own layer, the windows are their own layer, the black framing of the bus is its own layer, the foreground panel is its own layer and Lizzie's silhouette is its own layer.  I can just paint the light and shadows inside the box of the bus interior with broad, quick brushstrokes and then just select the bus seat layer and paint the complementing light details on that without having to worry about any of my paint strokes going out of bounds into another region's shape, and it let me go much quicker.

I had some thoughts about how the last panel- the one with the book- would come out when I put the top lighting layer over it and I'm happy with the results.  The way I handle the flashlight is I have the highlights on a layer overtop of the inks so that the black outlines don't remain pure black, and the light feels more in front of the character.  The book being illuminated, I trimmed that out from the light so its darker sides can contrast with the strong lighting and clearly define the shape as being the focal point of the panel. I might tweak the internal contrast on the book's painting a bit more but I'm happy with the pop it's getting.

Once I go through and put the text in I'll put this page up and then switch back to game work to tie up some loose ends there.  Thank you for being patient with me and sticking around, we'll always be moving forward on these projects until we see them through to the end.