Sketchbook: "You Have...A Collar."
Sketch N' Wash pencils on Bristol board
A comic is like an iceberg - the reader only sees the beautifully polished strip protruding from the waters of the artist's mind. Beneath the surface lurks an unwieldly mass of sketches, background notes, maps, and ideas that somehow coalesce into a finished work. You can't throw together a few model sheets and write some scripts. You really have to know your characters, their world, and how they relate to each other.
I've drawn multitudes of individual characters, but I realized if I wanted to do a comic, I'd better start drawing them actually interacting. This sketch is one of my first serious tries, and I used the Sketch N' Wash pencils to give it a more finished look.
Cheshire, in the center, is a werewolf, but his mother was a dog, and he was raised as one. No one expected the young wolf-dog to Change, and Cheshire's relatives think he's a halfbreed mutt. Cheshire was quite proud of her* mother, a 2-time AKC Champion Siberian husky, and wears the collar bestowed by her loving adoptive family in spite of her blood relatives' scornful opinions.
*Yes, I'm aware I switched pronouns. Due to some very odd magic present at Cheshire's birth, he is a hermaphrodite. But that's another sketchblook entry entirely...
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