Glory Hog, Page 1

It feels like comic pages take a bit longer to make than illustrations, probably because I am doing a bunch of little ones instead of a single big picture.  I could be mistaken on that notion, but I do enjoy making these comics once in a while.

Today's picture is the first page of a two-page story I wanted to get out of my system.  Once again, I return to Pokemon for inspiration in "Glory Hog".

Here we see the middle of a battle in Nacrene City Gym, where you fight the second major boss of Pokemon Black and White.  Dewott (the blue one) meets the ultimate Pokemon of the gym, Watchog (the brownish one).  Although this Watchog promises to be a difficult foe, Dewott is confident he can handle her.

Although I did once draw a twelve-page comic about Lucids in pencil (though without dialogue), this will be my first attempt at drawing a comic in multiple parts in Photoshop.  I would like to draw a bigger story (maybe eight pages minimum) at some point, assuming I can persist that long, but a two-parter is a step in the right direction.  Originally, I was going to try and fit the whole story on one page, but I felt like it would end up too congested if I did that.  These smaller panels with little-to-no dialogue also keep the pacing a bit more steady.

I really wanted to make the last panel stand out.  I drew most of the comic in one file, but that image of Dewott was something I drew in a separate file before I even figured out how to lay out the panels.  A cyan cartoon otter in blue pants shouting at you while he swings two halves of a clam shell like they were some kind of bladed weapons?  That's ludicrous!  And yet, it sounded oddly awesome.  That image alone set me back a bit, so I hope it was worth it.

I want to talk about what exactly inspired this comic, but it involves certain game design choices in Pokemon Black and White, so it might fly over some of your heads.  Once you see page two, I should be able to talk about it more easily.  So, see you guys (hopefully) next week!