“Hat” | #36 – January 31, 2025

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Fri JAN 31, 2025

I was in a store awhile back, and had this happen to me, haha. Do you find whenever you only want to browse and don’t wish to be approached, everyone seems to ask if you need help? Conversely, the times you do need help, do you often find it impossible to find anyone who seems free?

I’m nearly certain it’s some type of perception bias, but after the latter happened to me one time, my partner mentioned that he thought the culprit could be my hat. I was skeptical, but the next time I tried to visit this store, I tried taking off my hat before entering. I was approached almost immediately by an extremely helpful individual, who I was very grateful for her expertise. While I cannot say this was 100% due to taking off the hat, I found it internally amusing, haha.

Longer version of this story + original paper sketch + WIP’s of this page in the full post below:

I was in an unfamiliar store, and peering around the aisles. Surrounded by shelves upon shelves of gleaming products wholly unknown to me. I had no idea how to shop at this store, or even where to begin.

The firs time I entered this store – conversely to the majority of the time many people walk-in – I secretly hoped someone would approach me and ask if I needed help. As I thought this – peering hopelessly at the stocked shelves before me, wondering if I appeared as clueless as I felt – I was struck by how often I heard employees asking a multitude of customers if they needed help. As all declined, I could help sheepishly thinking to myself, “I need help!”

I had a previous appointment and couldn’t stay longer in this store, otherwise I might have asked for assistance.

Later, when I recounted this experience to my partner, he thought it was because of my hat. He claimed it made me look “unapproachable.” I was skeptical of this, but considered it.

The next tie I found myself at this shop, I tried again – only this time, I tried walking it with my hand in hand and off my head. To my amazement, as soon as I walked into the store, a very kind person immediately asked if I needed help.

Was it a coincidence? I’m inclined to think so – but, if so, the timing amused me, haha.

I was paging through my sketchbook, and found the sketch for this idea penned down around the time it happened, which was around a year ago. I nearly forgot about it until seeing the sketch again – I try and either write down or sketch out these Duskbirds idea for later, as I often don’t know when I’ll have opportunity to draw and finish every idea. I’m very glad I started doing this, as I have a collection of Duskbirds ideas I’d like to see finished, and I’m sure I would have forgotten nearly all of them if I had not jotted them down at the time.

Because this is one of the ideas that did begin as a physical paper sketch, I thought it’d be nice to include it into this page’s full pose below. I also kept a few work-in-progress steps for this page, which I’ll post below after the paper sketch:

Initial pencil sketch for Duskbirds #36: "Hat"
Initial pencil sketch for Duskbirds #36: “Hat”
First WIP for Duskbirds #36: "Hat"
First WIP for Duskbirds #36: “Hat”

I started this page by arranging the pencil sketch into their respective panels in the digital format.

 

 

Second WIP for Duskbirds #36: "Hat"
Second WIP for Duskbirds #36: “Hat”

Next, I finalized the dialogue and worked out speech bubble placement.

Third WIP for Duskbirds #36: "Hat"
Third WIP for Duskbirds #36: “Hat”

I decided to try something different with this page, and lined it. Which was probably a mistake, as I both ended up not liking how it looked with lines and painted over them, as well as also adjusting the character designs to be more in-line with the typical Duskbirds shape, which also necessitated painting over large parts of the lines. Fun experiment to try, but added more time to the process which wasn’t necessary.

Finished page.
Finished page.

And here’s the finished page once more.

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