Page Commentary No. 250 (Patreon)

Gunwild: I never write Theira missing. But Psu was excited about the idea of calling back to that thingy Cassiopeia did to nullify it last time, with the shields rotating to deflect stuff better. It's always nice to do things that way, instead of for no particular reason.

Brellom: Theira too OP. Pls Nerf.

Psu: It's not Theira's abilities that let them down, it's the guns that Theira has available to her. And well, the last time she pulled a crazy shot, she hit the ship perfectly. Anyway, we got to work it into something from a previous part of our story, and would lead into a great joke. I still don't count this as missing. And it leads to something even better, Theira using her love of explosives to win.

Gunwild: No, neither do I, I'm just explaining that one sometimes has to manufacture challenges for a character with a skill that should logically solve a lot of their problems.

Psu: I have some words about that for DC comics but I think we can save that for later. Instead we should talk about the complexities of having our lead hero dressed as a Miami/LA cop in an 80's movie and whether or not that's awesome.

Brellom: It looks pretty awesome.

Psu: The colors in that panel are pretty dope. Did you do shading on this one, Brell? I can't tell anymore.

Gunwild: And yet the only Michael Mann-esque dialogue - three "dammits" in a row - isn't in the cop movie panel!

Brellom: ... It's hard to say, but some of the highlights look like my work. And some look like your work. I imagine this was a page where we both did a bit of work on it.

Psu: It's possible that working in close proximity for weeks and weeks on end caused our styles to start matching and learning from each other. Though I admit, I wish I could learn more from Michael Mann. Those movies are kinda awesome.

Gunwild: Or watch Miami Vice! A weirdly influential show.

Psu: I think I just need to watch Heat again. Can I just say I love Cupcake's mustache? It's the little things that make this comic.

Gunwild: I wish I had a mustache, then I could stroke it thoughtfully while remembering I have a copy of the Heat screenplay we could study.

Psu: There's probably a lot to talk about on this page in terms of the art. It's a very "special effects" heavy page. Because I am for the most part involved in the art from the beginning to the end of these pages, I can account for adding certain elements of the page later. The most obvious things are the lasers and explosions on this page. If you look at the pencil lines, there's probably just some very rough visuals for showing where the laser beams are gonna be. Instead, I usually will add them after I've colored almost everything else. Everything from the palm trees to the engine contrails were added in the last step. Story telling wise, this is usually fine for me. Like I can plan it out and know what it will look like by the time I finish. I don't need to leave complicated notes for the colorist, sorry Brell. The only thing I didn't really figure out was how to visualize the oscillating shields. My solution was to just multiple shield bubbles overlapped on each other. And I think combined with the dialog, it gets the point across.

Brellom: It's always good when I don't have to work hard on a page, because I will probably fail to live up to what you already have planned.

Psu: Nah brell, you've been a valuable part of the team. Like Theira. Or at least like Kettering. Which one of these two plays Genshin more?

Brell: yes

Gunwild: I feel like Genshin Impact might not be Theira's type of game. It involves so much reading...

Brellom: ... But the reading is all to build up to the explosions later on!

Psu: One more note, unfortunately not a funny one to end the commentary one I think. But I don't use any sound effects in panel 4 because they're in space. And not JUST because I stylistically choose not to add too many sound effects in a comic.

Gunwild: It can be two things!

Brellom: I wish I could be two things.

Psu: So you can play Genshin and draw?

Gunwild: You're already both zany and pessimistic, that's pretty good. I think that's why people like the Joker, or something.

Psu: A real renegade that doesn't play by the rules.