I regret to inform everyone that, due to school work needs and my going out of town for the weekend, I won’t have a comic on Monday. I’ll rustle up a filler drawing for everyone, but the next full comic will be next Thursday. My apologies.
Up until this Stroll in the Park storyline, I used the pencil tool to draw the comic, which has the benefit of really hard edged sharp lines. Been using the brush tool for this arc, and part of me feels like I've taken training wheels off. I like the variety and softer feel of the lines... but good god, do I hate having to search every panel for nooks and crannies. Brush tool doesn't color-fill quite as nicely as the pencil tool did. XD Those underwater panels kick Pencil Tool's butt, though.
I can just hear what those fish are thinking in panel 7:
“RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!”
Todd OTOH is thinking: “Not any more.”
Oh man, I just love this strip.
So Selkie’s culture will have a hunter-gatherer rather than an agricultural ethos? Does this necessarily mean it’s less technologically advanced? Have we seen any instances of a script? Is hers an oral culture? What of doughnuts? WHAT?
Yes, we’ve seen evidence of a written language, in the flashbacks to mommy strip.
Imagine a kid who grew up in a rural area being adopted by a civilization where theres no nature as it is for us – no forests, no fields, no anything, there are fruit and berries but nobody even discusses where they come from.
And then they are around berry bushes for the first time in many, many years.
It doesn’t mean most human food comes from berry bushes. It means they’re the kid’s favorite snack and picking them is the favorite activity, enhanced by nostalgia.
I mean, I was like this around berry bushes as a kid. With less screaming, but I’d brave just about any thorns to get to the BERRIES.
Have you tried layers, for the Fill stuff? At least for backgrounds?
Basically, you’d probably make a background layer under the line-art, draw (probably in pencil tool, heh) a shape that is just inside the character/foreground shape, and fill that — then you just have to look for the nooks in the foreground characters/objects. (And you can flicker your background layer invisible/visible, in at least some apps, which can make the nooks jump out more.)
I looooooove layers. Layers are my bestest friend EVAR. [/lolcat]
Also… Run, fishies, run!
I do use layers, yes. I select areas within the line art, expand the selection a bit to fill aliased areas then fill it in a layer beneath the lineart. This usually results in a mostly-filled area and I have to zoom in to manually color-in the nooks and crannies around, say, the tips of hair.
I suppose you could, for like the water areas, make your gutters (the borders of every panel) and fill them in blue or whatever color, to get rid of the crannies and simply alter the opacity of the layer if it isn’t correct but I know what you mean. That and all the details that I put into Shards strips still take me 3.5-4 hrs per comic strip. Need to find a faster way…
On the story… She isn’t going to lose her barret, is she? And what exactly IS it? It seemed almost magical in previous strips, where we saw her mom giving it to her. Intriguing.
Hmm…. Seems to me like as long as each line was totally black in the center, you could lower the threshold to nearly 0 and paint-fill should get everything. Unless you mean that there are little areas that are totally closed off from the main area of color? (like how converging pixel lines end up with a few isolated pixels)
It just seems like there has to be a way to fill the areas just as quickly now as you could with the pencil tool.
Let’s hope at least a few fish manage to get away with their yes intact
I don’t know if it’s intentional, but the fish with the bulging eyes looks like it’s looking behind it, while fleeing in terror. XD
I noticed that too. And it HAS to be intentional.
If you look closely you can also see that look from one of the fish behind that one.
Oh Good, Todd and the nunkle-aunt aren’t going to be worried that Selie has drowned because they’ll be able to tell pretty exactly where she is in the river from the school of desperately leaping fish swimming in panicked circles.
It’s a very nice touch that Todd is now feeling horrid burdens of guilt because he never thought of taking Selkie to the nearest body of clean fresh water the instant he got custody. He was too busy thinking of shoes and lunches and bullying, the kind of preoccupations a new parent is doing well to remember, and over looked something no human parent has had to think of before. Besides, he was warned that Selkie should not be given chlorinated water to flush her gills, so he probably also found a note saying: IMPORTANT: Do NOT take to the swimming pool!!
I am interested to see what Selkie’s fishing techniques will be. Many predator fish force their prey into shallower water to better catch them. Does it make sense that she would try to force the fish out of the water entirely? Otters and other aquatic mammals don’t do that – but they don’t have her intelligence, and her manual dexterity. Of course that might not be a reasonable strategy at all, unless trying to collect enough fish to feed a family, or keep for later…
N-no Monday?? Don’t worry, Dave, I can’t speak for your other followers, but I feel your getting a decent weekend trip is paramount and whatever will stave off burn-out is not only something we should be able to survive but a desirable thing.
Actually, dolphins are known to have forced fish to come completely ashore.
Selkie has hands, and has quick reflexes (she can pet a fish, after all) so I would assume her hunting style would be snatch-and-grab.
I would be *really* interested to see if she has the glands barracuda have that have been termed an “organic supercharger”– that would explain her prowess at dodgeball and fish-petting.
XD Oh gawd.
The fishies going RUN AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! is priceless. I can’t wait to see Todd and siblings’ reaction to this. But I will wait patiently for Thursday.
I get the feeling Marta will be highly impressed.
Hahahah! Run, fishies, run!
I’m loving this arc, seeing her get in the water. Poor Todd looks so guilty.
I love the new art tools, and I love seeing Selkie swimming at last — but it does seem odd that she’s wearing all her clothes. In lifeguard training, I learned how much clothes drag you down in the water.
flee, fishies, flee!
Given Selkie’s anatomy/swimming instincts, I’m sure the clothes would have less of an effect on her.
I love the colors in this arch. I’m sure its a ton of extra work for you to make these backgrounds, but its a nice treat for the readers. Thanks!
Looking forward to seeing how good a hunter Selkie is. She may have had some instruction from her birth-parents before being given up, and it’s been implied her instincts are very strong.
Love how your art is coming along. No worries for Real Life taking priority; the heads-up is appreciated.
Actually, it would be interesting if she weren’t already an expert fish-hunter. She has instincts yeah, but only animals low on the food chain work entirely on instinct. Higher level predators require instruction and practice to become skilled at tasks.
I mean, just think about how much YOU rely on instincts to hunt. These mer-people aren’t that far from humans, intellectually.
Well, whales have to learn to swim pretty quickly – if the species in this comic give live birth underwater, the swim instinct would have to be pretty good. It’s also entirely possible her chasing of fishes is much like human children chasing pigeons – fruitless but oh so amusing.
If she does catch them – perhaps her species has really good instincts. How can we assume that better intelligence means worse instincts? We don’t exactly have a great number of species to base that assumption on… Just one…
To clarify, by better intelligence I mean human-level intelligence. We have no other species with our type and level of intelligence to compare ourselves to.
Cue the theme of Jaws
Check out the third panel. I don’t remember “Jaws” licking his lips like that.
Selkie probably cries at the end of Jaws.
At some point someone needs to tease Tod about karma kicking him in the butt. Once upon a time he was one of those asshole vegetarians so, naturally, he would end up with a full on carnivore for a kid. X3
I do hope he stays non-meat (more meat for Selkie!) because it’s an interesting contrast. Now he just needs to explain to her why eating fish is one thing, but gleefully prolonging their death as they are consumed alive is not a good thing.
Its great to see Selkie in action under water. I don’t think we’ve ever seen her swim before. I hope we get to see a lot of Selkie’s people swimming at once at some point. That would make a killer wall paper 😀
I like this strip! I especially like the terrified fishies in the last panel.
—–
Unrelatedly, the Project Wonderful ad I see on the right column ad slot right now is this: http://www.projectwonderful.com/img/uploads/pics/55944-1350418363.jpg
Which kind of looks like a sexualized drawing of a female adolescent.
It links to this: http://www.projectwonderful.com/out.php?go=128409111&_r=http%3A//www.selkiecomic.com/
Which is a misogynistic two panel comic (on a non-creative content aggregator that doesn’t give attributions, but I’m more concerned with the defamatory misogyny, especially linking from a family friendly comic like this one).
I don’t think this is the sort of ad/link you want on your page. I meant to just send this to you (rather than posting it as a comment) but I didn’t see a contact link.
(PS: Now I see the “email me” link. Whoops)
You’re the second complaint I’ve gotten about that ad. Personally, I don’t have a problem with the Image Generator site being linked too, and I was okay with the last two Pin-Up pictures used to advertise it, but this new one is basically underwear.
Thanks for letting me know.
I can hear Jaws music playing in the background.
“S’alright?” S’alright.
Lined up by height, nice
It’s cool you have stuff come up, but for a comic that takes 5 or so months to have about a week in time…and only updates 1-2 a week…looks like a comic i’m gonna have to stop reading cause it’s not going anywear too fast. =/
allwell. it’s still really cute
Sorry. 🙁
It doesn’t matter how long it takes something to happen, what matters is *what* happens.
… I’mma try not to rage too much, and I’mma let you leave, but there are comics that update ONCE a week and are some of the greatest of all time! OF ALL TIME!!!
( /parody )
I don’t blame you, I mean, with all you’re paying to read this comic, you’re certainly not getting your money’s worth. And now he goes taking breaks? I mean, seriously, who do these artists think they are, anyway? People or something?
Kaitkait, if you want a comic that happens daily, no matter hell or high water, you want a syndicated newspaper one, not one with any thought put to creating a new universe, original characters and actually meaningful storylines.
There are TONS of webcomics that update once a week, if then, and usually the artist just apologizes, instead of putting ANYTHING up, even a doodle. I know of exactly TWO non-syndicated webcomics (yes, there are syndicated webcomics too, as well as ones with their own publishing companies) that appear 5 times a week and if a comic is unavailable, there’s a doodle or a photograph (usually of the artist being passed out on their drawings XD).
Selkie’s story is immersive, intricate and incredibly thought and emotion-provoking. I’m actually looking forward to Mondays now, knowing Selkie will be updating, and that’s like Garfield the Cat saying the same!
This news story reminded me of Selkie’s need for custom shoes.
… I’mma try not to rage too much, and I’mma let you leave, but there are comics that update ONCE a week and are some of the greatest of all time! OF ALL TIME!!!
( /parody )