It's Andy Hirsch

First thing was to come up with a variety of concepts. Spaghetti at a wall, no bad ideas in brainstorming, blue sky solutioneering, you know the drill. This part was totally open ended apart from my personal rule that Opie and Ned had to be given equal prominence. No playing favorites in this house.

Everyone was a big fan of option 16, so I took that basic idea and experimented with different poses for the kids and ways to crop the saloon behind them. You can see that there’s nearly an even split among these between putting the title on the saloon sign or not. It was a concern that with the title on a sign, the book might look like it’s about a saloon called “Varmints” which, well, it’s not. I think our eventual solution works nicely, though.

Option 3 was the winner of that last bunch, and tightening up that sketch let me try to fit some baddies in the doorway behind Opie and Ned. This turned out awfully crowded though, and there’s no good place for the title with that awning right at the top there...

...so let’s try that again. The kid’s are further separated from the saloon, and there’s more space for the baddies to spread out. Plus, title space! It’s getting there, but this could still be better...

Time for another set of options. The top left is the previous rough, and the other three show different poses for Ned, expressions for Opie, and shapes for the saloon’s facade. Also, the saloon is pushed back just a little further.

The last option turned out to be the favorite of that bunch. A more dynamic pose for Ned, a more interesting facade, and expressions that give a clear hint at the difference between the kids’ personalities. Also of note: the middleground dog has been swapped for a friendly donkey. Her name is Maggie, and she’s great. You’re gonna love her.

Inks! No big changes from the last pencil stage. Neater and with the addition of textures and patterns here and there. Inking is my favorite stage because that’s when the art on the page starts to look like the art in my head.

First go at coloring, always the stage that slow me right down. Thankfully I had Hilary Sycamore’s incredible interior colors to give me a starting point. My line art is detailed enough that this didn’t need a lot of heavy rendering. What shading there is largely served to separate the kids from the background, an ongoing concern for this piece. They’re the main characters after all, so they’ve got to be as prominent as possible.

That’s more like it. I cooled down the background and used color holds to pop our heroes as much as they can pop. Plus motion lines because this book is ACTION PACKED. All that’s left is to add Danielle’s fantastic title treatment seen back in the top image.

Look at it go!