How It's Made: The Ferrywoman - 8

Today's look is for the last page of "The Ferrywoman." Pencils below:

I have to admit with the pencils I started to get sloppy towards the end of this chapter, not that my pencils aren't usually pretty sloppy to begin with. Ultimately, they're not the final product so I don't want to spend a lot of time detailing things and that's why I think it's fine if they're rough. When I go do the actual high contrast painting, I can fix it then.

Storyboards

Script

FERRYWOMAN Come child

Now that the little girl has departed, we shall take our leave as well.

Let us cross the gulf of time and deliver you home. (she leaves with Tachibana) KAMIKO Yeah, I was never good at... Wait... little girl! Kamiko sees Hana running off into the woods and deeper into the forest. KAMIKO Into the woods we go...

"Into the woods we go..."  That was actually inspired by watching the film version of "Into the Woods." I really liked the first song in the musical and the words continued to resonate with me as I drew this page, and since so much of The Rabbit and the Moon takes place in the woods and even the wolf plays on one of the tropes often seen in a Grimm fairytales.

This version of the script is the third revision of the chapter The Ferrywoman. I almost decided not to do this chapter, and in previous attempts to cut parts of the story down, this chapter was cut a few times. Originally, there was a lot more dialogue between Kamiko and the Ferrywoman and it was twice as long -- hence why it was often considered for chopping. Another reason was that it's really expository in a way. It's a giant conversation piece and it's meant to answer a lot of the questions and concerns I had as the first two acts flowed along. I've been trying my best to show, not tell. I don't intent to hold your hand, so I hope you're able to figure out things on your own, or at least make up the bits that make sense to you.

In the end, I couldn't let The Ferrywoman go -- I wasn't going to kill this darling, but I was going to give it a good haircut. One reason was that I really liked the character of The Ferrywoman and I wanted to introduce her into the story. Another reason why I couldn't chop this story is that the big conversation they have interwines a lot of the previous scenes together and gives the story a thrust forward towards the end.

I'll read through the original script I had and post it on the site later this week -- if it contains no potential spoilers for the end of the story.

I'll also post some more of my character design for the Ferrywoman sometime this week or next and talk about where she came from -- maybe it'll also be good fodder for her cast page.

The next chapter starts the end of this week. See you then.