Sneaky! In the original version the door was open, I think, as well as an item being thrown. I like this way better. I’ll post some panels of the horrible, horrible original as comparison on TWC tomorrow or the day after.
I thought I would hate coloring this, but it was actually pretty fun. I also deleted half of it by accident (select panel+ctrl+shift+I+del, not a good idea when you already colored three other panels) but still. Also a bit dark, but I will adjust that later as necessary.
Artist pimp and a comic pimp today! First, this fellow who makes small cute things: Zoogenesis! I generally do not buy things online, but I own this and an anteater monster because I mean look at them. MONSTERS (ps they make great last-minute Xmas gifts!)
The comic pimp of the day goes to these short comics set in the Rice Boy universe. They are beautiful, and I’m dying for more!
PS I made a dA Meek club :B I have a compulsion for making groups on different sites. Anyways, you can join/ comment there if you want, I’m doing a mini contest for my last copy of the Chapter 1 comic/ poster.
Yay! Finally after being taunted with the line art after voting. Awesome work.
I love how you work in Luca’s lack of fluency in Santiri (I assume that’s what he’s speaking at the moment?) when angry like in the last panel here (and several strips ago when the fight started) :)
Ooooooh, the suspense!
I actually didn’t notice the “understanding” until you pointed it out. His skill with it really must slip when he’s angry.
I love Rana’s face in the first panel. :)
Oh! Now that I see the whole first panel, I realize how silly my last comment was concerning that bear, lol. xD Beautiful coloring job! I love Luca’s language, too, it seems very natural to him and not at all awkward. :D I picture Luca in the next panel lookin’ all manly in his underclothes, his fake leg exposed, maybe eventually falling into a large ornate chair in frustration…sorry, ok, anywho, horray for updates! :3
Wow, this page is intense! Is it all Luca speaking in the second panel? I think that’s the case, but I wasn’t sure at first.
Whatever Luca’s speaking reminds me of Russian. Also love the stuffed bears in there, it really adds a sense of menace.
I’d love to get some of that glass, which only shatters the tiniest bit when an object flies through it …
‘sides, it’s puuuuuurty!
And WHAT did he call his wife??
The glass looks like it’s probably on a metal frame, so it would behave like that. I used to work at a church that had a shoe go through one of the windows and it ended up looking like that There’s a tiny crack in the adjacent part of it on the right.
Oh, I’m glad about that XD I was looking up pictures of broken stained/ framed glass and it sort of looked like that, but I wasn’t 100% sure.
To add to the nerdiness, the glass looks like it was assembled with lead cane between the panels (which is very accurate, as until a century or so ago, that’s how stained glass was assembled), and the caning would certainly reinforce the glass like that. Especially since this is some sort of awesome glass that can have a center square cut out of it without it shattering. ;)
Haha XD It must have been made with magic… I’m working off of vaguely American Victorian architecture and furniture, so I’m going with what I see there!
Yup, that’s the type of cane the windows at the church in question used. It’s strong enough that said windows are about 150 years old (if not older) and still working well, though the glass itself has started pooling near the bottoms of the frames (due to glass really being an ultra slow-moving liquid).
The idea that glass is a slow moving liquid is problematic. Its classification as solid or liquid is fuzzy, but it’s viscosity is much higher than need be to qualify as a solid (from that point of view). It may indeed flow over time, but the amount of time needed to change shape visibly is longer than the age of the universe. The apparent thickening of glass at the bottom of old windows is due to past manufacturing processes and not to the glass flowing.
For more information, try these:
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/5_30_98/fob3.htm
http://blog.sciencegeekgirl.com/2007/09/07/liquid-glass/
or just google Liquid Glass Myth
sorry for the nit-pick, i’m a bit of a physicis nerd
He basically told her [expletive deleted].
Ah, and here I assumed it was “love of my life” :p
I assumed it was a paper screen! LOL
Yessss at last. :D
I may have been secretly (or, well, not) stalking the site all weekend waiting for a new page. :
Also: first panel love! Mmm, establishing shot.
hey just f.y.i., i don’t think the Zoogenesis link is working right?
love the comic! (:
Oh my gosh, you do the windows and wood paneling freehand!? I noticed it in one of your TWC’s, but wow, they look so perfect ;__;
I love the lighting on Phe’s face, it shows such strong emotion! That and how much Rana looks like Luca in panel two; fantastic!
Yeah, its freehand… the best way to learn perspective is to just man up and do it by hand :C Its getting a bit easier with each page, thankfully (don’t look at the earlier pages in this chapter, the perspectives are really bad)
Nice :D
*chuckles* Nicely written. My Japanese has improved a lot in the years since moving to Hokkaido, but it degenerates rapidly when I’m worked up about something. I know exactly where Luca is flailing around, there.
I love the composition, too. Every panel reinforces how diminished and attacked Rana feels by her parents’ fighting. In a few of those frames, she’s downright tiny, lost among angry speech bubbles. Between that and the coloring and Phe’s expression at the end, you’ve got some great visual/emotional cues here.
(What’s the thing he threw? I’m assuming it was Luca, since Phe looks like she just dodged it. It looks sort of like a Christmas ornament, or a fantastical turnip…)
“What’s the thing he threw? I’m assuming it was Luca”
I think Luca would’ve made a bigger hole if she had gone through the window (heehee) :D
Rana better know how to duck.
‘Cause if she gets discovered, she’s gonna be in deep kak.
…was that a little miniature globe? It sort of looks like one.
Haha, yeah it is XD
Wooo! Score one for the chronically over-observant and detail-recognizing!
:3
By the way, I love the tension in Rana’s poses and her face.
Eee I adore the lighting here is really suits the mood and kinda makes it more..domestic? I have no idea what I’m trying to say, but it just gives me the idea of sneaking downstairs and finding your parents in a kuffufel after daddy has come in late on a Saturday night XD ( Not like, domestic violence, lets not get too serious lol)
Oh yeh and I’m lovin’ Rana’s pose and the angle of view in panel 3 it’s really atmospheric =D
Awesome! I love especially Luca stumbling over his language. Is it purpose that Luca’s swearing sounds like some awkward German/Yiddish? XD
It is :3 Basori has a similar kind of syntax.
Oh, that’s pretty cool actually! German is quite good for swearing anyway. lol
“You do not understanding me, Phe.” Was that purposeful grammar? It would make sense if he’s slipping in and out of different languages here but ‘do not understanding’ rather than ‘are not understanding’ made me cringe and reread that bubble a couple of times.
Oh! And I wanted to mention I love the pattern on the wall paper. There’s always so much detail in your pages ^_^
According to some of the above comments, it’s purposeful… Luca IS slipping in and out of languages, and one effect of that might be to mix up grammar rules between languages or just use whatever word is closest.
WOW YOU ARE SO NICE TO ME
Nicer than Rana, I think she is cheating on me :’C
p.s. YOU DO NOT UNDERSTANDING ME is my new favorite, Bezooooo
Bezoooo XD XD
PS Rana would never cheat on you
or would she??????!
What do “kak veruhet” and “dzarlat” mean? (are they dirty words?)
Luca must be really, really scarred about the things he and his people went through.
When his wife says “they were castrated”, does she mean that women were socially castrated (sort like what happens in Iran today) ?
Caris used to be a major “world” power before and at the start of the war, but by its end (when the King died) they had lost significant territory and of course their population is a lot lower as well. Both sides have fewer males in their late 40′s and older since so many of the able-bodied fighters were killed in combat.
Hmm, it sounds a bit like the same situation Germany was in after the first World War. The winning nations (France, Great Britain) pretty much “castrated” Germany, which caused fierce economic upheaval and hyperinflation. This in turn caused radicalism, and finally the rise of Nazi Germany.
Luca should watch out.
wow, that vase in the close-up looks pretty :D
and did they throw a melon? haha, it certainly looks like one xD
I LOVE how much detail you put into your work! The wallpaper is amazingly detailed even though you can’t see it unless you treat us with a close up. I wish I knew what he was cursing at her because I like knowing curse words in many languages and this one only very few people would know, yes? :lol:
Not to be a jerk, but I need to point out a few things :P
The hole in the 4th panel the daughter is looking through(forgot her name) appears to be the size of her eye, then in the 5th panal, you can see her entire head. Also, in the the 5th panel, Luca is saying past and present tense. xD “You do not understanding me” Perhaps “You’re not understanding me” would work instead?
:D Friendly feedback
Not a jerk at all XD Thanks for your feedback. For the hole/head issue, actually it is just her eye that is looking through (and part of her hair) but in the reduced-for-web version it does sort of look like her whole face. I’ll fix that in an edit later so it looks a bit clearer to the reader. As for the grammar, it is intentional :) Luca loses his grammar first when he’s not paying attention/ angry.
Ah alright, hahaha. Just wanted to make sure! I’m lovin’ the comic by the way. By far my favorite web-comic.
In the incentive with Rana hiding… I thought she’d hide from the bear and wondered where that came from suddenly!
The perspectives in this page are really good. Holy three-point crap in panel3!
I also like the darkness, somewhat, though I wonder why the corridor’s not “illuminated”. Maybe because it’s close to the private rooms? Where did the day went, though? (Or is it just that dark inside of the palace because of the lack of windows that lead outside, ahaha)
Instareply XD Uh yeah, its actually sunset-ish outside (there is a time gap between the end of the meeting and when Suda/ Rana are talking). When Luca is pissed or moody he turns off all the lights so I have all the blinds closed. There’s a fire in the drawing room (next scene) but out in the hallway it is dark. In the closeup you can see that it is still kind of light outside through the gaps in the blinds.
Great stuff… Very suspenseful.
Are they typos, or is the grammar meant to be off? If so, fair enough ;)
Wow, the shading/coloring in this page is truly is impressive. :) Can’t wait to see what happens next!
I tell you one thing. Phe may not to be understanding Luca but I am to loving this page MUCH SO YES ;)
I really do like Rana all sneaky peeky spying and Luca’s grammar breaking down and interspersed with his own language. I guess that the first one is ” f-you ” and the second is ” crazy ” ? (still not sure…in the context I first thought it was something like ” priveleged ” like ” You’re not like them/on their level why would you speak for them? “)
also the lighting is super intense on the second panel
“Why you would speak for them?” blargh. typo!
actually I think that was done on purpose for realism? I think alexds was trying to convey how Luca’s grammar starts breaking down when he’s angry :)
I think the next update should be an animated gif. Just a big flashy seizure-inducing blinking text saying “LUCA’S POOR GRAMMAR IS INTENTIONAL”
Maybe people would stop commenting on the “typos” then.
just found your comic through the mass influx of your readers to ‘what do birds know’ and it’s interesting. think i’ll keep reading. you may want to check out lint
http://www.purnicellin.com/lint/
my favorite online comic – it’s worth the read.
I kind of think I know what’s going to happen, but I’m not gonna say at risk of being horribly wrong.
is that the center on the globe? -lol imagination running wild-
astonishing page *u* shading is phenomenal. i also couldn’t imagine doing annny architecture and walls and such by freehand…
OMG… I sure hope that “castrated for decades” doesn’t mean what I think it means…
Ha, I sort of quirked an eyebrow on the bad grammar of the last page, but then I realized that it was supposed to be there. Is whatever language Luca is speaking not his native tongue?
Today’s voting incentive was so unespected it put a large smile on my face :)
mh, d?
Omg, that cyclopentane diagram is awesome.
First time poster btw :o and loving this comic so far. <3
Is the awnser D? I just got home from taking my Chemistry final D:
The D is answer. Wait. YES IT IS. Nitrogen requires three bonds to be filled, only two of which are filled in the diagram. Chemistry, pff.
Molecule D.
What do I win?
Haha, in all seriousness though, I’ve been following your comic since around the middle of the last chapter. In my opinion, the way you apply shadows is what really makes this comic’s artwork stand out. Your drawing style itself is also pleasantly smooth and natural-looking. Keep up the good work and I eagerly await the rest of this chapter!
lol d, and i knew that not because i looked in the comments, but because i know about carbon, thank you ap bio at least you’ve given me knowledge beyond inside jokes about polyploid strawberries… and spindles.
Today’s vote incentive made me laugh, obviously D. Rana looks really pretty in the second pannel, horry for angry Luca
No offense, but Luca’s poor grammar screws up an otherwise serious scene. I know it’s not his native language and all — but it strikes me as an unnecessary addition, kind of like a “If you’ve read the wiki then you’ll understand this in-joke!” thing.
Just some constructive criticism.
Don’t get me wrong though… I like your comic.
Man, Rana’s face in panel 2 breaks my heart. You are so good at capturing emotions. There’s something about, idek, the shape of her eyes? The tiny touch of light at the underside of her eyelid? The reflections? They capture her so well: she’s angry and wary and afraid, and waiting to see how violent this scene is going to get. The line of her mouth is a lot like Phe’s, here, and Phe’s face is so small but it’s still very intense. Family tensions, congratulations.
I love this comic! The art is fantastic and the dialogue is well thought out as well as it is written. For those of you commenting on the “grammar mistakes” haven’t any of you ever read anything worthwile? Go read Huckleberry Finn and tell me that if Mark Twain had written the dialogue with “proper” grammar that the story would have seemed as real? Good grief people, just read it as it is and keep in mind that this is a STORY and enjoy this man’s talent!
My vote is that Luca’s poor grammar is a good thing. It’s believable (as the kind of mistake that is easy to make), and makes the character more interesting. I suppose you could shush the nay-sayers by putting his words in a different font (darker, more jagged, less refined?) when his accent gets stronger. That might help make it clear that the lapses are intentional on your part.
A word on inserting foreign words into speech: I’m an English teacher in Bulgaria, so I talk to a lot of people who are non-native speakers of all the different levels of proficiency. Even for very poor English speakers, it’s very rare to insert non-English words into a sentence. For beginners, everything they say is in English because they have to think out the whole sentence ahead of time, then translate it, then speak it. More advanced speakers can think in English, but then they don’t think in their native language, and so don’t use Bulgarian words. If there is a word that doesn’t map into English, then usually people say something like “It is my…um…kak da kazvam imenden?…it is the holiday for people with my name.” The exception is expletives like “my god!” or “huh.” Which aren’t really language, but sounds we make subconsciously—and even those go away as a person becomes fluent. In a very stressful situation, then a non-fluent person might shift over entirely to their native language (“What are you doing? Bozhe moi, kak gluposti! Spri sega! Stiga!”)
It may be that Phe and Luca both speak both languages fluently, in which case we can expect them to switch back and forth depending on their emotional state and the “flavor” of what they want to express (my wife finds it easier to speak with me in English about politics and in Bulgarian about shopping for dinner, for instance). Probably most of the Pasori are bilingual, and speak both a “court language” and a “home language,” like the 19th century Russian court speaking French. Most of the time, those guys didn’t speak Russian to each other ever (in fact many learned Russian from their nannies or not at all). So it looks like, for most adults, languages are binary—you are either speaking one or the other—and mixing them causes enormous stress and frustration.
…which I think you can use to your advantage.
Something like this.
…grr…You are the problem.
or
You are…dzarlat…damn it! You are…the problem!
…Why you would speak for them?
Hope I’m not being too much of a jerk posting this long message. I’m just finally happy to have an opportunity to share something I really know about.
Finally…is there going to be a Pasori-English dictionary or phrasebook any time soon?
Hehe, thanks for sharing! We learned a bit about that in our education classes, since teaching kids who are basically translating everything from their language into English before being able to learn the material is its own special situation.
Luca is trilingual, with the main language (Santri) being his weakest. So he tends to mix up the grammar and the words a lot more (especially when stressed out or after a long day). Like you mentioned, he does his thinking in Pasori and has to translate it in his head before talking. I’ve also read that second language learners can mix up their grammar/ syntax, which is why I have so much of it here. And I do have a corrected line like you mentioned coming up later :) Maybe he doesn’t know he’s making the mistakes right now!
Wow. Working with non-fluent kids mixed in among the fluent can’t be easy. It’s hard enough making anything work right when EVERYONE is a non-English speaker—I can only imagine the added complications when you have a mix.
Trilingual! Well. I can say that it would be strange to mix up languages 2 or 3 with language 1 (the native language), but much, much more common to mix up the two non-native languages. From personal experience, when I’ve been speaking or listening to Japanese (my second language), it’s then very difficult to switch to Bulgarian (my third), although I never confuse either with English. What ends up happening is I’ll say something with Bulgarian grammar, but Japanese vocabulary (or vice versa). Also, small words like the equivalents of “but” or “um” or “hello” are easy to mix up. That’s because we don’t think about those utterances as words with meaning, but as social sounds designed to move a conversation along. The same for phrases like “damn it!” or “you got it!” or “I did it!” It’s much more likely those phrases will come out in the wrong language than the words in a sentence you have to think about: “I am unhappy because you disrespected me earlier today.” Of course, it’s possible that you don’t know the correct grammar or memorized it wrong, in which case, you’ll make the same mistake every time.
Writing accents is hard, I think., because we are much more forgiving of mistakes in grammar when we listen to speech. A person might say to you “You can say me where is the bathroom, yes?” and you’ll probably give them the benefit of the doubt, but when somebody writes it down, it’s suddenly a glaring problem.
Yeah, I’m on vacation. I’ve got nothing better to do than write long responses. :)
One last question: How many languages does Phe speak? It seems odd that Luca would speak about something so emotional in his third language. If nothing else, he would want the firmer strategic ground that speaking in his first language would give him, especially if that puts Phe at a disadvantage.
I’m going to have to disagree with you Dan — I don’t think it makes Luca’s character more interesting. I think that, for people who don’t read the wiki, it will just come off as weird and confusing.
At the very least I suggest linking to the wiki along with the other links at the top of the page.
Yeah… you know, I thought it was up there already : I’ll add it in on the next post.
THey do, trust me.
I am quadrilingual, so I know something about it, I now mix up grammar even in my mother tongue -.-”
Sorry to be the critical once again, but two of the sentences sound wrong. “You do not understanding me…” and “Why you would speak for them?”
oops. i just noticed the above conversation… *face palm*
Although I do have to say that I haven’t noticed Luca using bad grammar up to this point
When he’s very very angry he tends to mess up more.
Either Alexds1 is super tired, or Luca’s language is going down the drain…
Great composition.
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