I can see the influence of decades of scenery painting in these frames for the showdown in my Waterton comic strip. The perspective in the Soap Works in the background is similar to some of the village scenes that I’ve painted over years, except you can’t imagine the principles and chorus breaking into a rendition of On a Wonderful Day like Today with that pall of smoke hanging over the village of Walton.
But, dominating the stage, dressed in black with that stove pipe hat, ‘Soapy’ Simpson makes a very hissable villain. I can picture it now;
SIMPSON: Yes, boys and girls, I’m going to poison every tree in Walton. Ha! ha! Ha!
WATERTON: Oh no you won’t!
SIMPSON: OH YES I WILL!
It’s been a rather mechanical activity producing three almost identical versions of the background but useful practice for me to get myself into the habit of being consistent with colour, line and characters. I look forward to finishing this off tomorrow and dropping the scanned illustrations into the blank frames that I’ve created for the page in Manga Studio.