cross-posted from my website:

for my art class, i've been drawing this secretary character a few times. from the moment i heard that we were going to be drawing a comic for the final project, i wanted to do a story about a boss sending his secretary to plan his dates with his fiancee for him, only for the fiancee to end up falling for the secretary by proxy ("sometimes, my fiance seems so kind and thoughtful, other times, he's as cold as ever! if only i could marry just the kind part of him...") and all the drama that ensued. i was torn between secretary and rich lady yuri and making the boss nicer to enable a polyamorous ending...

and then two separate things ended up happening:

first of all: we ended up doing a drawing exercise for class that i wanted to draw the secretary for, but the randomly chosen theme ended up being "cyclops." not to be deterred, i ended up drawing the secretary too, on a date with her cyclops partner. and i ended up growing very fond of them and editing the draft so that the rich lady was rebuffed with "sorry i'm already seeing someone"

second of all: the reality of the situation caught up with me. in the two weeks surrounding the due date, i had a test, two group projects, final assignments, another assignment for art class due, and final exams. so there was no way i could balance all those, an ambitious story, personal visual exam work, and a healthy amount of sleep.

instead, i ended up redoing the story to be lighter and funnier. instead, the secretary has to deal with a hopeless guy and a sweet girl and their inability to admit their affection for each other despite already being engaged. in the first draft, the hopeless guy was more of a tsundere who sounded harsh but cared... a little too much. like saying there's no need for them to waste so much time prepping for their wedding (because they're practically married already), fighting a guy for bumping into her, and trying to get too many rings for her. in that draft, he was aware of the secretary tailing him and asked her for advice getting things a girl would like, but in the final comic, it's a bit ambiguous whether or not he knows his brother sent her

for some reason though, my attempts at writing tsunderes recently have not been working out. between this, 3/4 spell swap, and a third project i'm planning on making, the tsundere love interest ends up getting replaced or redesigned in a way that removes the tsundereness...

oh well! at least it was a fun time! i really loved figuring out the animation effects for the various speech bubbles and such this time. i've got to try and do that more often!