Sperel Escape - photo comic

I wasn't sure whether to categorize this piece in Comics, Photography, or Plushies... so it ended up here!
Digital Art - check!
Mixed Media - check!
Fantasy - more or less, yes!

There are a couple old steam engines and train cars in my home town that served quite nicely as the 'factory' environment for this photo shoot. Had fun crawling underneath and climbing around these trains with the sperels, looking for the most interesting areas to place and photograph them.

Initially, I was only aiming for some good single-shot product photos, but in reviewing all of the photos, I realized that several of them worked well together in forming a narrative of the sperels' story (which involves them escaping from an oppressive life in an underground factory).

Panels #1 & #2 have warming filters; panel #3 has a bit of color adjustment + green overlay added to it. Also duplicated the panel #1 layer (perhaps multiple times? - can't remember), added motion blur and changed the blending mode of the duplicated layer(s?) to give it that 'foggy' appearance.
Panel #4 was shot on train painted in very vivid green, so color adjustment was necessary to give it a more industrial look.... Panel #3 uses a bit of cheating to make the 'bridge' and surrounding 'set' look more immense than it actually is.

The last panel originally featured a photo of me with the sperels, and the whole piece was used as a promo to announce our appearance at a comic convention, but I have since changed the last panel to give the piece more of an introductory feel....
And we've recently printed out the whole thing in the form of a vinyl banner to bring along and set up at conventions and street festivals!