You see these non-blank pictures were meant to jive together in the regular pages but setting the fire and finding the bike were just to much of a mesh that I needed something to segue into them. Enter an angel…the drifter missing her from inside his mind. The world is a lonely place and everyone needs someone to talk to, even if its only themself! The Angel design is one taken from the original painting I did entitled “Reaching for You”…
When the original roughs and inks were 
done (At the bottom, you see I didn’t have a right side). The next page was supposed to be what page 16 is, but when I got the pages inked – it just absolutely didn’t work. At all. They were conflicting scenes and the flow would be off so I had to rethink the scene…and I got my influence for this page from an old painting I did a couple years ago. You’ll see that in the next post but it also influenced what would be happening a couple times this issue. a voice appears and its coming from inside his own mind…I added a line about grabbing a gas can from Leon and gave him the perfect excuse to light something on fire! Who doesn’t like a good fire?
A zombie grum
bles and gurgles in a field…waiting for his next victim! An homage to the first issue of The Walking Dead (comic) and when Rick comes out of the hospital and finds a bike. He finds it in some weeds and hops on and rides it to his house. I wanted him to find a bike but I also wanted a zombie to show up and attack…kinda. It would seem to come out of no where and he would somewhat worry…and then basically shrug it off. I like the flow of this spread because it shows this concern turn to a shrug across the top and this zombie really wants to attack…and then you realize he isn’t quite able to. The colors really turned out sick for these pages too and especially the exposed brains! I loved looking at these pages when I got them colored. I reached bac
k into my bag of tricks coming from the book of the inktober2014. There was a pic I sketched of a scarecrow sitting in front of a haunted house and this eerie wheat grass being beat down by this zombie dragging himself around. The zombie gets no respect as the drifter walks right on by and seems to not even notice him…but he leaves a trail leading to the next page…
Also a fun thing I worked on were these sound effects too. Helping the sfx grow as they get closer…and closer…AND CLOSER!!!
With this next scene, it was imperative to show that these two had become friends. That was high on the priority list and then doing the zoom out showing him leaving just like he had arrived. Something to show that this seemingly uneventful place was just another stop on his journey? But this is also the first spot that is shown on this journey too and will this place become of importance later? When I started this series in 2015, I never though I’d be revisiting Happytown…but I’m glad it was shown this way because while I’ve been working on later issues, it will make an appearance again and play a big role. The story started to flesh itself outward and now making itself come full circle in many aspects, but that’s all that I can say about it right now!!
It was also show this emotion that Leon was cheering the drifter on for his quest and the drifter basically has become battle tested and hardened to this world that he keeps moving along in. The gas can wasn’t a big deal while I was drafting but I knew a couple events would be coming up and I needed a way to explain it. I also wanted to draw a different scene that just working with talking heads because I know that can get pretty boring quick. With another flip of the page…a zombie attack comes next!
So I figured I’d be splitting the spread and the behind-the-scenes posts up for this second issue just to give me a reason to post a little more and give a reason to return and check out the details of the page spreads. No time like the present. I don’t know if this will work or after a couple weeks I’ll recombine them. What do you think? Do you like them split up like this? Throw a comment down below and lets build this empire even better 😉
So getting into these pages and the drifter has realized it’s time to move along. He has a goal to complete and has helped enough to offset the help and advice he’s gotten. I also started working on my sound effects and that ‘thwack’ is still one of my favorites. You can see from the roughs it changed from the spike trap to a machete attack. I think the spear was already shown at the end of Issue 1 that I didn’t want to revisit that image and made it almost NEEDED to be shown in an cutting of a zombie down. This pit will become a big deal too because as people – they found this was what they were supposed to do with them. It will be 
explained why, but not just yet…first he has to come to with terms that things he knows are wrong. Its never easy for anyone to admit ever…
This second page was just a scene I was working with and dealing with a conversation going on between them yet. The story needed some info and there had to be some plot points put into play. This waterfall conversation scene I like a lot, but I was still trying to figure out how to make scenes work with only a couple people with a lot of dialogue. It’s gotten much tighter and I don’t typically put in dialogue unless there’s a reason now. I’m doing much more with a ‘show don’t speak’ aspect. Left side was the end of the preview pages from the first issue so going into this next scene just seemed right to give this sense they were friends too at this point. Swap their spots too and put some ink to the paper. This also gives a sense that Leon is staying in this book and the drifter is moving on and continuing on his quest! More looks at the behind the story details next week with the next spread from the 2nd issue of “I Never Forgot!”
The Oxen Playground 