FTH/BTS #2

Forward, The Horizon #1

Page 02 - Original Art

by Yale Stewart

Materials: Prismacolor Col-Erase Blue Pencil, Winsor & Newton Series 7 #2 Brush, India Ink, Copic Multiliner SP Tech Pens, Strathmore 400 Series Vellum Bristol

In which we meet our hero, Étan.

There's nothing terribly fancy about this page. When you want to introduce a new character, it's usually pretty straightforward: show them head-to-toe, and big, so that's what I went with. Thankfully, I'm pretty happy with the drawing, all things considered.

I'm even happier with that second panel, though.

FTH will certainly lean pretty hard into the drama, but I wanted to make sure to let folks know that the humor is still very much a part of the book, and when I had the idea that Étan comes (in his mind) heroically out of the woods, I thought it'd be perfectly reasonable for some passing travelers to simply assume he's a bandit. After all, if I were just strolling down a road just my buddy and I and some random dude just popped out of the woods suddenly, I imagine it'd give me quite a shock.

And frankly, I have not stopped laughing at "brace my bottom!" since I wrote it.

Speaking of writing: for the keen-eyed, you may notice that the lettering on Étan's name is slightly different in this scan than in the previously posted finished page. As you may know, I hand-letter my work, and, well, I thought this pass just looked terrible. I did it again on a separate sheet of bristol, scanned THAT in, and then just overlayed it on top of this scan to basically create a digital paste-up. It's nothing fancy, but figured it's worth mentioning for the craft geeks, of which I am one.

In fact, now that I think of it, feel free to leave any questions or comments below on any of these posts if there's something you'd like me to discuss about the process. I might not answer it directly in the comments, but might address it in a following FTH/BTS installment.

Talk to you next week!

-Yale