Having uploaded a new piece done with tones earlier, I thought now might be a fitting time to post another frame from page #76 of the StarStrikers webcomic. I've already been to this well once by posting a previous panel off that page, but since I feel like I had peaked as an artist around this point I suppose that's understandable. Plus I just happened to have some of the frames from the last two comics lying around on my laptop all this time, so posting them is... convenient!

Like most of the art from the latter half of the webcomic, all the panels for this page were done in a rough draft on a page of A4, so they were individually quite small, but I seem to work better within a confined workspace for some reason. I would then scan my pencilling, ink the panel in Photoshop using my Wacom tablet, and in the case of this page I applied tones within PS as well. This was a very time consuming process, perhaps even more so than my usual cel-shaded colouring, so it would never have been feasible for me to do two, three, or more pages like this a week. It also didn't translate well to a webcomic - once the panels were downscaled for online viewing and obscured by speech bubbles much of the detail was lost.

I love Corinne's expression here as she tries to stop her father from discovering there's an alien in their house before she can break it to him. After more than two years of drawing her looking moritified, I guess I'd had a lot of practice at it. She also has a lot of elasticicity to her pose, you can feel her frantically straining to block Carlton's path. It's also notable that in this very late strip she also has her ponytail, which like Sylvia's long hair WAS ALWAYS LIKE THAT, AND YOU NEVER SAW ANYTHING TO SUGGEST OTHERWISE... right? ^_-

Oh yeah, and Corinne never wore denim either. I don't care that you just saw it, this has been retconned out of StarStrikers history along with the Tommy guns Kitty's men used, the snapping seat belt, Pepsi-Cola, that crab that was stalking Corinne on the beach, all of it. That's the beauty of obscurity, I can go back and make as many sweeping changes as I want, and no-one cares enough to protest. That's right, I've got more creative autonomy than you, JK. Haw haw! (yanks on lower eyelid)

Getting back to the subject at hand, this piece fills me with a real hodge-podge of emotions. There's happiness and pride, along with a little nostalgia for the old webcomic days, but moreover I find it humbling, intimidating. Because I really don't know how I ever got as good as I was here, and I don't know if or how I will ever get back there again.