Category: Blog

Chapter covers are fun!

Chapter covers can also be a colossal pain in the arse. 

Working on covers gives me an opportunity to do some more illustrative promotional art for the series, I’ve always aimed to keep our covers somewhat unified, they’ll feature bold bright colours (sticking to our ‘branding’ colours closest I can) and be character focused.

Part of the problem was that I had the challenge of wanting 4 characters into the composition. Not challenging for some I’m sure but I don’t know what happened but when you hit that block it comes round a corner with a baseball bat. I also wanted something that wasn’t just like a character pin up (which admittedly chapter 3 very much is but at least had the cool box sorta thing going on with it) and had energy.

Thankfully for me, I am not a solo-creator, though Wave is the lead writer, they help out behind the scenes sketching out concept designs for all sorts of things, locations, props, character designs. Wave knew I was currently in a puddle of artistic misery and had ago thumbing out one of their ideas

I really liked this idea but I didn’t like the card gimmick, this is no spoilers but the chapter 4 is not set in a casino. But it had the manic energy and danger that I wanted.

And then a new challenger appears! Our unofficial third half of the team, Ty, also had a shot at a couple of thumbs.

Though I did love the ‘hands in the air and all the weapons’ idea because it’s funny as hell, it reminded me a bit too much of a gag we pulled in chapter 1. It was the other that gave me the spring board to finally get past the thumbing phase, though I wanted to incorporate the energy and overlapping of Wave’s sketch.

The reason I am rambling as much about this part of the process is because I am exceptionally lucky I have my partner and friends that help me in my artistic endeavours. I am so fortunate that during my time within comic communities I have had people helping me, if it’s providing critique, redlining my drawings to help get a pose correct, helping me work out perspective or panel compositions. Part of me worries that I will get judged for it, so writing and being open about it on my own terms is a way for me to tackle that insecurity.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, here are some more images showing the process of the chapter 4 cover.

Doesn’t it look great! I am so pleased with how it came out. We are hoping for the chapter to be ready to launch around mid September early October time. I’ll do an official announcement closer to the time when we have a better idea. 

As a little treat, here is also a meme I drew in honour of the Chapter 4 cover because it’s all I could think of while it was being drawn. You’re welcome.

Till next time, Space Cadets.

Squimoo 🍒

Good evening, Space Cadets! So with the help from Ty I’ve been able to set up a new blog page to keep track of behind the scenes stuff that happens in between working on pages. Our hiatuses between chapters can seem pretty long but rest assured I am haunted by a TSB section of my “This will solve my ADHD arse” white board in my bedroom and I live and breathe this project, so I’m usually always working away at something related to it. If nothing else, this will be a nice log for myself (Squimoo) to put down my thoughts, and hopefully fans of the comic (I know you’re out there, Ty also helped me set up Google analytics) will like a bit more “creator insight” on the development of the series than I can usually type into a limited character count on somewhere like our Bluesky.

So without further ado:

A particular fun thing for me to design for each chapter is to play dress-up dolls with Ferelith and Vexen and give them a new outfit.

For Vexen, One of the biggest challanges is their damn beloved shoulder tentacle do-das. They are truly cursed to never wear a turtleneck jumper. Wave and I quite liked the outfit we cooked up for them for our 2025 pride illustration. I changed up the jacket so it wasn’t too similar to the jacket they wore in Chapter 2, which – fun fact – is supposed to be borrowed Ferelith, along with the skirt and the shirt they were in chapter 3. Vexen didn’t have much time to gather their things when they decided to hop on board of the WildWagon.

Ferelith’s outfit needed to be a bit more casual than Vexen’s, especially not as flamboyant. I feel as if the denim jeans give her a bit of a 90’s look that I like to strive for. Despite having the best rack in the series the tiddy quota is definitely filled for chapter 4, so no beloved chest fluff this round. Instead Ferelith’s stand out asset is clearly going to be that hat. I cannot claim ownership of the original design of this hat as I was inspired by this lovely illustration by Khaled Qaderi. I first drew it in last year’s Christmas illustration and it has lived rent free in my mind ever since, also showing up in another illustration I did.

There has been other development work for Chapter 4 I’ve been working on before I decided to tackle the outfits for the main duo, but I’ll hold off talking about them for now until a later date.

Till next time, Space Cadets.

– Squimoo 🍒

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