what's the weight of the world worth to ya, kid?

[turtlesoup]

Hey kids! So I wanted to post a quick little update over here, even though I haven't really been creating a whole lot of finished art of late. Everything I have is currently being thrown into my first semester final project. As I mentioned last post, it's going to be the introductory chapter of Goodness Knows, a graphic novel I've been messing around with conceptually for awhile now. Essentially, it's a coming-of-age story about a slightly wayward angel who is assigned to do community service on earth, and the young (human) woman she befriends there.

Getting the vague set of ideas and half-developed characters that I've been kicking around for years nailed down into workable concepts and a concrete script was a challenge, as I expected; I haven't really sunk my teeth into writing longer fiction since I graduated from college (and decided I needed to spend some time on learning to work with comics as a medium, without taking so much time on research, character development or worldbuilding). I freaked out a little and plagued people with a lot of questions and conceptual rambling. But! I'm well on track with a full script, thumbnails, and several penciled pages ... the finished chapter will be twenty-four (plus covers), and I'm hoping to debut it at MoCCA, the last weekend of April.

So for the timebeing I'm deep into a lot of stuff that isn't ready to show, but I have a couple of sneak peeks I can share!

I've done quite a lot of art involving Luce, my protagonist, over the years. Still, I thought it would be a good idea to create a new model sheet ... I should really do them for the other three important characters in the chapter (including Mickey, her costar), but I've kind of run out of time. So, later.


It's interesting to look back at the model sheet I did for her almost five years ago when I first started nailing down her character design ... her face has gotten angular, her nose longer, and her hair quite a lot curlier (I just can't help myself). Sometime after this is all over, I might do a post detailing all that original development (and maybe discussing some of my various inspirations), just for fun.


Anyway, I don't want to give too much of the specifics of the chapter away prematurely, but here are the finished pencils for the first page (which actually contains no characters at all, mwahaha)!


I'll tell you a secret: I had a lot of fun designing Heaven to be composed of all different styles of architecture ... and thankfully, this is the only page in the whole chapter that includes much of it. I may kick myself for this later; we'll see. (Also, small spoiler: Heaven doesn't just belong to the vaguely Christian-based cosmology my story focuses on.)

And finally ... today my amazing classmate Laurel Leake (who seriously needs to post her recent work somewhere, because it's incredible and deserves to be seen) drew me lightning-fast in-class fanart today. Her work is so ... organic! So expressive! So flipping beautiful! Here's her quick take on Luce:


So that basically made my day!

I should get back to the grindstone (less than five weeks to go, yikes), but I'll leave you with one more little preview of a short piece starring the Goodness Knows characters ... drawn for an anthology I'm waiting to hear back about! I'd feel bad about leaving Mickey out of this post entirely, honestly, and besides - I finished this thing in February, and I'm kind of dying to show it to people. Thanks for reading, darlings, it's always appreciated!

Comments

[tuesdaysgone]

Ugh I just love you. I'm so excited about this! (Also Laurel's fanart is awesome. I am especially fond of the ankle bracelets :D)

[turtlesoup]

Thank you, darling, I hope it lives up to expectations. <3 (Right? They're a nice addition, I might have to use them myself!)

[omens]

very cute! i love how expressive her body language is!!

[turtlesoup]

Thank you! It's super fun to draw.