The Perks of Translating BD

To those who don't already know this, I started doing some translation work (French to English) last year for a French company that publishes some European BD (that's the acronym for bandes dessinées, French for comic books). It started because one of my favorite French artists (Joël Jurion) had a book that needed a translator, and a creator who knew I spoke native French told me about it. I offered my services to do the translation (which was released as Shameless 2), and I thought that would be the end of it.

Except it seemed that I did a good enough job so they offered me more translation work. About half of it was adult, the other half was more naughty/ecchi without having nudity or explicit sex. One of these books is Witch Memory (for which I translated Books 2, 3, and 4). Those are being compiled into two graphic novels (Volume 1 containing Books 1 & 2, and Volume 2 for Books 3 & 4). Here are some samples of the art style (still in French, I'm afraid) in case you're curious:

What's even more fun is that they've made a (not-yet-released) book that contains some/most of the female characters in the nude. It's called (H)ero(es) (get it?) and I got to translate that. Several of the art pieces had credits, and since I really loved the art style, I decided to reach out to a few of them to see if I could afford ordering commissions from them. I wasn't very lucky until I found Vincenzo Pietropaolo, who did me a solid and accepted to do a version of Alberta for the cover of Chapter 3 that I plan on putting on Gumroad.

It should be noted that I have a very, very soft spot for Italian artists. Old-time readers may remember some very sexy art done by Vincenzo Cucca some years back. It featured two very competitive faeries named Calamity and Jane. My experiences with Italian artists have always been very positive (except that one guy who ghosted me after I prepaid 300 Euros). There's just something about their art style that his the right chord with me. Anyway, this new artist, Vincenzo Pietropaolo, is an amazing pro. When I gave him the basic description of what i was looking for, he sent me a few poses to select from:

I have to admit, I'm not used to that level of involvement in the commission process. Typically, I give the description and wait until the artists give me a detailed sketch. (For fun, which pose would you have chosen?)

I gave him the one that my eye kept going back to (number seven), then he came back with a more detailed sketch.

Honestly, I was expecting a more fleshed out sketch, but then realized this wasn't the "final" sketch, it was yet another validation that this was what I wanted. (He also wanted to confirm that Alberta would be in her pyjamas like the ref I gave him, which I confirmed.) My only note was for the hair to be shorter (shoulder length) since Alberta doesn't wear them this long. That led to the "final" sketch (I thought):

And today, more stuff came out! First, the inks!

You'd think we'd to go final colors from here. You'd be wrong. Flat colors:

I realized I hadn't specified to the artist that this was a medieval setting, so characters don't wear bras or get suntans. That was easily fixed. And thus, the final version:

This, if you recall, is when Alberta is fantasizing about having a penis while Aidan (actually, Heather) is getting dressed.

And that's the process so far. I'm really excited about working with this new artist. Next up, I'll see if he's interested in doing some B&W comic pages, though I fear he may be way out of my budget for those. But who knows, maybe not...

Anyway, I was in one of those moods where I like sharing what my commissioning experience is with you. So here it is. :)

--Jaycee