Thank you Saraaaa 😭🙏

Love Laid Bare has a lot of these big sound effects that are just kind of splashed across the page. These are a particular challenge! English uses more characters than Japanese, so how do I achieve that big punctuation without covering too much? It's like a big jigsaw puzzle.

Also, all of my sound effect lettering is drawn by hand. I think this is getting more common, and using fonts is a great way to go for a lot of works, but I love having the control and customizability of handwriting. Sometimes it can look clunky, but I think that's part of the charm

I really like the way Ouchi Kaeru uses sound effects that blend into the tones in the background, too, so I mimicked that style to come up with similar compositions while prioritizing legibility. This is the page where that shows up the most.

When lettering, there's a constant balancing act of punctuating big emotional beats without overtaking the artwork, mimicking the Japanese, and making it all easy to read with the space I'm given. Ouchi Kaeru combines chunky moji with thin wispy ones, and I wanted to capture that

Love Laid Bare is a wonderfully romantic book by Ouchi Kaeru. Every chapter has an ebb and flow, slowly and quietly building up to explosively emotional love scenes. As a letterer, it's my job to guide the reader's eye along and communicate that same flow with the text.

I think most can agree that even something as simple as a font can affect a reader's experience. For this work, I thought the cute, round, clean Samaritan Tall (with Sara Linsley's Pancake Pen for laughing or giggling) suited the feel of this book best.

Lately I've been putting more thought into small things to communicate the tone from the moment it's pulled off the shelf. This starts with cover design. My editor and I worked to incorporate the Japanese obi seamlessly into the design for a premium feel.

P.S.: If you're voting, you can find it here:
www.fakku.net/hentai/love-...