Nerd Becomes a Babe 2 (Patreon)

What's better for December than cuddles by the fireplace? A sequel to a comic from a few years ago: page 1, page 2, page 3 . The commissioner wanted to find out what the future holds for our happy couple.

Hope you enjoy! Some process sketches, thoughts and reference follow.

The main challenge of this piece was matching my work from 2 years ago, specifically the protagonist's likeness. My older work is a great example of Sameface Syndrome, it's like I was drawing the same cosplayer in different getups :P

Ironically, in the original A Nerd Becomes a Babe, I somehow managed to make the protagonist look like somebody different in every single page:

Notice her nose, which is small and points downwards in the first image, develops a pronounced bridge in the second and ends up pointing upwards in the third. 

To be fair, there are some shining exceptions to Sameface Syndrome in my older work:

I've been actively working on diversifying my characters.  I try to vary nose and head shapes and I want to develop a larger gamut of eyes and distances between facial features. WWBtB helped a lot by requiring me to draw a large, distinct cast consistently over several pages (and months!). The facial feminization of the final few rounds threw me off, but I'm happy with it, overall. I'm especially proud of how unique everyone looked in the beginning. 

My first solution for Nerd to Babe 2 was to ignore the last two pages of the original comic, and exclusively reference her "frumpy" pre-transformation form. Here's what my first sketch looked like:

The commissioner preferred something more faithful to the first comic both pre and post-TF. Here's my shot at bridging that gap, mainly based on page 3 of the original:

While arguably more accurate, it lacks the "personality" of my first attempt. The client agreed and helpfully shared that they specifically wanted this look:

So I copied that onto my canvas and traced it to get the following:

Once again, the resemblance is there, though, by placing all her features so carefully, some of my first sketch's looseness and spontaneity was lost. 

After some more tweaking, we decided to move both variations forward to inks. Normally, I wouldn't proceed without finalizing the pencils, but the commissioner had already paid for an extra step: a pre-pregnancy alternate version of image 2:

We both agreed it didn't add much, so we went ahead with two versions of her face, instead. We also both preferred the pre-transformation face from my first sketch, so we returned to that. Ultimately, we agreed on the version to the left, below: 

I'm happy I was able to create a satisfying result while maintaining continuity. As for the rounder face, it ended up inspiring Dr. Ellie Katzopoulos in Gratitude (which I drew a few weeks later).

Hope you enjoyed and found this interesting! Here's some of the reference material I used: