GothyBeans

It is with mixed feelings I announce that the Beans are going to have a face-lift.
Having developed their designs across several years, since starting things have become a lot clearer, initial design mistakes are more apparent… And to be honest I’m getting a bit tired of working with the same images again and again.
With this revamping of the characters I can also leave in a higher level of flexibility. We can even have Beans moving, bending and shifting. The characters will be the same old Beans we’ve known for the past two years and more, but a little less static, and more consistent, art-wise.

Now, these rough drawings aren’t 100% accurate of the finished redesigns. For example, Mugger will have a variety of tail poses, Laurie’s hair won’t be black (I needed it to be in the drawing so I could work out where it was going) and Mr. D will most likely not keep the pupils I drew.

He probably won't keep those pupils. Very probably.

Mugger will have a variety of tail poses.

Unfortunately, redrawing the entire cast is going to take a fair amount of time, along with converting them to files I can work with to create strips. I don’t plan on releasing them into the comic until the entire cast is finished, because it would look a bit weird.
If you miss the old look, you can always go back and look through the archives of comics already on the site. I predict that the new look probably won’t be ready before the 200th strip. That would be a nice celebration, though.

At the moment, finding the time to complete the initial sketches and decide if I want to keep them will probably take a back seat behind consistently updating the strips again, finishing my college work, and making sure I eat regular meals.

Martin, Andrew, Funny Bunny, H.B the Kitten and the Tiny Vampires will not be redrawn, as I created them with a much more flexible structure and art consistency.

Of course when looking at these pictures, you must remember that I’m not very good at hand-drawing things as they will appear on the computer screen. It’s easy to think they look a bit odd (and I do) but have some faith that without outlines, they will look a lot better.

Milo let his hair grow a bit.

On the whole it’s not a massive change, but it needed doing before I spend many more hours of my life working on the strip. GothyBeans in itself isn’t changing or ending any time soon.

Some characters will change more than others.

Laurie and the Janitor I have always found pretty visually boring, but for example Eugene and Mr. D are already how I’d like them to be.

I gave Mr. D a tie because he owns a business, and I thought he’d like a tie. Other than reworking him to be more flexible, I don’t know whether Eugene will change much at all.

I've always thought Laurie deserved to look a bit more feminine.

If you hate or love the idea, do give me a shout, either in the comment section, or our forum.

Happy 2010!

± GB