Moving forward, I think I'll try to make Monday Night Sketches an official thing. Today, I'm featuring a sketch that inspired a finished drawing:

My notebooks are home to many invented plant and animal species along with variations on existing ones. Sometimes I'll write a little blurb about something after I sketch it. The pod dandelions in the lower left corner above served as the inspiration for this final piece:

Ta-da!

Thumbnails are perhaps the most crucial piece of the comic creation process (at least for yours truly) because they offer a chance to let words and artwork collide on the page for the first time. Like a chemistry experiment, the two components don't always interact in expected ways. Sometimes a particular piece of dialogue will take up way more space than anticipated, or a section that was planned as a single page ends up making more sense as several. In other words, thumbnails offer a chance to goof things up as much as necessary without requiring lengthy do-overs of the final product.

Sometimes, something awesome and unexpected emerges from the carefree spirit of the thumbnail that persists into the final version. On page 22, I liked the two Elementals laughing in the top panel so much that they were added to the final version with only minor changes. Click the images to see full-size:

Page 23 stayed mostly the same, but I fixed the orientation of the watch face in the final version (Skreer, why would you wear a watch where 12 isn't at the top!?) and combined the last two panels into one after thinking over the note I wrote in the margin. Click the images to see full-size:

Hooray for thumbnails!

It's Monday night, which is as good a night as any to post some sketches. Here's a favorite image from an old notebook called Grand Peacock Fish. 

Fun fact:  The circular "eye" shapes on the side and lower fins are partly a collage made from cut out pictures of pizzas. 

Thanks for giving Skyfaux a chance to participate! 

Hi everybody, have some Monday night character sketches!