Chapter 2: Page 29
Deltrada Garrison draws closer! So close that our trio is now within earshot of the wall guards.
Anyway, this page gives me an opportunity to post about the page creation process a bit, since an opportunity arose early in the tie-down process that had us ruminating between two competing layouts for the final panel.
The rough above is the one we ended up going with — it features the high angle, the two Canid soldiers looking out over the wall top, weapons clearly visible. The idea was to make the main trio look small and insignificant compared to the might of the Canid. However, to achieve this goal, Rachel had also proposed another take on it:
In this layout, the camera is on a flat plane, the main trio walking in from the right. To the left, Deltrada Garrison cuts off the natural world, guarded by the two Canid soldiers we saw in the previous page. The visual metaphor here is less about the Canid being shown as a dominant force, and leans more on the notion that our trio is about to be swallowed up by the garrison (and whatever strife that may bring). To us, both takes were compelling and visually intriguing.
At the end of the day, however, we ended up going with the high-angle perspective. Suggesting that our heroes are small and insignificant in the world of the Canid felt more appropriate here, and the flat-angle shot felt perhaps just a bit too ominous, menacing, and confrontational. Sometimes something as simple as the camera angle can change the entire tone of your scene!
Holy moly! Rachel has drawn each and every stone on the wall. Also: the torches have nifty little metal umbrellas.
Well, she did say the page before this one was taking forever to complete, which , by the way, was worth every second, believe me!
Except for the stones behind the whiskers. :) (Wait, that was humor…probably shouldn’t use that on this page…)
I wonder why Quin feels necessary to ask whether the generals are really brothers or not. Does this tell more about him or the Canid society?
If you’re talking about this third panel, I don’t think he’s asking if they’re really brothers; more likely he’s asking if they’re as ruthless as Kenosh says.
At first I thought that too, but then Kenosh doesn’t give any examples by which Quin can question the degree of ruthlessness. I wonder if Quin is really asking if they /are/ truly brothers here. Like if we go on the fact that the Canids are ‘wolves’ and continue with the animals’ already known nature, than it is not very likely to have two /alphas/ found in the same pack – even in a litter one will generally dominate over the others, and if there is two fighting for supremacy, they usually do fight… until someone wins… to the death. I wonder if Quin is trying to question if they really are brothers, how one has not done away with the other. But that’s just a very weak theory.
That is my reading of the panel – Quin seems surprised that Canid brothers are sharing a post.
Oh, Quin, you are looking rough in the first frame! Puffy-eyed and a bit more scruffy than usual. I wonder if this is to show a few sleepless nights that have occurred as they draw closer to the garrison and his responsibility rises and becomes more and more unavoidable. Even if it’s not, it shows the signs of a person that has been travelling for a while; after all, it would be strange for him to show up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed! The one thing that did catch my eye was his new vambrace or archer’s guard (sorry, can’t remember if he’s a right or left shot). In previous frames it has been brown, leathery-type material, but here it’s clearly metal. Perhaps he dressed up a bit for the occasion? Will he be donning his ceremonial ‘Captain of the Royal Guard’ sash? Only time will tell.
Wait… two generals? I thought we already knew this? I mean around the fire before the trio had their run in with the robber Ermehn, I’m sure Dakkan said something about the king only having power because his GENERALS (plural) let him. That would imply there are more than one, although the number isn’t specified. Perhaps this is another insight into Quin’s character: He forgets/doesn’t pick up on the little details, or he just mental has blocked out everything from that fight. Interesting…
I agree completely with your choice for the final frame. It creates a nice shift for the next set of events as Rachel has drawn the garrison and Canid soldiers in focus, while Kenosh, Dak and Quin, and the rest of the ‘outside world’ are out of focus. Sort of like a comic version of a movie fade-away where the camera is pulled out of focus and then focused back in on another aspect… brilliant. Great work!
Anyways, I can’t wait for another post. With all the lead up, I want to see this CLOVIS!
Cheers and sharp quills,
FT
Quinlan is left-handed, and the reason behind this decision is interesting: In our world, left-handed people have been ostracized for a long time, and so such a tiny detail as making several of the main characters of a story to use not the right, but the left hand can make for a great heel-turn for the audience as I am making all of this up!
Actually, um… hm… it’s possible that our right-handedness has led to every character being right-handed thus far? We can work on that! :)
Strong lefthandedness is believed to make up only about %10 of the population, so it’s perfectly reasonable that we wouldn’t have seen any yet.
In our world, talking, humanoid squirrels are measured to compose around 0% of the population, so it would not come as a surprise if left handed characters were more common in a fictional setting.
I was only jesting, though, I don’t know if we would really notice the which characters are left-handed, if they appear .
It’s fairly normal, I believe, for a nation to have a handful of generals at any given time, so having at least 2 generals in the army shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. What *is* suprising is to find 2 generals both posted at the same garrison.
Quin’s bracer has always had metal trim. ;)
I’m sad that the seven races only have domesticated birds and schools of fish as animal food sources.
Absolutely no non-sapient mammals in this setting?
I demand completely made up mammalian livestock featured here, that looks so cool that I will later on demand you to make another fictional setting in which said made up mammalians arte anthropomorphized and have their own stories AND made up mammalian livestock, which in turn I’ll also demand to be anthropomorphized on its own original setting!
And then I will demand plushie toys of all the characters!
Ashtor plushie, calling it!
Oh my god. Yes please.
When you press his belly he expresses his concern and dissapointment over your poor judgement.
Ho ho, brilliant!
I imagine a plush Treewalker would express concern about their failing socioeconomic difficulties.
Looks like the Canid are expecting trouble…I don’t like the look of that archer on the wall.
“Three travelers, men of Willowdale … ”
Okay, no more Rush references. Yes, I agree with the choice of perspective for the final panel. I don’t think the alternate choice would have struck me as more ominous so much as … less interesting. The same way that a cartoon character shown in a three-quarter pose is usually more appealing than a straight profile or frontal depiction, I think this over-the-battlements shot gives more to look at than a straight from-the-ground scenic profile. Ya done chose well!
I think the first panel may be my single favorite Quin shot of the comic so far. Looking back over the early pages of Chapter One recently, I was struck by how Quin’s square-jawed visage often made him look more human and less animalistic. Here, he still has the square jaw, but he looks … well, more like a squirrel, without sacrificing any of his personality to naturalism, which is always a tricky line to tread. (Look at Troy Howell’s work: so naturalistic that it’s often hard to tell the characters apart, much less their mood or personalities.) Well done!
And speaking of naturalism, I took Kenosh’s warning that the Canid could hear them now to be less an acknowledgement of their proximity than to the fact that Canid would have sharper hearing than other species. If this is the case, I think that’s another great little detail to throw in there. All in all, a great page!
Every step we get closer to entering Deltrada, every step I get closer to my heart exploding, provided something else doesn’t do me in first. Everyone is tired, the humorless Canid are on alert for something, and the plot thickens. And that’s all the input I have to offer since I’m currently the mental equivalent of a fried egg. Here’s to getting into Deltrada without any disemboweling or diplomatic incidents!
Dakkan is a diplomatic incident.
Fair enough. Don’t think either the Lutren or the Salmon (and now the Canid) have ever forgiven Kenosh for that one.
You know, I’m really starting to wonder about Dakkan’s mother the more I see of the Lutren father and son. I mean, Dak is so carefree and humourous, and Kenosh is so serious. She’s obviously dead, but I can imagine that she was quite the belle of the ball, probably always laughing and smiling and would have just fascinated Kenosh with her zest for life that he probably could never truly understand, but loved that she did. Whichever way she passed must have been tragic for him and now he has a constant reminder of her in his son’s resembling traits. Perhaps that is why Kenosh is so stern with Dak… he’s trying to hammer into his head that it doesn’t matter how much you love life, life won’t love you if you’re not serious about it.
I would have said there was always the possibility that Kenosh and Dakkan’s mother divorced/she left, but absent mothers/wives usually aren’t alive elsewhere in these kinds of stories. I agree with your theory. Kenosh’s wife probably balanced out Kenosh, but after her death, there wasn’t anyone to keep him more lighthearted and less hard on Dakkan.
Absent mothers usually are not alive in these kinds of stories…unless they left with another man.
DUN DUN DUN
TRONN YOU SCANDALOUS GOSSIPER YOU.
Well, everyone has been here first, so I’m reduced to mostly commenting on their comments.
Like others here, I do indeed like Quin in the first panel, though unlike Wing, I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite pose of his in the comic. That probably goes to some of his expressions in the dinner scene.
Also, I think Dakkan’s references to the “generals” before they were robbed simply meant that the collective might of the highest military class in Aisling effectively means their king always has to do what they say.
Saraa, I think it would be an interesting change if Dak’s mother simply divorced his father. Sadly, that doesn’t happen often in these stories.
I agree 100% with Zealot’s comments about non-sapient mammals! And ever moreso with the demand for plushies of Ashtor Snaggletooth!
I think you mean Ashtor *Snuggletooth.*
You know, I was about to write that, but by sheer accident. I figured I had misspelled it so I changed it to the more correct form.
Great minds indeed…
We’re a sophisticated lot.
Or so we like to think. Salmon, anyone?
I think Ashtor’s breath is much too bad to be a snuggletooth.
I’ll still buy it. He’d have better breath than Rathik.
Honestly, I suspect the Ermehn rather smell in general. They are mustalids, after all.
The Polcan would be the worst, though. Polecats are the old world equivalent of skunks, after all. The species name for the European Polcat – mustela putorius, says it all (and to think we domesticated them into ferrets…).
Hardin plushie! Complete with cape for brooding action!
Dakkan plushie! Pull the string in back and he’ll make a smartass comment!
Quin plushie! Guaranteed to be misplaced when looked for!
I’m pretty sure the Hardin plushie comes with stabbing action. I was a bit disappointed with the old Broermehn tribe guardian plushie; the only thing it came with was dying action.
Are we confusing action figures and plushies again?
No, we’re combining them. Sssh.
Now I kinda want to have a Kenosh plushie that complains about young people, things in general when you pull his string. You could have him have a grump-out with Ashtor!
And the Bevan and Dakkan plushies can cause diplomatic incidents together.
I didn’t know I needed that until you commented, Tronn/Saraa. It does seem like the two would get along, doesn’t it, assuming they get over their mutual hatred. And Kenosh and Ashtor… XD Those two will probably hit it right off even in-universe. I have to wonder what Ashtor thinks of Kenosh- he’d bound to have heard of him, after all- and I doubt that Hardin knows that there’s a Sunsgrovian envoy at Deltrada.
0_0 the plot thickens…
Ah, the Canid colors are black and gold! Strangely fitting. I love the way Kenosh’s robes are flaring out in that last panel.
But now the suspense is really ramping up. With Hardin’s coming attack and the arrival of the Sunsgrove Envoy, and the “diplomatic incident” that is Dakkan, there is very little chance this will end well. (Seriously, that comment made me laugh out loud)
Here’s to the upcoming chaos and possibly rising body count.
Something occurs to me that I don’t think has been proposed before in any previous discussion thread (although if it has, I’ll just plead age!):
It’s pretty apparent Hardin has some plan in mind regarding Deltrada, and that sacrificing his “adopted” mini-horde figures in that scheme. But Kenosh made it pretty clear during his council with the Tamian King that he would not blindly support Canid aggression against the Ermehn, and isn’t the whole purpose of his mission to try to head off a war if he can, believing it would prove far more ruinous to the Ermerhn than the Canid? It’s been made abundantly clear where his sympathies lie. So what if the Sunsgrovian delegation’s presence at Deltrada turns out to be the very thing that *prevents* Hardin from sacrificing his press-ganged tribe, and peace breaks out in spite of Hardin’s best efforts? Might that not enrage him even more than flat-out military defeat – to have all his work undone by meddlesome peacemakers?
I of course have no better idea than anyone else here (except for the comic’s creators, of course) what’s going to happen, but I’m more eager now than ever to see what lies in store for our Western Deepers in the chapters ahead!
*Peace intensifies*
All kidding aside, that’s a very good point. Alternately, Kenosh gets so worked up over the Ermehn thing that when the Ermehn do attack, the Sunsgrovians get blamed.
I think Hardin’s plan is by murdering the general(s) to incite the Canid to wipe out the Ermehn for once and for good. That way the tribes who have been content to eke out a living by avoiding the Canid have no other choice but to rise up and fight for their survival. So in that light the Sunsgrovian delegation wouldn’t make him reconsider.
Well, yes, Tronn, Kenosh & Co might not make *Hardin* reconsider, regardless of what they do … but if most or all the Ermehn whom Hardin had slated for slaughter at Deltrada end up NOT dying due to Sunsgrovian intervention, that could upset his plans, and force him to formulate a new counter-strategy to ensure that peace *doesn’t* break out in spite of his best efforts.
If peace *does* at least temporarily break out despite Hardin’s best efforts, it will be very interesting to see Ashtor’s reaction to that, because we know he hates the idea of using the Ermehn as fodder.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of the named Ermehn characters were to die. Nope, not surprised at all.
I think any surprise *twists* with peace will only slow the narrative down, which I don’t think the creators are going for (though I could be wrong). Things are just starting to ramp up here and to throw in something like that… naw, this is headed straight for a big time brawl! ;)
How ever things go down, I’m betting the next round at Land’s End, Quin’s going to end up taking Bevan ‘hostage’ (aka save his ass from some blood thirsty Canids!).
Oh, and I’ll take my Quinlan plushie with the stunned look on his face that Alex has as his commentary pic. ;)
Because we all like Bevan, I’d say it’s a safe bet that he’s the one who dies- if not now, then eventually. That’s the way it usually works, at any rate. Get too attached and then BOOM.
And, not necessarily. If Peacing Ensues, there will still be tension because the Canid are NOT peaceable by nature, and Hardin still wants war, and there will be Much Politics. >:}