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maiji · 6 years

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Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs (Parts 9 and 10 - completed)

Previous process and wip documentation: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Parts 6 and 7 / Part 8

Read the pages here: Part 9 and Part 10 (full complete version is linked from YYH North Bound master post)

Hard to believe this is finally done! Long Limbs nets out at 108 pages including the cover, plus some extra drawings (and also a whole other comic and other illustrations I did in between the various parts). Here’s a summary:

Part 1: timestamp on final images posted are Dec 16-17, 2017 (11 pgs)

2: Dec 23, 2017 (10 pgs)

3: Jan 8, 2018 (10 pgs)

4: Jan 20, 2018 (12 pgs)

5: Feb 3, 2018 (14 pgs)

6: Feb 24, 2018 (12 pgs)

7: Mar 3, 2018 (6 pgs - would have been completed/posted with part 6, but was getting too long)

8: Mar 17-18, 2018 (13 pgs)

9: Jun 3, 2018 (10 pgs)

10: Jul 8, 2018 (10 pgs)

Based on the above, I should have been able to draw the comic in less than 8 months, even considering how slow I generally work and how frequently I get distracted by other things (Genjimonogatari series, the Hokushin Boyfriend project, etc. etc.). As you can see, I took a very conscious break to focus on other things (mainly Now Recharging, work, and conventions) after Part 8.

For this final behind-the-scenes, I’ll start as usual with script and thumbnails. Then I’ll do an overview of the main changes with a particular focus on opportunities and challenges that arise from having taken such a long break, and close with a quick look at the original story idea for comparison to where things ended up.

Script

Thumbnails

That text in the script about “writing like serpents” should be “WRITHING like serpents”... sigh. Doesn’t really matter since in the end they just hang there all chillaxed on Hokushin lol

(Also as you can see, I voted in the Ontario elections!)

Main changes

The best thing about taking long breaks on a project is that it really gives you a fresh set of eyes and more objectivity when you come back to it. It helped a lot with editing - ditching stupid things, stripping out pointless dialogue, and finessing phrasing.

Originally there was more conversation between Raizen and Hokushin when they reunite - but it was mainly explanations from Hokushin (e.g., “OMG this guy is keeping rokurokubi body parts in the house, we gotta find him blah blah blah”) but then I was like, who the heck cares, we already know what happened. Skip and just show the end result.

Originally the Collector was fleeing from the house after Raizen appeared. When I came back to it, I thought this was pointless and kind of disjointed, so I just had him outside the house and then being surprised that his shikigami was gone, so that Raizen’s presence would be more of a surprise.

In the confrontation with the Collector, Hokushin originally spoke directly to the psychic in a manner similarly condescending to how the man had been speaking to him. But when I reread it, it didn’t feel right for Hokushin’s personality. In the final version, he simply doesn’t deign to address the Collector at all, and instead speaks only to the dead rokurokubi.

Raizen’s final line gave me a super hard time, and went through several iterations from what’s in the script to what you see on the final page. I literally made the final decision on the wording while scanning.

The downside about taking long breaks on a project is that you really have to work hard to restart your motivation.

Also, I forgot how to draw the Collector and I had to keep looking at old pages lol... Actually, this always happens to me with things I designed. My problem is that I’m too lazy to make proper references for myself. (I have this problem with Now Recharging too lol)

Part 9 final pagination and thumbnails are pretty close - I mainly stretched out the part where Raizen’s aura takes the Collector down to the ground for less choppy pacing.

Part 10 pagination is essentially the same, but the panelling on each page changed a lot more. There was too much action and too many hands and just a mess all around with my poor planning skills. I really dragged this part on for a long time because I didn’t want to draw the hands...

Part 9 last page had some cropping done. Below is the original:

You’ll notice the final version is much more closely cropped. Zooming in created stronger visual impact to me and just worked a lot better in terms of how the moment is framed.

Part 10 page where Raizen tells Hokushin his auro has grown stronger - I actually started this page with everything facing the opposite direction (e.g., Hokushin facing the right instead in the panel where he is praying, and in the last panel) but then swapped it. I still can’t decide if I actually prefer this orientation or not. But it’s done now so WHO CARES

The original story idea

What I had jotted down about 1 year ago:

Idea: human taxidermist who collects demons, does “tests” on them, then kills and stuffs them

Hokushin stumbles upon it somehow and the human wants to add him to the collection because male rokurokubi are so rare

He mimics the human’s voice to trick servants into releasing him?

Use of blood seal paint to bind limbs so that Hokushin can’t extend them - and maybe also prevent him from speaking too since the mark is on his next

Raizen saves him or something lol

Then Hokushin eats the taxidermist

It’s funny to go back and see what stayed the same and what evolved over the course of working on the story.

I don’t remember where the taxidermy idea originally came from. My guess is I was trying to make this as potentially horror as possible, likely from memories of reading Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service or something. But then the whole idea of taxidermy during the Kamakura period became a huge research problem (basically I couldn’t find anything I felt like I could work with, and TBH was rather unrealistic anyways... although this whole thing is technically unrealistic), and I dropped it.

Otherwise, you can see the core components are in place - a human who collects demons, the significance (rarity) of male rokurokubi, the blood seals, the mimicry, Raizen’s rescuing, eating the human at the end. It definitely went through quite a bit of thinking and reworking before it settled into what it is right now, mostly (I think) for the better.

Thanks so much for following along! Hope you guys found this documentation at least a little interesting and helpful for your own creative works :D

#yu yu hakusho #comics #fanart #hokushin #wip #process #drawings #art by Maiji/Mary Huang #making comics #yyh north bound

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