Bittersweet Candy Bowl

Author commentary

Veronica: Ouchie.

Thanks for readinggg!!

I’ve murmured a lot about wanting to change BCB’s style. It’s been a long time coming! There’s many reasons why I’ve made this choice, and I can talk about that now that we’re here.

While I do like the full-colour style that we’ve used from Guest of Honor until today, it was really taking a toll on me. The full-colour style inevitably became more complex over time (I never used to do coloured lineart in Volume Six, for example…) and it became a struggle to keep up with three days a week updates if anything else got in the way, like a book or travel.

It was overwhelming! Any times we had to resort to posting a BCI comic or book exclusive to maintain the update schedule made me feel lazy and incompetent!

As usual, when I come across struggles like this, Souppy tries to find a way to problem-solve. One avenue was finding a flatter.. then prefilling character colours… Eventually we commissioned a background artist to help with backgrounds, and while that did help a bit, the lack of control was eventually driving me a little insane. Turns out I’m a control freak! Inevitably, despite all attempts, I found myself redrawing backgrounds to match my lineart! Sometimes the background didn’t match the foreground and I could not let that stand! So we paid for backgrounds and then I'd redo them again. It was becoming quite unfeasible!

This new style isn't just because I want to make comics faster, mind you. I just didn’t like working in phases. That’s a huge reason I stopped working in watercolours - so much of the process requires working in phases while the paint dries, especially when I used to do coloured lineart. It’s the kind of process that really fatigues me. So I started to get that feeling again - the familiar feeling I got at the tail end of Volume Three and Volume Five, where I wanted to change to a different style.. where I wasn’t really feeling the joy of drawing anymore. I wanted to get that spark again, and that spark usually happens when I shake things up.

And that takes us to now!

I’ve noticed a normalisation of webcomics NEEDING to be in full-colour. We can blame Webtoons for that, of course, we can blame Webtoons for a lot of crappy things that have affected art in webcomics.. but in my case another reason I wanted to change styles was because I love limited palettes! I love monochrome! I think those kinda comics can look REALLY cool!

In some ways I wanna be like.. screw you, Webtoons! Monochrome comics, or comics in limited colours can be just as beautiful! They can be just as awesome to look at! They’re not any less than comics in full-colour! And I want to prove that! I want to rebel against the machine! I want to go against the grain!

There’s something about Volume Two I always return to.. I feel like Volume Two was genuinely the most fun I ever had making comics. I remember switching styles in Volume Three because I felt I had to - like being in full-colour was an “upgrade” to make BCB super serious. Even back then, that was how it felt.

At the time that’s what BCB was graduating to - from my hobby to my full-time job.. from monochrome to full-colour, but my heart always yearned for Volume Two.

But I also know I’m existing in the current webcomics world.. where people EXPECT full-colour.. where webtoons has normalised full-colour.. so I’ve chosen to have my cake and eat it, too!

And so after all that, let me talk about the new style!

This new style is not fully monochrome.. it’s a limited set of colours, carefully chosen. With distinct vibrant foreground colours versus the warmer background colours. Choices were made to keep things bold and clear enough to be readable, but also to give me freedom in conveying the right moods for a comic like BCB.

I want to thoroughly thank Suyari for providing this beautiful palette to us. When Souppy and I attended Comitia 151 early last year, part of our goal was to find inspiration for a new style among all the talented illustrators. And Suyari was an artist I was instantly attracted to — her paintings and books are totally gorgeous. We share an affinity for the same colours, particularly in her blue-green and pink works, so it seemed inevitable I'd reach for her book when doing colour experiments.

And then we asked for her help and she collaborated with us to find the colours you've just seen the current chapter in!

As always, every BCB style change means growing pains… I'll be playing with this style until I finally feel fully comfortable in it. But future chapters will use the same palette!