The Adventures of Cain & Yurk: Page 01
Before I begin the post, Rachel and I would like to take a moment to welcome our new official page artist for The Adventures of Cain & Yurk and Song of the Eastern Sands, Jerome Jacinto! For those who may not know, Jerome has been an incredible supporter of the world of the Western Deep since its early days, and has contributed some of our favorite pieces of guest art. His artwork also graced the special edition Volume 1 hardcover, and it is an honor to introduce him as a now-official Western Deep artist working in our canon while Rachel takes a well-deserved and long overdue vacation from Western Deep pages!
Starting this week, we shift our focus away from the death and mayhem taking place in the border regions to the north, and travel southeast — to the desert paradise of Nessa, in the Vulpin kingdom of Navran. Here, life is a little more idyllic, moods are a little lighter, and a Canid and Ermehn can hang out without the thought of murder encroaching on a perfectly good day.
Cain & Yurk began their lives as background characters in a concept piece Jerome put together in the early brainstorming stages of Song of the Eastern Sands. The concept of Canid/Ermehn bro buddies was so enticing to Jerome that he continued to doodle them. They would constantly find their way into concepts for the main story, even other story ideas of Jerome’s, lurking in the corners. Personalities were beginning to take shape! Then, finally, Jerome decided he wanted to do a short story with them alongside the creation of Song of the Eastern Sands.
Intrigued by the characters and liking the idea of a short buffer story between Western Deep Chapter 2 and Song of the Eastern Sands, I helped Jerome plan out and write a short four-page story featuring the characters. We have a lot of fun ideas for them — carrying over the notion that in this world, every background character has the potential for their own story.
This week, as a wonderful Chapter 2 sendoff for Quinlan, Dakkan, and Hardin, we have some awesome guest art from jerijune featuring the three in some awesome action poses!
Oh man, I love seeing the characters looking badass like this — Quin nocking an arrow, Dakkan taking out Random Ermehn Bandit #142, and Hardin ready to avenge Random Ermehn Bandit #142! It’s the circle of awesomeness! Thank you so much for sending this in, Jerijune! We love it!
Yay, this looks good!
Let the shipping commence. |3
Shhhh don’t give anyone any ideas . . .
if you look closely at Yurk’s letter (bottom right of the second doodle) it says “Cain Senpai” and if you look even closer, Yurk’s blushing a little.
I noticed that when I zoomed in on the sketches, and I’m pretty sure I laughed. “Does that say Cain Sen–oh my god.”
Actually, the story behind those letters is: it starts with the one where Cain is persistent in grabbing Yurk’s letter from his secret admirer, I’m talking about the one on the middle left. Then Yurk pays him back by reading the letter of Cain’s secret admirer, while snickering and snorting like a fool, the one with the Cain-senpai x) Unbeknownst to Yurk that Cain is behind him revving that towel for a nasty whiplash on the lower back.
Snort, I feel like these two are never bored.
Too late, I’m shipping them now.
A curse upon, internet, how many more people will you lure into this decadent fad? How many fictional AND not fictional characters will you force into your perverted imagery?
Ship them where? They’re living in the middle of a desert.
This is a LIMITED TIME OFFER! Buy “Cain and Yurk” and “Song of the Eastern Sands” TODAY for FREE shipping and handling!
Where I can make order? :D ( Shopping from USA to Europe is really expensive :p )
https://youtu.be/EYshf589urU?t=31s
Aha…
*And now I Look like this man… ;-; Ah, but you give me hope…. ;-; XD
Cuties. I sniggered at the sketches, though; Yurk better watch his back in the bottom right corner of the last sketch page. Happy to see you on the BTWD team, Jerome!
Thank you Saraa. Been excited this since this past sunday for this very first post :)
Congratulations on your debut, Mr. Jacinto! I doubt they could have ever found a greater addition to the Western team!!!!
If you don’t mind me asking, though, are those leprechauns that I see in the sketches?
Thank you! That’s actually a goblin.
I like Yurk’s design! Those markings almost look like he’s wearing head-phones. Can’t help but wonder if that was intentional, adding a subliminal cue about his artistic curiosity.
You figured out! He actually belongs to the techies tribe, a clan of Ermehn that loves tinkering and technological innovation. Yurk is inmensely unpopular among his family, being outdoors most of the time instead of working at the laboratory, the metal-working facility, or playing Hungry Treewalker on his Computation and Media Unit. He met Cain after he was exiled from his family house for his pacifistic ways (Cain spent an entire week without chewing an Ermehn’s head of. An entire week!). Since then, they have confort in their friendship and gone through a lot of adventures. Cain still bites Ermehn heads off once in a while, Canids are still Canids, but none of them are Yurks relatives, so it’s cool.
Engineer Yurk would be a fun character, but the current setting doesn’t work for him.
Quick! Who’s up for “Steampunk of the Eastern Sands”?
This is something new…
And here’s how beautifully told Alex, this hop from dark and cold battlefield full of Blood Ermehhn and Canid, the world where is violence and Canid kills Ermehn; a sudden jump and bum – Ermen and Canid as’s best friends; well, something incredible, until it’s hard after all these horrors to belive one sees Ermehn and Canid as best buddies – but it is beautiful and it rejoices my heart, and I am eternally grateful for this idea Mr. Jerome – for this idea he will go to heaven after death with the boots ^^ :D (In the sense it is a only metaphor and praise for the time that he did something good and beautiful – he brought the friendship between two ated ech other nations/races, and the one who enters peace is great man ^^ ;) and great artist ^^ ) Admittedly funny for me to get used to the new story and really fenomenalnych the drawings, but also I love how to draw and fits perfectly into the previous pages ;)
Yet these preparatory drawings with Cain & Yurk, are too fantastic, and the best, on the first page confirming that Ermehn and Poles is the same (I belive thhat we Poles will be Ermehn when we will be live in BWD world :p ;) ), is that they are under the heading “Slavic crouch”, typical Slavik Crouch, I know what I’m talking about (there are Polish accent, Yay :D) XD ^^ “Prawilnie” XD
After that I also applaud and I really love the work of guest articles, fantastic presentation of the Quinlan, Dakkan (Pity me only this poor Ermehn insurgent :( ) and Hardrin, a fantastically drawn :D
So I’m looking forward to the next page with no patience :D Ah, I love tis all comic and story :D
And I don’t know what appened with my nicknam, So I’m sorry ^^; ;) But all te time I’m call just Jakub Zawadziński – I’m call just Jakub all te time ;) ^^
New title card!
lutren: “Hey, everyone look over there! Two morons are climbing a tower, let’s go and gawk at them!”
Vulpin: “Excuse me but I HAVE NOT YET FINISHED MY COFFEE!”
The foxies need their coffee, else they get rather cranky.
You don’t want the foxies to get cranky, do you Trees?
I can assure you that neither I nor any of my affiliates are planning to withold coffee from anyone.
Just as long as I never have to drink it.
I understand; I can’t stand coffee either.
As a regular coffee drinker, you hurt my feelings ;_; 4thmastah
I love the smell of it, and coffee ice cream ain’t half bad. Just not fond of drinking it.
I don’t like cofe too :p , On cold mornings and Autamun/winter evenings when I create, I prefer hot tea with raspberry juice my grandmother ^^ :)
This is better than coffee ^^
Ah, eluded me all discusion, nothing even for me to tell you one that you left behind not XD :( XD
The only thing what I can say now is that for the next 2-3 weeks or more I will have great problems with participation in the Salmon Party – my hard drive broke down and I do not have the computer XD :( Damn it :(
(Ah sorry Alex for spam :p Can you please delete this comment with apologies and this broke computer above? Please and sorry foe spam ;) )
*gasp* B-b-but coffee is splendid. Good coffee isn’t a big deal where I live, so it’s the one luxurious staple I go out of my way to find. The world is a better place with coffee.
Also, sorry to hear about your computer, Jakub!
* Corrected – I don’t like the taste of coffee and I do not like drink it – but I love the smell of coffee ;)
(And thanks PB&J ;) )
This promises to be fun! I’m looking forward to Song of the Eastern Sands itself but this should also be entertaining. As many others before me have said, it’s always fun to see Canid and Ermehn bros. One must wonder how much these two know about the conflict between Aisling and the wastes, though.
Is it alright, if I can pretend Cain and Yurk as a sitcom? I can hear a laugh track coming in the next page.
Oh Jerome, you and your awesome way in depicting character emotion and expression. I just love the whole energy flow between these two. Saraa already said this, but I’m excited seeing you working on Song of the Eastern Sands!
Those three drawings of Quin, Dak and Hardin though, they look like they came straight out of a Tales game. It’s awesome!
Save the laugh track for the last page, I can assure you, it fits there ;)
Assassin’s Creed. that was literally the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this page. what next? a leap of faith?? (nah, just kidding…) and I bet Cain and Yurk will be the bro-est of bros in all of Nessa. from the doodles alone, you get the idea, especially that first one.
Great work all around :D
I would agree to the sentiment. The border between lights and shadows is what creates the forms after all.
I wonder what kind of brushes you used to do those texturing effects…
For the textures, I used Manga Studio’s screentones. In case you don’t know what those are, IRL a screentone is a sheet of adheseve with printed textures on top. You apply them on the drawing and cut off excess tones. You could even scrape the textures off using a sand paper.
Even tho it’s only a short story,I do hope we see more of these two, if only n cameo appearances in the later chapters of either the main books.
Also does this mean that Song of Eastern Sands will be getting its own physical release in the foreseeable future?
I’m not sure whether sotes is gonna be published or not, but Cain and Yurk does appear in somewhere in sotes itself.
Possible minor typo . . .
Shouldn’t the apostrophe in ol’ be after the L, not before the O?
He’s clearly using a colloquial Nessan slang term. If fully enunciated, it would read “big bol smiling ermehn.”
From a recent edition of Vulper’s Dictionary:
BOL | adj.
1. to be loud and boisterous.
2. full as with vivacity and energy.
Related: gambol, bold
You are splitting hares, man.
Hairs! I meant to say hairs!
I’m so bloody excited about this. If I didn’t already love Yurk and Cain, I’d love them after this page.
Officially welcome aboard, Mr. Jacinto, sir!
I just want to point out that in much of Asia – China, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. – that squat is also very popular! I’m pretty sure my tendons aren’t long enough to do it, but anytime I go out, I always seem to see some business man in a suit squatting on the corner eating his noodles.
Apologies for this long string of posts! The above was supposed to be in reply to Jakub’s first comment. For some reason, it’s not letting me nest my comments right now.
What my comment PB&J ? :) ^^; (I write now a few coments XD )
It was meant as a reply to your comment about the Slavic crouch. :3
Second panel : am I the only one who is bothered by the way Yurk’s purse is (not) hanging ?
Oh, thanks for pointing that out :)
Are we to assume that Cain is an Omega Canid? Yurk certainly seems to be taking the lead in this first page, and I can’t see an Alpha Canid playing second fiddle to an Ermehn. Then again, I’m not sure I could see an Alpha leaving Aisling for Navran at all, trading the privilege and prestige they’d enjoy in their own society for lesser standing amongst a mix of races. Then again again, maybe Cain’s just very young, and world travels are a Canid rite of passage before one is fully designated as Alpha or Omega.
In the sketches we can see Cain manhandling Yurk plenty. I think he’s just afraid of heights, and that’s what makes him timid for the time being.
I like the composition on this page. It emphasizes the height they’re scaling. And I love how expressive these two are- they’re quite endearing.
Okay. Is Cain a canid and if he is, why is he associating with an Ermehn? I thought those two races were sworn enemies.