Renato has his finger on the pulse of a successful fund-raising campaign. But, the plan may be too extreme for poor idealistic Bentley. He wanted to fight obesity in frogs and have the “Green Go Lean” but he hadn’t counted on using the “Lean to Extort The Green”. In the meantime, not much is getting done to solve Monroe’s homeless problem and the frogs have been way too quiet. See you on Thursday.
Developing Characters
It is always fun to share behind the scenes materials, so I thought you might enjoy seeing some early development sketches of two major characters who will soon be showing up in Bug Pudding. These two characters are actually bugs, yes, there are actually bug characters in the Bug Pudding community. Their names are Agile and Fatz. I won’t give away too much about these characters except to say that their early visual development was strongly influenced by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
One of the first things that I do when starting to develop a character is to draw facial expressions that begin to capture their personality. It helps me to decide if the design will be strong enough to support the character when they come to life in the comic. You can never draw a character enough. The more you draw them the more they evolve and the faster they take on a life of their own.
I can’t show these sketches of “the boys” without crediting my long time friend and collaborative associate Marty Bish, who has had significant influence on their evolutionary development. They were originally envisioned for an animation series and who knows they may get there eventually.
A Helping Hand
I had a lot of fun with this one, particularly the last panel with Bentley upended. We are beginning to learn a little about Renato. Not only is he fast moving, he is showing signs of being light fingered and a bit devious. But, Renato is basically a good guy; the real villains as well as some of the other major characters haven’t shown up, yet. Stick around and watch the Pudding thicken.