I'm really wondering what this girl is after now. This guy is a jerk to her, lets her go hungry, leaves in the morning without her, and doesn't have the patience to give her the time of day, but she still persists? That grin she gave when he was heading to town has me especially worried!

Now I know you said you do this with pens and pencils, then darken and frame in post, but may I ask about how you start your pages? Do you lay out the entire page with sketches, or do you do them in pieces then assemble the pages and bubbles after?

It will eventually be revealed what Rune is after later on in this Chapter. I'm going to ballpark it and say maybe in another 10-15 pages.

The pages are done as a whole with nothing pieced together. I usually plan out first how I want the panels arranged and then draw up all the panels with nothing in them. After that I do some basic sketches in each panel but the end result is usually a lot different than the sketches I do at this point (though not always). Then I go and change the sketches in the panels into their more finalized form. I try to leave a bit of space for where I want the bubbles when I'm sketching but if I end up changing the sketch I just go and erase a bit of whatever is in the panel to draw in the bubble. I'm getting into the habit now of writing the text first and putting the bubble around it so it doesn't look quite as cramped.

Hope that answers your question. I know sometimes I get kinda jumbled up with explaining things.

Townsfolk aren't very friendly, huh? Guess Dalken would fit right in.

Dalken would fit in just fine as long as he doesn't get into any trouble himself.