Comic Report #90 - The Big One

So this week I got a bit further than just a sketch phase to share with you.  This page is a particularly significant moment, which has been- God, it's been thirteen years in the making.  One thing happens on this page but it's a big thing so I'm gonna spend today writing about the thought process and the buildup to this moment.  Quite a few people have been waiting for this moment for a while, and so here it is.

Between the two of these characters Lizzie has been a bit behind the curve.  As mentioned in the previous page, where Lizzie admitted she couldn't see what was in front of her, Alice confesses that she's held this feeling for a while now.  Alice has had this kissing energy pent up for a while, so when the occasion comes to finally tie a bow on this long thread I figure it's gonna be Alice to be the one to initiate.  I figure in the first panel you have Liz being Liz saying Liz things, and then those are the only words to be spoken on the whole page.  

The way I wanted to have the kiss land is to not just stick it in the middle of some other page, obviously, which is why it is its own page.  But I also didn't want it to be just like, boop, there it is.  This is a big moment so I wanted the kiss to have a big impact, which means a lead-up to the big moment.  In the top row of panels, Alice is the one to jump forward and land the big kiss, and Liz in that moment is still taken a bit surprised by it.  I'd wanted to pace the panels out specifically so there was the carryover from the last panel of the previous page panel and then the Alice Just Goes Ahead And Does It panel, but also an intermediate panel where Lizzie is kinda melting into the kiss, like it's okay and it's good and she's where she needs to be. Having that melt-in I think kinda emphasizes Lizzie's comments about "showing me kindnesses I didn't know I deserved", like she hold's Alice's hand but maybe didn't realize she could be that forward.  Either way, there's a warm-up into the kiss.

The kiss itself needed to be big and emphasized.  I wanted it to be warm and bright and cozy, and achieving that in greyscale felt limited, so for this big huge panel where the kiss is locked in I decided to paint it in full color.  A fun decision to make here was which color canon to use- in the game development project the four characters are given distinct color palettes for their base colors, and none of them were "red", like for example Lizzie is orange and Alice is blue, Monday is purple and Lou is green.  In the comic canon, however, Lizzie has a red bandana and her hoodie is more of a rosy peach color, and Alice's hoodie has red cross markings on it.  I figured since this is the comic I would use the comic-canon colors, and then in the game itself I can put those in as an unlockable alternate palette to pick.    I had to think a bit about what color to make the brick building behind them or the bench they're sitting on, and for the latter I picked that sort of municipal public works green to help contrast their warm colors.  A fun story: I'd thought about drawing these two kiss during the minicomics, but I really wanted the main comic to be the first depiction of them kissing each other, so it was a whole lot of restraint to keep from drawing them kissing before this exact moment.  It's on its way to being in the books, though, so it's fun to finally be here.

The comic can't just be a big kiss and end, though, there needs to be some post-kiss radiance.  The panel below the big bright kiss returns to the normal art style, and has Lizzie and Alice just resting their foreheads against each other, sharing that close space.  These two were close before but now they are absolutely inseparable, so I wanted to give space to have them just bonding together.

After that panel is The Aftershock, the quick little kiss in the wake of the big one.  The ice between them is broken and this is just a thing they can do now.  This feels like the natural followup to the big moment on The Kissing Page, so I wanted it to be just light and cute.

The capstone of the page is both of them just smiling and laughing a little.  I think it's healthy to portray love as being silly and fun, so while these two are emotionally overclocked they're just heeheehee'ing together.  Life is great, and their lives are great together.  They feel happy and safe and confident with one another, and they've both finally overcome a big mutual mountain between them.  It's all clear skies from here.

So that's where I am right now.  I think I should have a good deal of progress done on this page this week, and possibly have it ready before next Friday, so we'll see.  But for now I hope you enjoy this preview- I made sure to paint the big color panel before anything else so I know it's there and it looks how it needs to.  

Until next time, have a lovely weekend!