Melon and Lime Comics – Pizza Conspiracies

In this week’s comic, me and Liam were having a conversation about the price and sizes of pizza, in which he had told me that the price of a 10″ pizza was the equivalent to half of a 14″. At this moment, I had not read him properly, (this was a conversation over text) and thought that he was saying that a 10″ and 14″ pizza had the same area, so because he was so adamant when I was telling him he was wrong, I did the math and was getting frustrated, until I reread his message where he had said HALF of a 14″ pizza was the equivalent of a 10″.

So, already frustrated with the conversation, especially having to do math for no reason, I wanted the conversation to just end and swap to something new. But Liam had other points to still discuss, as he felt (and I agreed with, but the laws of math were not on our side) that surely a 10″ pizza should be half of a 20″ pizza. Which started him explaining his conspiracies that the pizza companies are against us, a couple of days later, this being the subject of our new comic.

In this piece, I have shown our conversation in the present time, showing Liam’s enthusiasm and my lack of interest to the subject. In the second frame, I have then shown the both of us as elderly characters, the kitten Wednesday is still in my lap 60 years later, but is older. In my mind, he will outlive the both of us and this is not up for debate! And 60 years from now, I still see Liam bringing this subject back up in conversation, and myself still being sick of the subject, but in this time, he is even more adamant that the pizza companies are against us, as he has more elderly man rage (‘get off my lawn’ whilst waving his walking stick at children type of energy).

I was happy to work on this piece, as I feel I have tried to play around with backgrounds and scenery more. In the background of the second frame, I have drawn a fireplace with photos and ornaments scattered across the mantlepiece, for this, I had taken inspiration from my Grandmas home, which was similar to this setup, but I have exaggerated some of the elements. I had also added in rocking chairs, which myself and Liam have already agreed that we are purchasing as soon as we live together, we really are already old at heart, and behind them, I have also added in a zimmer frame for myself, then a walking stick hanging on the arm of Liam’s chair.

Although I was very happy with the background, it did seem to become slightly problematic when it had come to adding in the text. To overcome this problem, I had selected all of the layers for the background, then copied the selection as merged, then pasted them back into place. Now with the one layer, I had dimmed down the opacity, enough so that it was still visible, but still allowed the text to stand out. To help a little more, in a separate layer underneath the text, I used a watercolour brush in photoshop, (as it would give a softer approach, as to a quite harsh highlight of the text) then I started to build up a white base to make more contrast between the background and text.

If you like this comic and would like to see more, please have a look at our Instagram @MelonandLimeComics. We appreciate any and every like or follow we get. Thank you!

Melon and Lime Comics – Biggest Fan

This comic is based on a recent event, in which I had gone to see Liam in a play called ‘Education, Education, Education’. He had performed so well in this play, making everyone laugh, there were even moments when myself and his sister couldn’t stop laughing, sometimes at inappropriate moments, which we had apologised afterwards, but I was so proud of him and said so in detail after the play, in which he replied with a simple ‘Thank you’.

It has been a concept of ours for a while to create a comic about our talents, but we could never think of a way in which best to design it so that it was not too cringy or too braggy about ourselves.

So, with this comic, I had shown my experience with his show, then compared it to when Liam had come to my exhibition, which I believe was a similar experience but roles were reversed, him being proud of me, and my response of a modest ‘thank you’.

I did have worries if this comic would fit within our work, as it is not as humorous as our previous comics have been. However, Liam had reassured me that our comics our about relatability, and shows that as a couple we do support one another, we are essentially each other’s biggest fans, which I agree that other couples would be able to relate to.

When designing this comic, I did have struggles with anatomy. Although our characters are more cartoony and not exactly anatomically correct, I did struggle with certain poses, especially in the 3rd and 6th frame, trying to express the emotion of excitement and modesty/shyness of the characters. I believe I did get the characters to a place that I’m ok with, but anatomy and poses will definitely be something that I will have to work on whilst producing these comics, as I do want my characters to be able to communicate a specific emotion from their poses, as well as their expressions.

If you enjoy this comic and would like to see more, please have a look at our Instagram @MelonandLimeComics, we appreciate any likes or follows that we get! I have also made a couple of blog posts about some of the newer comics, so if you would like to know more about the thought processes behind them, and how they have come to life, feel free to check those out too. Thank you!

WE’RE BACK! Getting Back into Comics

Melon and Lime comics has been on a bit of a break whilst both me and my partner have gotten back into the swing of college but now, WE HAVE RETURNED! With a comic that gives a bit of an update as to what we’ve been up to whilst we’ve been away.

I’m so excited to get back into the flow of working on new comics again. We aren’t necessarily going to have a set day in which we will post as of yet, as we don’t want to make any promises we can’t keep, however, we will be attempting to create at least one comic per week.

If anyone reading enjoys this piece, we have more content on our Instagram @MelonandLimeComics, so please have a look, we promise there will be more content coming soon, now that we’re back into the rhythm of college, maybe? NO PROMISES! But we’re gonna try! We also plan to create a zine or book over the year, which we plan to release sometime in June next year, so keep an eye out for that too.