Making of "Hello Shoppers"

J causally walking past my office "You should do one with a pspsps joke.  How about they lose him in a supermarket and have to make a pspsps announcement?  There you go!"  -and off he went!

With this golden idea dropped in my lap. my first thought was who's perspective should it be from?  Fran with the confused store clerk, or Vincent roaming the store and listening to the intercom.  I ended up going with a mix of both.

I usually don't know what the "NPC" animal will be in the first sketch.  I went through a tweet I put out a while ago, where I asked for animal suggestions and there were quite a few asking for deer.  Antlers and long faces are often hard to fit in, but this was the perfect opportunity.

When designing a new character I try to draw it in a few different ways and then smash the bits I like together.  I struggled with this one.  Long snouts are hard to do, both the perspective and expression.

Still unsatisfied, I tried drawing him standing next to Fran and Joel.  I immediately realized there was no way the neck could be that wide.  He'd either have to be enormous, or have a ridiculously tiny head to be in proportion with them.  Slimming him down helped the character design tremendously:

I deliberately gave Fran a serious expression, so you'd be led to believe she was issuing some sort of threat.  Coupled with the clerks hesitation to pass on the message, I think this misdirect helps the wholesome punchline land.

I found this photo on Google for reference for the store (I added a border so you can see the section I picked out)

I ultimately removed the blue sign because it was interfering with the speech bubble.

I had Vincent much more subtle at first, just some eyes lighting up in the shelves.  Luckily I saw the error of my ways and drew his big crazy head instead!

J and I have been high fiving each other for how well this one has been received.  Truly a team effort! :)