granny-fairies – Lunamatic

Ah, Don’t Be Wriggling!

The caterpillar cried, 'Closer!', and the ladybird obliged, picking it up and zooming over to the lonesome child. 'Ah, don't be wriggling', she said, because the caterpillar was always a ball of nervous energy.

Page 4 of my comic, which only took a hundred years. Passive-aggressive invertebrates to the rescue!

All Alone

She was all alone in the meadow, but closely observed by a nosy caterpillar and an ungainly ladybird.

Page 3 of my comic, no dialogue, but a super bendy worm provides some narration.

The comic page is presented here in png format, but over on the comic site, Emma and the Granny Fairies, it’s an SVG.

Child Rearing

Once, there was a child in need of rearing.

Page 2 of my not-really-a-comic-more-of-a-series-of-illustrations comic, about a little girl and her mischievous grannies. Of course, we haven’t really met them yet, the scene is still being set.

The comic page is presented here in png format, but over on the comic site, Emma and the Granny Fairies, it’s an SVG.

Once

Our story begins on a grassy island in a turquoise sea; once.

Once upon a time there was a web developer who desperately wanted to make a webcomic, but got distracted by redesigning the comic site eight times. One day, she eventually got around to properly making the first page, and here it is.

The comic page is presented here in png format, but over on the comic site, Emma and the Granny Fairies, it’s an SVG.

SVG Grid

An SVG illustration, with a grid overlaid on top of it to allow for the easier positioning of hand-drawn vectors

Ever since Aviary took their lovely online tools down, including my beloved Raven, I’ve been searching for a suitable replacement. Inkscape, the best of the open source options doesn’t support some of my transforms or use xlink, while Illustrator, the best of the paid options can’t always handle my tidy nested layers*. What to do?

Today, a really extreme notion occurred to me: I should draw in Notepad++. “That’s madness!” I hear you say, and maybe it is, but I’ve optimised many of my old Raven SVGs using just a text editor and a browser to view, and I think I can do it.

With this crazy announcement, I now present my first concession to convenience, the grid. This will help me to assess coordinates, and draw my characters onto their backgrounds. Isn’t it tidy? Pixel precision in action.

*Also I’m way too cheap to give them over seven hundred euro, just for one program. Feck off, Adobe.

Emma in Pixels

Here is a happy jumping girl made out of pixels.

Puddle Jumper

She’s just waiting til your back is turned

This is Emma. Don’t be fooled by her angelic smile, she’s planning to go jump in the biggest muddy puddle she can find the moment you turn your back.

The Chocolate Biscuit Bribe

Granny Snap baits the grindstone with cookies

You know…if you get your comic finished tonight, there might be a chocolate biscuit in it for you. But you better hurry, there aren’t many left…

The Squint of Disapproval

Granny Snip has her worst disapproval face on

Granny Snip is not impressed that you spent all day faffing around instead of finishing your comic.

Sorry Granny, I had a few technical hiccups.

Yes, but you also had a two-hour nap, didn’t you?

Lonely

Emma is lonely, and why wouldn’t she be, out in the middle of nowhere like that

Page one finally goes up! Gah, why didn’t anyone warn me it would be so much effort to make a webcomic! Really, it’s been through three different style changes, and four website redesigns at this point. Maybe I should stop being so fussy about every little detail, and just try to actually produce something.

So, the story begins with a little girl called Emma sulking away and feeling lonely. She really should be careful what she wishes for though…