Behind-the-scenes: "How I Met Your Coyena Dad" thumbnails pages 16-24! (Patreon)

Hey folks! Alright … Now that you've seen the rough breakdown as well as the thumbnail layouts for pages 1-8 and the layouts for pages 8-15, it's time for a peek at the rest of the story in its rough form! This last third includes Aura helping Boreas, Boreas helping Aura, and the return from the flashback to the evening of the anniversary dinner in the present day.

Pages Sixteen and Seventeen

This set of pages was a challenge, and I'm really happy with what I came up with: simple but bold. With Aura having crawled into the remains of the lab and Boreas stuck halfway out of the building, I had to have some dialog going on between them -- Boreas telling Aura to be careful, and telling her what she needs to find in there -- but with Boreas trapped in one position, swapping back and forth to panels of him would be pretty pedestrian. So instead I went for a two-page spread -- one big center panel of Boreas in his predicament, with three panels running down the outer edge of both pages showing Aura's explorations. All her dialog balloons will be placed within her panels sequentially, while Boreas' dialog balloons will overlap the individual panels and his large panel in the middle, showing that he's speaking but still giving a clear path to read all the dialog in proper sequential order.

I'm excited to see how it turns out; I hope you'll all enjoy as well. :)

In the last two panels, Aura finds the switch -- but discovers that the "switch" part of it has been cracked off, making it impossible to turn off.

Pages Eighteen and Nineteen

In my original outline, I didn't have much explanation here; I'd assumed Aura would find the switch and turn it off. (The ORIGINAL outline actually had her needing to apologetically delve into a -- sensitive region to uncover the switch, but Patreon's recent adult rules changes necessitated removing that part of the story.)

With the expanded section between Boreas and Aura, I decided I wanted to give her a more active role -- she's seen Boreas' predicament but also been won over by his personality that she's determined to help him.  So while she comes out apologetically at the top of page eighteen, she suddenly hatches a plan -- She knows the electricity needs to be shut off, and looking up, she sees where the utility power cables connect to the corner of the building. Grabbing a heavy wrench*, she bounces up Boreas' arm -- telling him it's safer and more convenient than the stairwells at this point -- and, on page nineteen, dashes along the roof of the building and giving the connection a good swat, knocking the cable loose. Unfortunately, she loses her footing and plunges towards the ground from three stories up.

*I'll need to go back into the previous pages and have her pick up the wrench somewhere inside the building, likely to help her pry away some heavy item blocking her way or something.

Pages Twenty and Twenty-One

In a last minute save, Boreas captures Aura in his hand. "I gotcha," he says. As he sets her down on the ground he rapidly reduces in size, commenting that her plan worked and he's now back to normal.

At the top of page 21, they exchange pleasantries -- "You okay?" "Yeah, you?" "Yeah." Then looking at him, Aura comments that he's plenty big even without the effects of the experiment. Boreas immediately blushes, but Aura offers him her coat so he can wrap it around his waist for modesty's sake. In the bottom two panels, Boreas thanks her but wonders how he'll get it back to her, and she suggests dinner tomorrow night.

Pages Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three

At the top of page 22, we return to the present day, with older Aura and Boreas mirroring their positions from the end of the previous page. But they're interrupted by Eurus, who complains that they've been staring at each other for five minutes and it's time to tell their story. All the coyena kids lean in, with variations on "PLEASE?" … In the end, Boreas and Aura look at each other shyly, and Aura simply tells them, "Oh, we met at a Spin Doctors concert."

On page 23, we follow Boreas and Aura back to their bedroom at their house, undressing after dinner. Boreas asks if she thinks the kids believed her little story; she replies that it doesn't really matter, as the kids have had plenty of size shenanigans of their own that they're in no position to judge. In the middle three panels, Boreas says Aura never did tell him why she asked him on that first date; she replies that she saw that a kind soul he was, and also that she saw how sexy he looked naked. ;)

In the bottom two panels, Aura reveals that all the kids have left the house for the weekend, and Zephyrus has even loaned them the amulet that now contains the crystal. She asks if they should have some fun, while Boreas loops the amulet around his neck, commenting that he hasn't used it in over fifteen years.

Page Twenty-Four

At the top of page 24, Boreas clearly overdoes it at once -- he rips out of his clothes again, bonks his head on the ceiling, and his arm bursts out of the house. In the final open panel filling most of the page, he's sitting in the ruins of that side of the house, apologizing to Aura for being out of practice, but Aura, sitting on his chest, tells him not to worry, it's just like old times. The end!

Next Steps

Now that the story is pretty much laid out and I'm happy with the pacing, I'll start by going in and filling in some preliminary dialog, making sure the dialog and the actions all match up, and that there's enough "dead space" in each panel to accommodate the dialog. Once that's done, I'll be ready to start penciling final artwork for each page, and then inking and doing final compositing with word balloons, border panels, gradient backgrounds, etc.

In the coming weeks and months, I'll be sharing with you both the scripted layout pages and the rough pencil pages, probably in small sets of two or three pages at a time. Otherwise my goal is to try to post a final page roughly once per week; you and the Colossal patrons will see them first, and then Massive patrons will see them in lower resolution a day later.

I hope you've enjoyed this peek into the initial writing and layout portion of my creative process! Again, any questions or thoughts, feel free to comment below or bring them up in the Telegram channel! And otherwise … have a great week! ❤️