Episode 38 Production Report

Table of Contents

• Preproduction
• Scenario
• External help
• Many rewrite
• Diversion
• New inspiration
• Storyboard
• Landscape concept-art
• Character concept-art
• Production
• Pencil artworks
• 3D Backgrounds
• Character Color-Flat
• Shading
• Details
• Post-mortem

Here's my new Production Report for Episode 38, which I'll update as production progresses. It's always a great opportunity to reflect on the process later and see how everything came together.

TL;DR: This time, the largest production bottleneck occurred during the scripting stage.

Preproduction

Scenario

My original plan for episode 38 was to publish the second chapter of a trilogy called − The Phoenix Arc − that I wrote last year.

On paper, the script was ready by spring 2022. However, after publishing the first part of the trilogy, I realized that the second part I had written was problematic - it was too dark and depressive. I had lost touch with the story and no longer connected with it.

External help

Because it was hard for me to detect what was wrong about my script, I decided to send it to professional scenarists around me. One helped me to identify the issue: the story was a bit too dark without a valid reason for it to be that dark.

Initially, my focus was on the Phoenix's transformation from a foolish character into a respectable one. However, Pepper, who was once the central character, had taken a backseat in this arc. Instead, Pepper had become a sort of Mary Sue, embodying inherent goodness and simply accompanying the Phoenix's transformation. While this wasn't inherently problematic, it was static and unengaging - who cares about the Phoenix's growth when Pepper's character development is stagnant? I suspect I wrote it this way to avoid the responsibility of making significant changes to Pepper, a character we actually care about in the story.

Many rewrite

I then embarked on the arduous task of rewriting the story. I wrote numerous scripts, but they all seemed to fall flat. Some versions devolved into long, boring dialogues between Shichimi and Torreya in a shelter provided by Queen Coriander, while others took a more humorous turn, with Pepper manually replacing all the "Wanted" posters in Hereva using her magic.

Despite the varying approaches, I consistently felt the same way: I would get bored with each version after just two weeks.

An aftermath screenshot of writing efforts I kept, many were simply deleted...

Diversion

As desperation set in, I started randomly posting single-panel illustrations from a completely new story project, created from scratch. I did this simply because I felt the need to keep posting something, even if it wasn't related to my original story. This resulted in the mini-series of illustrations featuring a dragon and a blond magician that I posted in October.

At that point, I decided to stop worrying and focus on improving my painting technique, as well as maintaining my brushes and tools. I was convinced that good ideas would eventually come back to me, and I just needed to be patient and keep my skills sharp.

Making-of mini-series of illustrations featuring a dragon and a blond magician

New inspiration

With time, I eventually regained my motivation to write a new story. The story is quite simple: it's about Pepper quitting everything. This theme resonates deeply with me, as I've been feeling it within myself and observing it in those around me - the desire to leave everything behind and start anew. I thought that exploring this theme in a story could be a cathartic experience.

In this narrative, Pepper ultimately returns to her family, which allowed me to reconnect with this aspect of her character as well. Once I had all these elements in place, I found it easier to craft a scenario. My emotions were now more in tune with the story, and the message I wanted to convey felt genuine and sincere.

Storyboard

The storyboard followed really quickly within the same week, I made a photo about it when I shared in end January, I extended it to 8 pages later to get a better introduction.

Landscape concept-art

The story happens into an abandoned part of Hereva, the world of Pepper&Carrot, that I code named "The Forgottens". Ancient civilisation ruins plunged in the dark, haunted with magic and creatures. The playground of many groups of mercenary adventurers trying to progress on these area to reclaim the area, and/or find treasure. It's not explicit in the 8 pages of episode 38, but I hope the architecture and ambiant will convey all of that without needing to get a character or a narrator telling this.

Here is a concept art of "The Forgottens", a part with a network of bridges that pushes adventurer into a linear path, and without escape on the side.

And here 3D blender screenshot. For this episode I'm using Blender a lot; it helps me at setting camera view angle and I also learn a lot about controlling the "Field of View" (fov) when I storyboard. A key to get a sort of cinematic look, is to mimic the perspective of a camera.

Character concept-art

Pepper joins a group of mercenary adventurers. And she must look like a healer, but still look like Pepper. When I received the Cinema team of LentCine at home for a documentary interview, I was right in the middle of designing this.

I finally went for something a bit more pragmatic; I has to be compatible with all actions Pepper does on this episode:

About the group on my scenario, they were not really defined; but I quickly saw it was interesting to invest a bit of time on their design since I want to keep the possibility to reuse them later. They are mercenaries only temporarily together to complete a quest, and they have to look a little bit untrustworthy. Erik Mondrian found them good names: the halfing white wolf "Fritz", the archer "Vinya" and the warrior "Brasic". Only Brasic is explicitly named on a speechbubble in episode 38 (for now).

Monsters appears on panels, but because they are just single appearance, I'll design them "on the fly" while drawing the comic.

Production

For the production of the episode, I decided to use a technique I described in this video.

▶ Peertube: https://peertube.touhoppai.moe/w/6GetvC3grjMRdFooDDMe62
▶ Youtube: https://youtu.be/kisT96h5h80

Pencil artworks

I'm using a very thin and "not clean" pencil line for this episode. This contrast a lot with my habits, but I know this way I'll not be tempted to keep the line in the process. They are only guidelines made to go to the trashcan. On the eight pages, seven pages are done 100% with this step. I'm redoing the last page this week because, thanks to the 3D model of the landscape, I had ideas of better view angles.

3D Backgrounds

Once I have my sketch, I setup my 3D scene to match the panel, and I render it. I put the renders into background layers. Blender has a lot of good option on the camera to put a background image, so I don't have a lot of difficulties to match the view angle. The background was reused more than 12 times so far. I'll paint-over them a lot at the final step. I have 3D backgrounds done now for all the 8 pages.

Character Color-Flat

It's a new step in my process: I paint the characters under a neutral light. I'm not 'flatting' the color as a comic artist would do; I still do modeling of the shapes, and even crease contact shadows here and there. But I have this intermediate step that help me to maintain the color palette of a character consistent across panels. I have the Color-Flat in progress on page 4, I'm at the midway.

Shading

On the top of the Color-Flat, and often inside a group and with Alpha-Inheritance, I'm shading the characters. This way, I can make the same offset of color palette from one panel to another and experiment where I place the light on my set. It's a creative process that I really like. I try to not be too clean at this step because I want to feed the canvas with get a rich texture and painterly feeling. I work this step in parallel with the previous one. I have the two first page ready this way so far.

Details

Then on the top of all, the final paint-over

Post-mortem

I'm really happy with how I was able to blend the 3D model of the background with the character, giving the scene an epic, AAA video game-like quality. However, I struggled with the color palette, particularly when it came to lighting the scene. I felt that the saturated blue distance in the fog was overpowering and dominated all my renderings.

Due to my technique of starting with a quick sketch and flat colors, I encountered some issues with flat faces, where the shading was obvious and the facial expressions weren't well-defined. Despite spending many hours on paint-overs, I was unable to fully capture the vision I had in mind for many of the panels.

Nevertheless, I'm still very fond of the cinematic introduction. I believe it effectively sets a new tone for the series, establishing it as an epic fantasy adventure, and it was necessary to convey Pepper's growth and development. The introduction provides a fresh context for the story, and I'm excited to see how it will unfold.

Thank you all for reading, for your patience and for your continuous support. Clearly, this project would not exist without you, I'm keeping this in mind all the time, and be sure I'm doing my best.