A few weeks ago I switched from drawing this story on Bristol board with pencil to drawing it straight into Photoshop from a scanned page of "thumbnails". As much as I like the loosey-goosey look and rich texture of the pencil drawings, I much prefer the speed and flexibility of drawing digitally, as well as the punch of the thicker line weights I can use for outside edges (what some inkers refer to as the "contention" line).
So, to make the story consistent visually, I'm going to go back and obsessive-compulsively re-work the first twenty-eight pages. Funnily enough, this is exactly what happened to me when I was starting Fantastic Life, except that time I was almost fifty pages in when I decided to re-do it all, and it took me six months!
The Rough Pearl will be back in September (by the way, since it won't be "in roughs" anymore, I may change the title. I'm thinking of calling it The Double Slit. Whaddaya think?). In the meantime, The Moon Prince will still be coming out every Friday and I'll continue to post various art pieces and "process" stuff.
In fact, here's a quick process animation for the most recent page of The Rough Pearl, showing my new workflow: scribbly thumbnails on typing paper, followed by a loose first pass in Photoshop, and then a second "tighter" version on a new layer, topped off by some blue color:
