Fraggle development 3/3

I'm still pretty much blown away that I got to do some real, live Fraggle art. Here follows an account of the project.

I'm going to break it up in three parts, 1. How this project came about, character studies. 2. Thumbnails, roughs, and drawings. 3. Final art.

Previously,
Fraggle development 1/3
Fraggle development 2/3

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One of the comments I've gotten several times on any of my sequential work is how people like the painting, the watercolor. I don't know if it's because comics aren't traditionally watercolored and it's a little novel or if it just happens to strike people or what but every story, comic I've done at some point I've gotten comments on the color work.

So in my previous post I mentioned that I wanted to try something different for painting the piece this time. I typically just paint the drawing but this time I wanted to see how it might work if I didn't.

Here's my original drawing.


Using the powers of a futuristic machine called a light box, lightly traced off my drawing ... and then, I painted pretty much what I thought I needed to. This let me keep my drawing as a drawing but I still got all my rocks and textures and watercolor-ness.


From there I simply dropped the pencil back on top.


It worked pretty well for what I needed and it was a good experiment. The coloring was pretty straightforward for me after that, I didn't do anything fancier that usual HOWEVER, I need to take a moment and thank my sister, Courtney. She is a genius and a super hero. She is the greatest. She did some flatting for me on this comic and it helped me out of a big time crunch.

Above, Courtney's flats.

Anyway, she colored the main Fraggles (Gobo, Boober, and Wembley) for me with the specific colors they were supposed to be which let me tear through the final painting steps. I was able to focus on getting my watercolors and background paintings right and then finish the Fraggles. Basically,take all the pieces, final drawing, watercolor, flats, and put them together and then make it happen.

Even so, it was tight getting the work done. I have not yet missed a professional deadline and I will break my neck to make sure I never do. The coloring for this story took me a 24 hour period. Just when I was considering taking a nap around 6AM (not really, but it makes this next part more dramatic) the dawn broke and sunlight began to fill my room. I checked Twitter to take my eyes off of the painting for a minute and lo, behold, what did I see. It was Jim Henson's birthday. September 24. I was finishing this Fraggle Rock comic on Jim Henson's birthday. I discovered my powers renewed and pushed forward until the work was complete.


I asked if I could hand letter the story but they wanted to keep the stories all consistent with one another, which makes sense, all the same they let me hand letter some shouts and sound effects which was a a lot fun. See below.


After some time I received a PDF with the final text and everything laid in. It was awesome to see.

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This was an amazing experience and one that goes down in my book as a perfect project. 10/10. Every last aspect of the job was a pleasure. From the story, to client, to editor, to the reception of my work, everything last thing was great. As I understand it from the editor, my illustrations were not just approved but “enthusiastically approved” and that my work was some of their favorite Fraggle Rock pages yet. I am glad I was able to contribute to the Henson legacy even in this small way that I still can’t really put it in to words other than to say it was a perfect project.

Thanks for reading!
Cory