Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Eldritch: Lessons 039



Aaaand, the chapter ends right where it started, geographically speaking.

Well guys! I cut it close this week (Crazy stuff happened, sorry about the derp!faces.) but somehow, we’ve all made it through a third chapter! Next week I will upload the cover to the new chapter, and two weeks from now, the storyline resumes! Thank you guys so much for sticking with me the past few years. I mean… while preproduction started long before the first page, Eldritch started in early 2009. Where did the time go, guys?

And since we made it this far, that means that it’s… actually time for me to start looking into getting this self-published somehow. Egads, that means I have even more research to do. *Collapses* Don’t worry though… I’ll still be keeping this stuff up here, if I get it self-published. Though… there will be some extra content that won’t appear here.

Well guys catch you all next week!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Eldritch: Lessons 038



I honestly don’t know who I feel more sorry for, Faith, or Jay.

You know, Jay is one of a few characters that took over the jobs of characters that never made it to final development. There were several characters that I wanted to include, but, well… Their roles could be handled just as well, or better by other characters. Jay was at one point going to have another worker back in the storage room named Colin… but, I found that paying more attention to one character rather than two worked better for development. So, the two got merged into one.

In fact, until very, very late in development, I’d planned on having a harpy named Bobby be a main character. I liked him a lot, but, much as I tried, he wasn’t going to work, especially when Maggie and Todd could perform the same roles he did. So, he got demoted. Maybe someday when I’m rich (Like that’ll ever happen) and don’t have to do things like worry about supporting myself, I’ll make a spin-off comic about him XD

Bah… I should go to bed soon. I have to be up to go to work in five and a half hours… and then after that, I need to hit the library again. Then after that, I'll check to see if I have my Pottermore letter yet and work on next week's comic. My life is so exciting 9.9

Also... today I’m gonna talk about the importance of sticking to your script.

I have a LOT of this all worked out, and ironed and ready to be comiced. Some of it I have highlighted, so I know what will be important later, and what I can cut. You wouldn’t believe how much stuff I’ve cut out; and a couple of pages have been mashed together. However, aside from those two things, I have one big rule: Stick to the script, and don't change it.

I totally broke that rule and got caught. I had a consistency error (OMGOSH). I altered the name of Jay’s and Ranger Dick’s dog, from Kristi to Spot because I thought it sounded like a human got attacked at first. But I didn’t change the name later in the script. Thankfully, folks (as always) were happy to tell me when I'm wrong and caught me on it pretty quickly. Oops.  I suppose I'm only human... if only I could get Gaoth to schnooker people into thinking I didn't make a mistake, like he did Jay's dad ;D

Lesson re-learned? Yes.

What can I say?  I suppose that if they can mention Tonks’ and Lupin’s baby in the HP movies when they never really show her preggers, I suppose I can mess up now and again.
Okay.  Running on three hours of sleep.  Gonna go collapse now.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Eldritch: Lessons 037

So, thankfully, Todd is okay.

*Chuckles* Recently, while talking with a friend after work, they asked why my Bzou was named after the fox from The Fox and the Hound. Now… he isn’t intended to be so. But he is named for the same reason.

Todd means “fox”… Which may initially seem to be an odd name for a wolf. However, in this case, the name isn’t intended to refer directly to the animal, but rather, the colloquial uses of the word in regards to a person. He’s a “fox” in that he’s touch on the sly side, sneaking a peek when Faith is stripping down, trying to impress her by speaking French… “Fox” can also refer to a good-looking individual, which Todd considers himself to be. Furthermore, what does a fox pursue? Vixens. And Faith has been a bit of a vixen from his perspective. So, anyway, in case anyone else was wondering, that is how the horndog got his name.

Also, randomly… since for some reason I just wasn’t feeling werewolfy this week, you can thank music for keeping me focused while making this page, particularly Mowgli’s “How to Be a Werewolf.”

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Eldritch: Lessons 036



Well. That’s cutting it close.

Maggie is a quick shapeshifter, which is why most of her shifts are near-instantanious, and there's no midpoints shown. Here though, the scene occurs in such a short amount of time, I could sneak one in.

Other than that... not much to say about the page this week… So, I’m going to discuss folklore and science in relation to Faith’s character design. I’m doing it mostly because someone over on DA asked a really good question, which, in short was “Since Faith’s fangs aren’t oversized while in wolf form, is she not able to infect others with lycanthropy in her wolf shape?” I do not mean this to be an invitation for all questions, because there is a LOT I cannot discuss yet. However, this particular subject is not something I have Seamus explaining in the next few chapters of script, so I'm going to address it here, because it might get cut in final editing. (I often write far more than I need). This is a rare exception.

Yes, Faith can infect someone with lycanthropy in the wolf form. The point of the form is to, well... move and look like a wolf. Besides, if something as tiny as a snake's fang can inject enough venom to kill someone, something the size of a wolf's fang can infect someone with lycanthropy.

If werewolves maintained their snagglefangs in the wolf form, in times past, they'd have been easier to identify and kill (for example, some folklore states that a wolf without a tail is likely to be a werewolf), so the ones that looked more lupine in their wolf forms were slightly more likely to survive and pass on traits. This became even more likely as time passed, and the wolf became protected in many places. Not all “Grahll” werewolves lack snagglefangs while in wolf form, but it is more common.

This is also why Faith doesn’t have much in the way of folkloric means of identifying a werewolf while in human form… like a ring finger that is longer than the middle finger, or hair on the palms of her hands, or eyebrows that meet in the middle. She does, however, occasionally display a trait or two that would have gotten her caught (were they not temporary for her), but are fairly minor. A few folks noticed back in Layline that now and again she had longer nails (a lycanthropic trait) or eyeshine. The eyeshine is how I interpret the glaring, twinkling, or blazing of eyes that werewolves of varying kinds are occasionally described as having at points.

However, there is less emphasis on ‘camouflage’ in the werewolf form. It isn’t very… well, subtle. Thus, it is an advantage to have drastically oversized fangs, so the likelihood of a werewolf catching someone with a fang is increased, thus rising the chances of passing on the lycanthropic traits to those who stumble across them.

… I think about this stuff a lot. And research a lot. Woo.

Please read:
The Werewolf in Lore and Legend --Montague Summers
The Book of Werewolves --Sabine Baring-Gould
A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture --Charlotte Otten
Werewolves (Around the world) --Elliot O’Donnell

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Eldritch: Lessons 035


Hooray wolfness!

As you all know, I spend a lot of time reading about werewolf folklore. God, you should see my copy of Montague Summer’s book… it has post it notes everywhere and highlighting and labled tabs and… well, actually, a lot of by books a re like that O.o Anyway, I am fascinated by the sheer amount of diversity when it comes to the different details in folklore, and even in the appearance of werewolves themselves.

In some tales, the lycanthrope takes on the perfect visage of a wolf. In others, they become monsterous wolves… sometimes they have tails, others, they don’t (in fact, lacking a tail is sometimes said to be a sure sign of a werewolf) and in yet more stories, they appear as hybrids. There’s even a couple really wonderful woodcuts depicting hybrid werewolves. I love how there’s enough folklore to support just about any style of werewolf that people like… even down to more humanoid versions, because, well, some of the folks who were tried as werewolves were just lunatics in wolfskins. :3

One of my favorite werewolf descriptions comes from Elliot O’Donnell’s 1912 publication: “A thing with a woman’s breast, a woman’s hair, long and curly, but the face and feet were those of a wolf; whilst the hands, white and slender, were armed with long, glittering nails, cruelly sharp…”

And... I don't really have a whole lot to say about the page this week.  And I'm tired from staying up all night to do the pottermore thing.

Also, I really appreciate the kind comments last week, though I’m sorry I’m not able to produce this more often for you all to enjoy.

In addition, I do apologize about the lack of larger image last week.  Sometimes blogger doesn’t work the way I want it to.  The larger version is accessible through the “Eldritch Lessons” page.

Anyway... it's late and I'm braindead.  So, I'm totally going to bed now.  ♥ you guys!