I Sure Wouldn't Want Anything Nailed Through MY Five-Hole

It's been a few weeks since I last updated with new illustration work. Mostly it's because there hasn't been any. I've been up to my neck in researching and scripting Two Generals, which is coming along nicely (thank you for asking) but which hasn't really given me much to show as of late.

That changed in the last couple of weeks, though, as I briefly changed gears to participate in a project that the fine folks at Nelson Education have been putting together, an illustrated dictionary for kids that features comics by a virtual who's-who of Toronto-area comics artists.

The page I was asked to do illustrates the word "jargon". Here's each stage of the process:

First, a quick rough based on Nelson's script:

You'll note that I showed all the players on the ice in the first panel. This was because the script made clear that it was important to demonstrate that one of the teams was short-handed (down a player). They liked the rough, but felt that panel one was too crowded with so many characters in it. I suggested that we show the scoring team as being short-handed by putting one of the players in a penalty box, which they agreed was a good solution. I made the change in the tight pencil version:

That got approved, so it was on to inks:

Then, finally, colours and lettering:

I'd always intended to put some kind of brand name on the goalie's stick in panel 2, but when it came down to it the client found it distracted from the dialogue in that panel. I agreed, and replaced it with stripes that don't draw the eye as much.

The client was happy enough with this one that they asked me to a second one for the same project. I'll save that for later in the week, just so that it won't be another month and a half between posts!