Chesca Hause

Making of "Nice, Relaxing Shower"

Added 2022-08-17 17:00:09 +0000 UTC

Being a first-time mum was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Our oldest was a colicky nightmare and those first few months were pure survival-mode. Sneaking away for a shower was a heavenly thing, but my sleep deprived brain would find baby cries in the white noise of the water, keeping me constantly on edge.

I've had this comic as an animation in my head for a while, but it was hard to reverse engineer it into a storyboard. The timing was key, so I couldn't be too sparing with the number of panels. I showed J my roughs and he suggested she go check on the baby, to make it clear she's not ignoring him. I added the "Must me hearing things...?" dialog to make it absolutely clear. I know not everyone has experienced this phenomenon and I didn't want people coming away thinking she's a bad mom!

I found this picture on Google and used it as reference for her poking her head out the shower:

The rest went pretty smoothly. I was pleased with the finial expression. I had her with her eyes closed, straining in the roughs, but I thought back to those early days with a baby and the dead-eyed expression just came to me! 😅

I drew the WAAAHHHH in a blue, bubbly looking font, rather than the usual black, scratchy style, as a subtle way to show it's the water rather than a real cry.

Lastly I made the baby Vincent rather than Cooper, to stress the 1st time mom-ness.