John’s Highlight Reel – Part One
Hey, Guildies! For this week’s postgame content, we asked John to pick some of his favorite pages that he’s drawn for the series to show off the original pencil work to y’all. No commentary from us authors, but if you ask real nice, maybe he’ll offer his own for you in the comments!
Thanks for the last few pages, I love seeing the rough pages.
I liked the whole idea of the “mysterious missing race” thing, and designing all the other cat characters was fun.
I wanted to give them an architecture that wasn’t the usual “ancient Egyptian” look that’s given to cat races. I wanted to give them their own look, their own culture.
Hahaha John, panel 2 of the first page… me on a Thursday morning.
Every time.
The odd angle of that shot was difficult, but I think it worked out pretty well, and I liked doing that skull.
What is next for you guys? Been following your work since Fans!
Well, I don’t have anything lined up at the moment. I think I’m going to take a little break.
Jason’s still doing Dangerously Chloe.
Wow! Just looking at the chapter 22, page 1 sketch is making my wrist hurt! About how long did take to sketch this page?
Also, what about these pages makes them among your favorite?
That page did take a while to do, at least several days. I did use a few short cuts though. I managed to find a picture of an ancient desert fortress, I just added a few extra features and windows. The cliff is also from a picture of a canyon wall, and a lot of the poses of the fighting figures in the foreground are taken from an image of a medieval battle game I found as well. I really couldn’t do any of this without some reference help.
I like big establishing shots, I think it’s important to the story to pull back once in a while and show the environment, where the characters are, not just panel after panel of talking heads!
And I like designing new things; new characters, costumes, buildings, weapons. It gets a little fatiguing drawing the same things over and over. New stuff, yeah!
That was one of my favorite things about this comic. The little outlines of the warriors in the large-scale battle scenes. I loved how dynamic the scenes could be without getting over-complicated with details, but still enough detail to know what was going on to who. Really worked for me. :)
And I don’t know who came up with it, but “Thai Foon” is brilliant! (Especially considering that Carol is bringing it back to Hurricane.) XD
Thank you. The one thing I’ve learned doing this comic is that it’s just as important what NOT to draw, as it is what TO draw. Some details aren’t necessary.
I think I did! Thanks again.
The scattered melee (where are the formations? battle lines?) *outside if a siege in progress* with no focused defense doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’m curious what the scenario could’ve been.
Battles can become pretty chaotic as they unfold. Any formations or lines either side may have had at the beginning of the fight dissolved quickly I’m sure.
But attacking a fortress from the bottom of a cliff doesn’t seem like the best strategy, although they would never expect an attack from that direction, so…
Who is this „Real Nice“ we‘re supposed to ask?
Looks like you just missed him, but his sister Bad Advice is still taking questions. She told me I should quit my day job, apparently I’m a great comedian!
And now, one botched factory break-in and unexpected facial bleaching later, you’re an insane, nihilistic supervillain?
But of course! They call: Red Cat! Champion of the Fuzzy Peoples!
Or wait, dang it
Okay, these are all awesome. Thank you for sharing them!
They also reminded me of a number of details I had forgotten – like how HR originally admitted that the universe didn’t bend to his will, or that we have a hanging plot hook for where the Fuzzy cat people went…if you all pick up with a Guilded Age 2, following the airship, that might be a fun thing to play with.
Thank YOU!
Wow… 2013.
It won’t ever feel like it was that long ago, will it.
These are all so lovely. The inking and color sort of distract from all the detail and hard work you poured into these pages. I really dig them like this.
I do like remembering what a stinking mess HR was. I think the raw pencils, with their frayed-around-the-edges look, convey that perfectly. Better than the final comic, in some cases.
And I love the cat people. Not too Thundercatastic, not Egyptian, not borrowed from Escaflowne, just… cat people.
I often find the pencil art to be more beautiful and “skillful” and soulful than the final product. Wonderful work.
Cat people. Thank god they did not make it into the comic. Not alive, anyway.
John I have a question for you
I love you
that… that’s not a question.
but that’s very nice. thank you.
Awesome job. Looking forward to whatever you do next, after you get a breather.