Behind the scenes of Solver 2025
My sketchbook is not exactly bursting of late, I've been doing life drawing classes nearly every week for more than a year and that has been my "practice" if you like. But occasionally scribbling still takes place, and there are a few fun drawings here for Wobbly Head part 3. If you were not aware, I added this chapter late in the process to give readers a better insight into Lottie's antagonist. So there was a lot of character design work to do. While Beate had existed as a character for several years, she ended up changing a lot. At one time she was a folk singer! So she was designed anew for the ski adventure.
The critical thing was that she had a natural mullet; not a fashion mullet, but the sort of hair that just wants to be that way and almost can't not.
Then I realised how many other characters I had created that I had to design for this story. I was very unhappy. But I got it done somehow.
Because there is a small subset of the readership who struggle with object permanence and/or remembering what happened three pages before, it was important that there were some visual signifiers that this was happening in a flashback. Lottie's centre parting had to carry all the weight. It was funny how much it changed the logic of her face.
Comments (17)
We must protect that spreadsheet
How is Beate pronounced? I am unfamiliar with the name.
"bee-arr-tuh"
I'm sure a story about Lottie learning to drive will give you a lot of opportunities to draw cars!
maybe even cars with extraordinary personalities!
Lottie's center part is carrying its burden very well. I said this in a reply to one of the page announcements, but let me reiterate that I'm really enjoying the alternate, "outsider" perspective on Lottie & Claire in this chapter. After all these years, I've become accustomed to mad lifestyle of the typical Tackleverse heroine. It's good to get a reminder of how they must appear to more normal folks.
Feel this is also a good way to describe how Esther is portrayed in her two main comics. She’s normal by the standards of Tackleford as we see in Scary Go Round, but that still makes her seem incredibly strange when put outside that environment, as seen in Giant Days. It’s interesting seeing how much environments and perspectives can change the way we see characters.
I like that you've become so organized with Excel and knowing exactly WHEN something is due or set to run, but I'm bothered by the idea of the Unwritten Stories that have just been "Blanked-In." I know that you're always busy thinking ahead and going down those other paths that may lead nowhere, so perhaps there's a subconscious plan for all of this!
Not something that should bother you. Some of my stories are planned years ahead. Others are cooked up in a day from nothing. Both techniques have merit.
Something about Lotte wanting to drive got me imagining her in a Top Gear show...
Our child recently discovered the creative power of spreadsheets to do their theatre work - we were very proud.
Beate has definitely turned out to be one of your most compelling and tragic characters and I've been eager to hear about her evolution. Did you set down to trying to create Lottie's baddie or did the notion just happen in the re-design process of creating Beate?
It was a gradual evolution starting when I worked on Wicked Things - I always knew it was a doppelgänger (all the Wicked Things volume 1 stories are about duplicates) and this story went through a few iterations until it was viable. I didn’t nail down the design until very recently and it could have been quite different if I had done this story back in 2021/2022 when I started seriously considering it.
There’s a chapter in Wicked Things where Maki mentions how terrifying Lottie was when she came up to the hotel room, and we get to see that, “eyes full of hate” and all. Was that just meant to be her imagination, or was it actually our first glimpse at Beate? Idk I’ve been thinking about this for a little while
Ask again when part 4 has finished, I have remembered the exact sequence of events but it's a spoiler.
I love the idea of your characters conferring and telling you what they want from you.
Well yeah, this is exactly how stories are made