Paint by numbers

The latest painting is entering the final stages. Hooray! I'm not in my favorite "trace over everything" stage, where I tighten things up to make them ultra snazzy. I still have some details to figure out, but the final will look a lot like what you see above.

The big decision is figuring out the background. I'm mulling over two choices: A very pale yellowish color, and 50% gray, which I purchased after I noted my lack of it for the LAST painting. To be honest, I prefer the white background, but that would need some touches to keep it from being boring - meaning a lot of underpainting and, uh, overpainting... and paint is expensive!

To Flanderize or not to Flanderize...

Ahh, Flanderization! It can lead to glory or could lead to cheapness. In the right hands, maybe both?

Anyone who has read through my archives knows I'm big on the Flanderizing, making all my supporting characters pop in pre-Flanderized. I did this on purpose, to give you a cursory, bullet-pointed summary of THIS IS WHO THEY ARE AND THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE ALL ABOUT!!! I figured introducing them and driving home the characteristics would help readers get into the story. Was this good or bad, I dunno - but it WAS on purpose!

So now I'm about to introduce Vincent in Copper Road - and he's a character I can seriously Flanderize. I think I'm going to go ahead and do it, but it makes me feel guilty - like I'm forcing it something fierce. (Maybe I am.) The humor of Vincent so far is that he's been languishing in obscurity... so to make him suddenly burst forward and be all aggressive is taking him to new and awkward heights!

It's going to be cheap, and I admit that... but maybe it'll also be funny?