Ugh. Sorry that took so long. What a nightmare. After a ridiculous number of false starts, and failures, and despair, and online classes/tutorials, and more false starts, I feel like I’ve kinda got my head wrapped around this background painting thing. I’m going to call this page a learning mistake, and move on. Don’t get me wrong – I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out, but I can’t ever again let myself get mired down in this sort of spiral of perfectionistic self-indulgence. The problem is, I can see it in my head so clearly! Unfortunately, I was only ever a pencil sketching kinda guy – I’m sorry Mrs. Aves, Mrs. Pollice! I should’ve paid more attention to that color wheel stuff in art class!

Two more pages to go in this chapter!

Cheers! Missed you guys!

(And I just couldn’t help myself! Hopefully, my inclusion of the Kodama in that last frame will be viewed as an homage rather than a ripoff!)