Comic Report #123 - Get Everyone (Patreon)

So we got a lot of gamedev stuff knocked out this month, but it's time to get back to business and prepare the next page to be posted before March rolls around.  Over at Lucky Raven we have a project in mind for March I've been slowly prepping assets for around some other things, but it's time to put those chainsaws up in the air and juggle back to the main thing we're all here for.  This one's a big one, so let's get into it.

In my slow, deliberate sort of way, a bunch of threads have been leading up to the scene starting here, tying off a lot of story beats into a nice clean bow to segue into the next big spectacle planned for the near future.  The last page ends with Lizzie telling Pat to go round up their friends, and then she stops to emphasize the point:  get -all- of our friends.  On this page the core of the extended family all come together to hear out Pat and assess their situation, so I wanted to set it up where everyone present can be established as being there, which also means this is going to be a scene with just, a lot of drawing specific people in specific places- that's going to be stressful, but I'll work through it like always.  

Before working on this page I set up a little planning document for myself, to keep track of who is where, so I can be sure everyone is where I need them to be when I draw some future camera shots in pages to come.  The base crew, the Omni-mart team, Randy, Stacy and Pat- all of them are connected to someone else who is connected to someone else present in the room, this is "everyone".  Their problems all stem from Monday, though, so he's standing at the foot of the table, his back to the window.  He's in the perfect spot for some dramatic lighting.

In order to capture the everyone-ness of the scene, I've set the page up as a rotating camera, opening with a shot of the head that was in the bag and rotating around to stop on Pat at the end.  Everyone has got an out-of-bed kind of half-dressedness to them and they're all tired.  The zombie head in the middle of the room is a focal point to help establish the rotation of the camera, and also convey that it is still "alive" by way of it changing facial expressions from panel to panel.  My favorite expression I've drawn from this rotation, though, has been Alice just pulling on her sweatshirt and putting her hood up.

You and me both, girl.

There's a lot of guys on this page so this is gonna be my primary focus until the page is finished.  Next week I'll have more progress to report, and then hopefully by the end of the month I'll have this thing wrapped up and ready to post.  Thanks for checking in!  I'll catch you on the next one.