comic: signs of spring

Do birds and people experience spring in similar ways? Do we both get a rush of excitement when redbuds open up and spring beauties carpet the woods? I suppose we'll never truly know, but I like to imagine that we have more in common than we think. Read on to learn how I put this together!

the idea

Robins traditionally have been known as a harbinger of spring, but as the climate has changed, so have their migration patterns. They once fled south from the northern states when the cold arrived in autumn, but some are now electing to stay year-round. With robins as our continuous neighbors in Chicago, I picture us greeting the spring ephemerals together while the snow melts. Do they say "hello!" out loud to flowers like we do? If anyone can talk to robins, please ask and let me know what they say.

When I tell my southern California clients and coworkers about the Midwest's harsh winters, they often ask how we get through it. But very few of them have experienced the euphoria when the first warm sunny day finally fights through the bitter cold, green pushes up through brown leaf litter, and all of the world comes to life.

I had the idea for this comic after hiking with my sister in April as we whispered, "wow!" "beautiful!" "look!" to each other in the woods. I later went on a long walk at a city park where I was surrounded by robins, calling to each other as they ran around among the spring flowers. It felt like seeing us two siblings from a different angle, gazing into a feathered mirror.

process

Starting with a rough sketch, I captured the mood and story of the idea. The drawing is unimpressive, but this stage is probably the most important part of the whole process to me.

I love working from my own reference photos, so I searched through my iNaturalist observations for photos of robins and spring ephemerals. I realized that I didn't entirely have the right photos for the comic, which was a great excuse to head outside with my camera. Here are some of the photos that I used.

In the color rough below, I did a quick lineart and color pass. In this stage, I'm testing compositional changes from the sketch and integrating the photo references. I wanted to quickly visualize the final comic without losing the mood of the original idea.

Next, I made fresh final lineart, added details, and cleaned things up. I changed the second frame because the bird's pose felt too repetitive of the third frame to have more variety in their posture. Here's the final!

Thanks for reading!