Chesca Hause
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Making of "Kitchen Hacks"
🕑 Added 2025-04-14 18:30:23 +0000 UTCI find myself watching a lot of kitchen hack videos, which is weird because I don't have much patience for cooking. I just can't stand the idea of spending time on something that's just going to be eaten! 😅 J is a great chef though, so I reassure myself that I'm watching them for HIM, but of course as soon as the video ends, so too has the memory of whatever clever thing it was teaching me -which is where the idea for this comic came from!
I needed a good kitchen hack for the comic, but not remembering any, I had to go look some up! I needed something that would make sense in as few words as possible, with Joel doing something to trigger it. After some searching I found out that you can peel potatoes by dunking them in ice water after boiling them -apparently that makes the skins just fall off!
Funny side story! That evening after researching kitchen hacks, J was lifting some ramekins out of hot water. I'd watched a hack about doing just that, but couldn't remember exactly what the person did. I tried to explain it to J, but it was fractured and useless, to which he said "Ha! You're doing the comic!" So I guess this one is now based on a true story? 😂
Drawing Joel peeling potatoes proved a lot harder than expected! At first I had him standing like this chap, but I just couldn't get the hands looking right!
After multiple failed attempts I found this picture of a man sitting to peel, with his hands at a more forgiving angle:
I moved Joel to sitting, which changed the composition of the panel. Now I needed Fran standing to balance the scene. I channeled my own ridiculousness into Fran's new pose and was really happy how it came out -it's very me! 😂
I changed direction quite late on the 4th panel, having it set the moment she realizes she can't remember, rather than just before. Both expressions were good, but as I'd already just had her looking really excited in 3, it felt right it change it up for 4.
