Oh yeah, all inks for the new story are in the bag! As a preview, here are the raw inks of the very first page. I can’t wait to reveal more as the I get closer to release!
I finished all inks on Jan 13th then spent a few hours the next week hitting up just a handful of revisions. Most were super minor, mostly redoing parts of the very first page I inked. Not the first page of the story, mind you, but page 17 (yes, I started inking right smack dab in the middle to warm up). That first page had lots of trees, and I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to handle that sort of stuff. After doing all 32 pages (and lots and lots of trees), it just made sense to go back for a redo.
Letters are also now done. I did preliminary letters very early, basically back when the pages were barely stick-figure layouts, ensuring room for dialogue was left in each panel. I went back once the pencils were done , adding proper balloons and finalizing the dialogue. That just left sound effects, but those are now added as well.
I start working on finishing the pages this week! What does that mean? Adding gray tone shading. I’m tackling this book with the same look as Salvage Hounds 01, so you’ll be seeing a lot more painterly detail than previous Betty books.
I’m pretty excited to get started.
Once I’m happy with progress, I plan to share a “How To Art” post following a page from script to final with all stages in between, so keep an eye out for that.