My initial thoughts for this comic came about after I had drawn Alberto for the first time. I had wondered what sort of films a size toying pine marten would make, and this seemed right up his street. Naturally he would be a fan of those taller than he is, though would never admit it, and is always on the look out for a useful himbo.
Enter in Josh. My initial thoughts had been for a weasel, who has since become Jonty, but the idea of a canine just fit too well (A canine himbo, original). I wanted to give him a laid back, skater look, which mostly came through in the final design I think! He's dumb, sweet, and stinky, the perfect fit for Alberto's ambitions and why he was picked by the pine marten to be the larger subject for his new short film.
I originally had a number of ideas planned, and featured are a few extra pages.
Initially I wanted to include a segment showing the cast being reduced down in size, have them panicking and unable to open the door, but as I thought about it the more it got in the way of the pacing. It wouldn't be so striking a reveal of Josh towering at the door if it was clear what was happening beforehand.
I was a bit indecisive as to how I wanted to depict the walking and for how many pages. I worked at a few possible angles and eventually landed on what you see in the finished product. This included an idea of Josh suspecting something was up and taking a peek back at his foot, where a tiny cast member would try to get his attention but the canine wouldn't see. Again though this felt a bit too much so never made it into the final cut.
I REALLY wanted to do a segment of one of the shrinkees climbing up Josh to reach his nose, wanting to grab his attention. All that would happen though, would be Josh feels a tickle and then ends up letting off a massive sneeze that throws the tiny across the room to god knows where, lost in the carpet. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how they would gain access to Josh, outside of a lengthy sequence showing them hopping onto and climbing his clothes, but it seemed a bit too much. I thought about the stinky dog taking a curious sniff of his paw to work out what that smell in the room was, which would get them onto the nose, but by this point I had already drawn what I felt the final image would be and it just didn't fit in quite well enough (yes, I drew the last page and the looming Josh pages first. I create point A and point B and work out how they get there between them). I'm considering another Audition, so that may make it into the sequel!
I had also wondered about something involving Josh eating milk and cookies per Alberto's instructions and it would have shrunken folk upon both, but I decided that would be a story for another day.
You may also spot a number of cameos in this, all of whom are friends of mine who were more than happy to be shrinkees to be stomped upon!
Hope you all enjoy!