Flats for now, shading in a bit. Got myself sidetracked looking into merch store options. Set up a couple placeholder/demo items on Cafepress, Society6 and Zazzle; still making a decision on who to use.
-SHADING DONE-
I was originally going to put a little "editors note" narrator-box mentioning that Lynni is in a different class from the rest of the kids, only to remember that Wu and Sandy are ALSO not in Selkie George and Giselle's class. So, blam, Lynni's with them. So is Ricky because why not.
The juxtaposition in that last panel is just absolutely heartbreaking OnO
But maths is everyone’s friend!
Well maybe not long division…
The look on Selkie’s face in the last panel darn near broke my heart. Augh. I know that feels. :C Poor Selkie.
*ominous music sounds*
Recently, I’ve been finding it hilarious when kids say “You suck” without specifying what, exactly, is being sucked.
I think the juxtaposition in the second-to-last panel is the win. Truck is indeed big and awful and he sucks. I’m waiting for Selkie to use The Screech on him.
Didn’t work out so well the first time…
Hey Dave? Can I make a polite request for an update to the cast page? Though I’ve been reading Selkie since the beginning, I…kinda forgot who most of the kids are. Especially if they don’t show up that frequently, names just blend in to me.
Oh man I haven’t touched that in forever, have I… O_o
You do have a large and pretty well-developed cast. A cast page would be useful for both new readers and long-time readers who’ve lost track.
If possible, after you’ve got the base page up, see about adding links to a character’s first appearance, and maybe (depending on how large a role they have) one other major moment in their development so far. But if it’s too much trouble to go that far, don’t worry about it. Far better that you have a fully laid-out cast page than that you get bogged down with extra features and don’t get it done at all.
I dunno, an imminent and painful death doesn’t sound like much fun either…
There needs to be a better nickname for arithmetic than math. I’m a math major, and even I hate arithmetic. I thought I was bad at math, until I discovered Algebra and Geometry. I’m actually pretty good at math. I suck at arithmetic.
For those going “huh?”, arithmetic is the stuff you do within math, the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, whether it’s with whole numbers, decimals, or fractions. If all you’re doing is one or more of those operations, it’s not math. Graphing is the first actual math any student learns. Well, that and simple equations.
Ditto on that one. Math is actually pretty fun, and pretty easy if you don’t assume that you can do it all in your head without writing anything down or anything. Arithmetic is just plain tedious.
Math is the more all-encompassing term, which includes areas like geometry and arithmetic. Actually, if you look up the Quadrivium, you’ll find mathematical science to be divided into four major parts: Arithmetic and Music (the study of quantities, and then the relationship between quantities), and Geometry and Astronomy (magnitudes at rest, and magnitudes in motion).
If you’d like to get more fluent with the arithmetic side of things, there’s Lumosity’s Raindrops game (tiny math questions are falling, answer them before they hit the ground! starts out very easy, like 2+3). Lumosity takes a subscription (you can have a free account and get about three semi-random games per day… I’ve been trying to persuade them to change their business model), but there are also free variants out there that are a bit less polished. There’s also Khan Academy, which is a decent way for a student of any age to drill themselves on whatever part of math they want to get better at.
A few months ago I concluded that my ability to add numbers if I stopped to think about them was more than adequate, and that the way to improve my work was actually to make faster guesses and get good feedback about how close my guesses were. This has helped significantly in how quickly my head visualizes the correct answer for a lot of problems.
Also, algebra is way more awesome than arithmetic. I’m teaching it to my nephews (started when they were 9) and niece (about to turn 8). I learned it early without realizing it because I was learning how to program, back in GW-Basic… any type of programming requires variables, and getting that concept straight (the use of a symbol to represent a number you don’t yet know) is a big help when it comes time for higher math.
I didn’t realize that some people reach college age without understanding this concept until I was trying to sign up for programming classes and discovered that the prerequisite for the easiest class (Visual Basic) was Math 65, which I was nowhere near at the time. Turns out I was way ahead of my other math skills when it came to variables 🙂
I’m fond of geometry. I play a lot of billiards and if you understand even basic geometry you become a much better player. And if you understand advanced geometry you can make the balls do tricks that almost break the laws of nature. Applied math is incredible. The stuff you do to get there is far less fun.
“Hey, teacher, I got a calculator. Can I be excused?”
Wait, these kids also aren’t all sorted into set classes that go from grade to grade together from elementary to high school? They are re-sorted randomly for separate subjects?
I got so thrown by ‘orphanage’ I forgot this was still taking place in America…