Chapter 2: Page 9
Some readers last week figured that with all the hustle and bustle of an armed gang attacking Quinlan and Dakkan that Kenosh (seasoned warrior that he is) would wake up.
Well, it’s nice to know that he isn’t Captain of the Lutren Sea Guard for nothing.
As a little added bonus this week, I’ll also be throwing up two additional pieces of art, and a Dust: An Elysian Tail-related surprise at the end!
The first piece of art is a section of the concept sketch page for the bandit trio, showing off the initial designs (which we ended up going with almost wholesale just because we liked them all right off the bat). As you can see, there are subtle artistic choices in the character outfits here to show that there are elements of cross-kingdom fashion choices (such as Ermehn wearing Felis pants, sashes, and wrist-bands).
The other piece I’m going to put up this week is just too spectacularly awesome to NOT put up. After seeing the excellent Pacific Rim (in our opinion, anyway), Rachel realized that the world of BWD had its own giant beastie equivalent in the Treewalkers, and Quinlan/Dakkan would first perfectly into the “twin pilot” Jaeger program, piloting a giant robot to take ’em out with hand-to-hand combat! So we got this fun little piece of art:
Last week, Dust: An Elysian Tail, to which I contributed as writer and editor, celebrated its first-year anniversary. The game has seen some tremendous success on Xbox Live Arcade and Steam (with well over a quarter-million copies sold!) — so to join in the celebration, I’m giving away a Steam game code to the first reader to figure out the missing letters in the code below!
?RBBP-??DE4-CW687
The first ? is the first letter of the name of the eldest character in this week’s page.
The second ? is the first letter of his son’s name.
The third ? is the first letter of his best friend’s name.
Good luck! And to whomever gets the game, enjoy!
Dakkan and Quinlan would definitely be the perfect pair for a Jaeger XD
Also, I predict either Kenosh scaring the bandits off, or being the uncompromising dude he seems to be and just killing them.
What’s Dakkan yelling about in the third panel, though?
Also, dammit Quin, you’re definitely going to have to shoot someone if this gets into a bigger fight.
I took it as Dak saying to stay away from Kenosh (“Keep your toady away from my [father]), but can’t see that he already moved.
No, no, it’s clearly “salmon”. He’s having bit of a flashback, see.
Darn, I should’ve gotten that.
Oh for the love of… XD
Wait, am I being summoned?
It seems the key’s been claimed.
Really? Awww!
Nice to see that Quin, while having relaxed, has at least shown the good sense not to lower his weapon altogether. I have a feeling he might still be using it, if only for brandishing and threatening, in the next page or two.
Unless, as Hunter suggests, Kenosh just kills all the bandits.
Favorite pose/panel this week: the Ermehn fem climbing over the log. Although the two-panel “diptych” at the bottom showing the alarmed Felis, the uncompromising lower half of Kenosh’s face and the strategically-placed blade rates high too.
…something tells me that Kenosh is not nearly as squeamish about blood as Dakkan is.
That something also tells me that Mr. Felis there is in trouble. Well-played, Kenosh.
Kenosh: “Grrrr!”
Mr Felis: “Er…no…I’m not threatening your son’s life, I’m just…eh…um…adjusting his spine. Yes! I’m a travelling chiropractor and he had a backache from standing guard for so long! Certainly no need to stab me or beat me or hurt me in any way!”
“I am adjusting his spine via blade at his throat! It’s… er… it’s a new form of treatment! Swordioproctory! Which-only-trained-chiropractors-should-do-so-take-that-sword-away-from-my-neck-oh-god-please.”
Swordio Tip #1: Check by looking down at your chest; if there’s a deep gouge between your ribs that still has a substantial amount of blood in it, and you can speak without a gurgle, then no, you have not had your workout. Better get on it.
Wait, shouldn’t the male ermehn have seen Kenosh coming?
Wearing that bandanna the way he does I’m surprised he can see anything.
THAT LAST PANEL. (sorry about the capslock, some things need it.)
The two ermehn are wearing very similar necklaces. Does this mean they are married, are from the same family or merely that they took advantage of a two for one offer at their local neckband franchise?
I would say they’re related or taking advantage of a sale, but (speaking of Pacific Rim) they could be pulling off a Kaidanovsky. Just with matching necklaces instead of tons of rings/bleached hair.
>a sale
Great, now I’m imagining a department store full of these characters. :D
It makes me happy when people notice these kinds of things. c:
When I need background/tertiary characters that will appear more than once, I tend to assign them vague personalities/backstories. This is more practical than self-indulgent – it helps make it easier to design their outfits, choose poses, and generally keep them consistent between pages.
The necklaces are either made of bone or shell fragments, and they’re the visual representation of the fact that I pegged these two Ermehn as brother and sister.
So we’ll be seeing this lot again?
That wasn’t a (potentially) spoilery remark; I meant it in the sense of “if I am literally going to draw them more than one time total” X)
When I first read this, it wasn’t until this panel that I realized that the Ermehn in the first panel was actually a female. It was the shape of the head, and her clothing, that finally clued me in and when I saw her referred to as a girl in the comments, it finally clicked.
It makes me happy when others notice details like the necklaces too, Rachel. I just wish I could do more of that myself… So, a brother and sister bandit couple? That is a truly interesting (doh, that word again!) concept and one I’d have loved seen explored a bit more. Just another example of how cool and intriguing you can make one-off characters.
It’s nice getting some more concept sketches but again, it would be great to get uncropped, full-size ones, like the ones for the Harkenlow pic between chapters.
So, it turns out Kenosh hasn’t been sleeping through the battle after all. Now those bandits are gonna be sorry! However, there is a certain plot hole here that Wing mentioned to me earlier and was considering to mention to you, but apparently he never did so it falls to me. In the panel he appears in, we see that he is wearing his blue and white tabard. However, when we last saw him a few pages ago, he had taken it off to sleep on. This would imply that after he was awoken by the commotion with the bandits, he took the time to put it on before sneaking off to flank his foes, all without them noticing, which just doesn’t seem very likely. Is there a specific explanation for this, or is it just an oversight?
Anyway, it seems the tables have finally turned on our bandit gang. How will this encounter be resolved? Well…
The tabard thing was just an oversight that I haven’t yet had time to fix. ;)