The first panel from page 9 of Hooves of Death.  I drew this three times.  I’m getting into a pattern of allowing myself one re-drawn panel per page.
Maybe the first version shouldn’t “count,” because I just abandoned the entire pass at the page, for reasons not particularly to do with this panel. So I never really finished inking it:
So this was my first “final,” finished version:
I felt that this panel was the weakest on the page for a couple of reasons.  I had totally overdone the shading with all those lines… muddied up the panel and the page. It doesn’t look too bad out of context, but when reduced, it really just turns into a gray mess (I’m drawing this story Golden Age-style, “twice-up.”  In other words, it will be reduced by 50% when printed.
Also, the pose of the central figure was not satisfactory. Â So…
Altogether cleaner with simple black and white shading, and by moving the woman to a side view I could call better attention to the baby in her arms.  I made the guy eating his hat larger, and placed the crawling better so I didn’t have to crop him.  I  had to lose some of the background figures… but a stronger read, I HOPE, especially when it’s reduced.
