I’ve been working on the characters for our Nightlight story at the end of the month. Most of the time when I sit down to draw characters, it’s little boys or guys that come out. I can draw those characters and make them feel authentic because I know them. I can tell those stories because they are my story to some degree. When I sat down to make Grace I knew it would be a challenge.
Today’s strip is 100% accurate. I wanted Grace to feel authentic. I wanted her to be a real little girl and I have zero experience with little girls. I have two boys of my own and more often than not my house is packed with 10 year old boys. Tycho gave me a hard time when I told him about all my google searching. “They just wear shoes” like everyone else he told me. I know that girls wear shoes...what I don’t know is what kind of shoes Grace wears. Does she wear flip flops? Boots with tights? I don’t know what kinds of outfits she wears. Is she a hoodie and jeans girl or does she like skirts and dresses? I don’t know how she likes to comb her hair or if she wears any jewelry.
When it comes to designing guys and little boys I can draw on a pretty vast mental library. When it comes to girls, I have to go to the internet. I end up searching for stuff like “tween girl fashion” and “little girl hairstyles”. As an artist I have a pretty ridiculous search history. I've searched for blood splatter, guns of all kinds, knifes, swords and pretty much any other weapon you can think of. I've searched for women in various specific poses and I'm pretty sure I looked for pictures of bombs at one point.
I must be on a dozen different FBI watch lists.
-Gabe out
