Chapter 4: Page 49
Is anyone–and I mean anyone–surprised that Beck and Rook don’t have any money? I have a sneaking suspicion that as the pair waited for Janik and Mitra to show up in Cenolau, they blew through all their vulpin silvers watching ostrich races or other such games of chance.
Speaking of ostrich racing, is anyone also surprised that Beck really just cannot keep a handle on her steed? I feel like Beck can talk a good game, but any creature worth its salt would be able to naturally intuit that she’s a bundle of anxiety and nervous energy and probably shouldn’t be placed in charge of another living creature’s welfare ever.
It’s okay though–Rook is there. Calm as a cucumber, that guy.
For guest art this week, here’s an awesome piece of Kenosh sporting his post-Deltrada getup courtesy of the Sratha-din by reader Andrew P.!
Andrew was clearly inspired by the poster for Braveheart, which of course you can also intuit some inspiration in Kenosh’s claymore and the Sratha-din’s penchant for tartan finery.
As you can see, Kenosh has even gone so far as to paint ermehn tattoos onto his face–specifically the taboo face-markings of the Evyn-din as worn by Bevan in a show of solidarity. I’m sure Bevan would appreciate the gesture, though he’d probably also be super nervous about Kenosh getting called out for it as a presumed outsider to their people.
Kenosh is, of course, a rarity–he knows the ermehn perhaps better than most in the rest of the Four Kingdoms. He was able to survive with them in the Northern Wastes, so he can definitely walk the proverbial walk.
Anyway, thank you so much for the wonderful artwork, Andrew!!
Rook and Beck travel light indeed
no a single gold on their personal
If ol’ Eye Liner gives them the side-eye any harder she’ll detach a retina.
For a moment I thought you were referring to the stink-eye Mitra’s giving Rook and Beck with regard to payment, but then I realized you were talking about the background-foreground character off to the side of the first panel. Yes, that’s quite an expression, even if we can’t see her whole face. For that matter, now I’m curious about her entire outfit, since it doesn’t look like she’s wearing any shirt, and while we’ve seen pantslessness in “BWD,” we haven’t seen much shirtlessness, especially among females. (Or is she a male in disguise? DUN DUN DUN!!!)
Quite a contrast between the demure ostrich in the pen and our party’s more decorated mounts. Hopefully they can’t be identified by their birds…
P.S. Beck’s ostrich is missing a wrap on its left ankle.
One thing I wanted to point out on this week’s page is what some of the characters (and, by extension, Rachel) do with their feet.
I’ve long thought that well-drawn feet – a feature often overlooked by many artists and animators – can make a character look far more well-rounded and complete. That’s especially true with anthropomorphic animal characters, and doubly so in a shoeless society like we see in “Zootopia” or here in “BWD.” In the first panel, Beck’s got one toe splayed away from the rest, wordlessly underscoring her frustrated efforts in trying to control her resisting mount. And in the second, Mitra similarly shows a single splayed toe sticking out slightly from the rest, which helps to convey her irritation with Beck and Rook’s empty pockets. The gamekeeper, meanwhile, stands with the toes of one foot curled back rather than forward as a human would most likely do. All of this body language would be easy to ignore, but including such little details of pose and attitude deepens the characters visually and helps brings across the situation far better than if such nuances had been glossed over. Kudos to Rachel for thinking of them, and showing us the care she puts into these pages, even if we sometimes don’t appreciate the full depth of that attention to detail.
I’m just impressed that all the characters are conveying meaning so clearly with no dialogue and most of their faces covered.
Exactly. You called out “ol’ Eye Liner” earlier in the week, but there’s really a whole festival of body language and partial expression going on with this page.
I have nothing else to add to this other than to say I find the design of the feet on these characters oddly pleasing to the eye, and I no longer feel weird or out of place for mentioning it so I’m taking the chance to piggyback off of your comment in order to do so lol. It’s this blend of plantigrade and digitigrade where the shape and distribution of the toes, the balls of the feet and especially the heels are distinctively animal, but the characters rest on what we could interpret as the entire base of the foot. I also like that most choose to stretch a fabric around to avoid chaffing or irritation on coarser terrain as this sort of makeshift toeless shoe as shown here (which designwise makes sense as they still have pawpads).
Funnily enough, I’ve recently rebinged the entire comic for… what, the 4th or 5th time now? And one thing of note in the matter is I’ve noticed Quinlan’s feet on the first couple pages of his introduction used to resemble actual squirrel feet a lot more. Then, during the Tesque encounter with Crim not 20 pages later, there’s a close-up of a tackle where you can see Rachel opt for the more ‘standardized’ foot shape for all races in the comic.
Actually, scratch that second paragraph- guess my mind is playing tricks on me, I could’ve sworn I had distinct memories of a close-up of Quin’s toes showing them as looking a lot different than now. I’ll try looking around for it, my bad.
Could be it’s one of the minor fixes Rachel periodically goes back and makes, so maybe you aren’t misremembering. Only she would be able to say for sure.
And speaking of the foot wrappings, I should point out here that Janik’s disappear in the page following this one. Continuity Error Alert!
Mitra doesn’t look too happy with her new companions right about now.