The Lemon Parade Cougar Girl is another character I have "adopted" from the very talented artist, Sarah Wheeler. I have this character in the "Original Characters Gallery" because I have been given permission by Ms. Wheeler to create her name, personality, and world-- so much about this character is now coming from my mind. If you are familiar with Sarah Wheeler's artwork, you will notice right away that there are some subtle differences in the character design from her original version. I made these changes so that she would be drawn in the same "style" as the original characters in my comic that I am putting her in. Overall, even with the changes I think you can still definitely recognize her as the Lemon Parade girl.
The second thing I think you will notice is that I incorporated her original "Lemon Parade" reference into my storyline. Originally, Sarah Wheeler was inspired to draw this picture after hearing the song "Lemon Parade" by Tonic. The song is about a girl who got picked on while growing up. In my comic, "Lemon Parade" is now the name of her fighter jet. I kept the idea of her being made fun of, however now it is by her fellow pilots instead of by schoolyard bullies. The "Lemon Parade" nose art is part of this, being one of the cruel pranks played on her by the other pilots. ("Lemon" is a term used to describe a bad jet, car, or similar vehicle.)
Another thing that I added to Ms. Wheeler's character was a name, because every character needs one eventually, right? Right now her working name is Second Lieutenant Paula Beaumont. I usually like to think of myself as a fairly creative person, but one thing I have a really tough time with is coming up with names. Good names usually don't just "come" to me, and are often created after hours of brainstorming and drawn out research. This name is no different. "Beaumont" is a French and English (taken from the French) last name, which means "beautiful mountain." Paula doesn't have as romantic of an origin. "Paula" got stuck in my head after noticing it in my WinAMP playlist from the Inspection 12 song "Paula Wasn't Completely Right." The two names sort of work together, however I am still not completely sure if this name will be final.
If you are curious about the details of the drawing, Paula is wearing an early 1950's USAF flight suit, which I modeled off the one worn by F-86 Sabre ace Captain James Jabara. The plane she is sitting on is her Lockheed F-80C "Shooting Star," America's first combat jet fighter. The aircraft in the background is a North American F-51 "Mustang," which is famous for shooting down more enemy aircraft in WWII than any other plane. They were still used as interdiction aircraft during the Korean Conflict. Itazuke Air Base in Japan was home to the F-80 Shooting Stars and F-51 Mustangs of the 8th Fighter-Bomber Wing of the 5th Air Force during the opening hostilities of the Korean War. As you can see, I have studied the time period of my comic extensively!
As with my previous drawing of Amity, with this drawing I suffered serious problems with my inking pens. I had bought a brand new Nestler Techliner 05 and a Pigma Micron 05, which both soon became dead once I started using them. This distressed me terribly, and for a while I gave up on the inking because I had no working 05 pens to finish it with. A few hours later I finally decided to finish inking the work with my trusty never failing ZiG Millenium 08. I have more Millenium pens being ordered through a local store for me, but I am having a hard time holding out. In the mean time I have concluded that all of the "new" pens I have been buying at my usual art supply store must be ancient, for they even look slightly different than some of the ones I have seen sold at other stores. Before I start another drawing I am going to buy another Micron pen from a different store. Screw "The Paintin' Place!" Despite the never ending frustration, this drawing turned out very well. I went a little overboard with the drawing's size though because in the end it turned out to be too large for my scanner bed. The little bit I cropped wasn't neccessary anyway. This drawing also took a lifetime to color, and I had to really practice to try to mimic the color and look of Sarah Wheeler's original Lemon Parade Girl. I hope you all like the drawing, and I can't wait to show you all what I have in store for this character's future!
The pencil work was done on 80lb. Strathmore meduim-surface drawing paper with a Sanford Non-Photo blue pencil. I then inked it with a combination of several pigment ink pens. It was than cleaned up and darkened in Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7.02. I then printed it out on standard Georgia-Pacific FAX/Copy paper and colored it with Crayola colored pencils. The lettering and gradient was done with Paint Shop Pro 7.02.
All text and original multimedia is © 2002 Daniel Keller. All other information is copyrighted by their respective owners.