Some of My Settings/Background Clean-up Work

I'm finally working on the speech bubbles and shading but I'm still not done with my background/setting studies. 

Here is one of my more recent, complicated but fun settings to clean up.

Here is my carnival settings study sheet in its original format. 

I needed readability, visibility, and that sense of fun when one takes in the appeal of an amusement park/fairground.

Since this will be a study sheet I can refer to while I draft the scene/chapter/episode, I'll start with the larger, Pizza stand, and rewrite the text box. 

Also worked on the Corn dogs and the Nachos sign. Replaced wording of Soda and Pop cans for the cans as imagery instead. On both sides of the French fries sign, soda pop cans are more visible than their words seen from below. 

I like how nicely the nachos and chips sign came out! But my pizza sign was the most difficult but fun as well! Also added to the text box outside it.

The Cold Drinks and Lemonade signs are already being cleaned and edited. 

3D signs such as the Popcorn box and Lemonade cup also need fixing. I am straightening both French fries/Tater tots and blank marquees.

Final piece! The Ice cream booth has been corrected to be 3-dimensional, more Sundae float and ice cream in cone on signage more visible. I added a wafer design behind the uppermost ice cream 3D image at top. I erased a few lines on the large Ice creams and on popcorn in box to make both foods look creamier or fluffier. 

Lemonade sign has off-border art of lemons, redid french fries typeset, smiley-face corndogs drawn in, make other wording on pizza, ice cream, corn dog, cold drinks, lemonade, and nacho/chips wording more readable. Straighten out booth windows, fix sign-flaps, and make popcorn box wording more distinct. 

Only the corn on the cobs, marquees, and the lemonade cup had the least amount of changes. Just cleaning of sketched linework.

As the artist, I also did not want to clean or wipe away too many of my original pen strokes because I wanted to leave an almost homemade and amateur painting to these signs as they are often made by regular local artists or the folks running the booths themselves.  

I hope you enjoyed this post. I've been busy working on a commssion and preparing the webcomic for its other-platform debuts! Look for it! 

If you want actual step-by-step pics of this process, you may go to my Insta at: www.instagram.com/handdrawnbycarmenjr

Thanks again, dear readers.