[ Fanart ] Second Encounter - Joy versus Murderous Intent

I guess this would be my first post of this kind instead of the simplicity I intended to post more often.

Also a kind disclaimer: Yes, the script for these comics are in Japanese. Don't worry, I have translations. And no, I only happen to know it to a certain degree. I would love to start taking JLPT exams when I can afford them, of course.

Rough translation:
"You came~ Eheheh~ You came~"
"Oh noes, Miss Air Defense is so scary~."

Insert cheesy caption here: A vicious clash between two enemies who made their debut on a certain Summer, crossing each others' paths again on a fateful Autumn.

And an extra panel for no reason other than trying to tickle some funny bones.

Rough translation:
"Hey... it's been a while... so... how about a kiss...?"
"Wha--!?"
"No! Stop that!"

So to start describing the context of this particular short comic, this is actually a fan work (read: derivative artwork) of the Japanese browser game Kantai Collection. The game holds events four times a year according to season, and in one of these seasons I started playing it, and braved myself through the game's final stage of the event as a starting player, and was faced with an enemy boss that would soon show how unforgiving the game is for me.

I finished the event as the loser, of course, and this one boss made me remember her till today - until an opportunity finally presented itself to me again so that I can have another bout with this one boss.

I tend to approach the game as if I am doing some sort of role play, and when we talk about role play there's what we call 'fluff' - material written as background for the role play, so yeah. My persona here is depicting the player entity of the game (in which it's usually up to the player to imagine - it's not integral to the game per se) and this character he's having a bout with is the so-called boss, enter Air Defense Princess. (Disclaimer: The player entity does not directly engage in battles with enemies. It's what you call a 'collect characters who are anthropomorphic representations of WWII warships'. It's that kind of game. Do the math.)

Now, explaining bits about this game will take too long and I am not too interested on dwelling more about it (seriously, don't ask) so I'll just get started on my "Making Of" processes here.

My current platform of choice to draw these comics would be the Medibang Paint application. It is available for free at its official website, do give it a try.

The interface of the program.

Then I start with a rough sketch layer for each, which looks something like these before the next step (in order to save space, I am showing progress for all of the panels at once):

The next step I did was to make and refine the outlines. Ignore the hatchings on the 2nd panel because it was supposed to be the step following this one done there by mistake. I also decided to have some fun with the 2nd panel and made a third one for the laughs.

Following that, I added a bit detail by using line shading.

This would be the final step before I start moving on to some other extra things: half-toning the panels.

Next is the addtion of some special effects for them.

And after that I will typeset each of them, and you can see the end result by looking at the final product as shown above.

That was lengthy even when I took shortcuts to explaining my methodology, however I hope that's enough information to be imparted.

Have a nice day.