It's taken forever to get 9 pages done, but that's because I've been learning. I've been doing alot of learning.

Maeve Colbrun-Lassiter shows Madeline and Juliette the ins and outs of life in the Coastal Swamp in their quest to make a connection between Irene Lassiter and Ada's missing ring.

Click here to read Part One of Heroine Rises Chapter 11: Smoke and Mirrors!

Reflection Commentary

I initially hoped to have this whole chapter out by the end of January but it's the end of February and I have a little less than half of it complete. Hopefully you can tell why it's taken so long. For this chapter I really doubled down on quality control. I found myself taking too many shortcuts that compromised the quality of the comic. I would start hot, adding lots of details and making sure the character's faces were fine proportionally.

As the pages went on and I started to feel the pressure of deadlines that literally no-one but I hold myself accountable for. This led me to compromise on quality and details which had the benefit of getting to that joyous moment where I could press publish on the Chapter announcement post. However, when I went to look back at a chapter, I felt a twinge of disappointment because I know I could and should've done better.

For Smoke and Mirrors, I wanted to ensure that I mitigated that regret the best I could. Of course, since I'm still early in my artistic career, I know there will always be mistakes and that's fine. I'm content with every chapter being better than the rest and that Heroine Rises inches closer and closer to my vision. I'm proud to say that this chapter is the best one - at least until Chapter 12 comes out!

Writing Process Commentary

This chapter was difficult to get right. Honestly, the characters of Lorena, Felix, Maeve, and Irene weren't in the draft of the Heroine Rises. Felix Zuniga was born right before I started Dangers of Serenity! Talk about a late arrival! I got the idea for this Irene Quest storyline after I finished Chapter 2 of Heroine Rises. I added these characters in order to flesh out the story line and start to give a vision of what the 'low-life' of Northern Serenity actually looks like early on. Felix was added as a means to introduce La Faccion and to ensure that Dangers of Serenity wasn't just Madeline talking to Lorena for 24 pages straight. The people demand action (ahem conflict)! I liked how it came out but you can certainly see the rough edges around the chapter's writing since Felix was an 11th hour addition.

So what does all this have to do with Smoke and Mirrors? Well this chapter (as evidenced by the cover) revolves around the elusive Irene Lassiter. Noticing the issues with the 'fight' between Madeline, Juliette, and Felix made me think about how I wanted this chapter to go and forced me to understand exactly what I wanted Irene to reveal not just about herself, Maeve, and the Swamp - but also about Madeline and her team. Throughout the chapters, I knew about Irene just as much as you (the readers) and the characters themselves! Irene's character wasn't fully cemented until now! That makes for an exciting writing process that's really easy to get tangled up. I spent much more time on the writing for Smoke and Mirrors than any other chapter (bar Mother's Concerns maybe).

I think I found a good balance and I hope the character and plot start to smoothen out after relatively rough writing in the first 10 chapters.

I finally got the script to a degree I liked after the 4th rewrite and only then, did I start drawing!

Drawing Process Commentary

I don't like to, but I do try to mix things up. At the start of Heroine Rises, I used thick lines in order to skirt toning and shadows, then I started to digitally tone, then I toned but with a colored pencil. These new pages are toned using Copic Markers! It's been a blast toning with them and honestly, I find them easier to use than the colored pencil, especially for large panels.

That's one new thing.

I also decided to retry digital lettering. After trying (and failing) to get some decent lettering done in Chapter 5: The First Case, I shied away from doing that ever again. Until now! Using Clip Studio Paint, software made for comics, I found the lettering process to yield far better results. I really like it but there's still much to learn. Lettering is it's own art and I hope to continue my road to mastery as time goes on. For a first attempt, I think it came out okay!

Finally, I spent lots of time making sure my pencils were solid enough to ink. No more, 'close enough' and no more 'lazy inking'. I spent lots of time on panels and hopefully it shows!

It won't take this long to make the rest of the pages since I got over that learning curve but be aware that midterms are approaching so... that'll cut into production time.

I want to have Part 2 near completion by the end of March. Then we'll start the next Chapter - titled: The Issue with Mothers.