absinthe teaser

[egypturnash]

The main thing I did today was work on Five Glasses of Absinthe. This is page 18, with the dialogue layers turned off. You're missing a monologue that riffs off of the opening of Godard's À bout de souffle ('Breathless'), one of the movies that influenced the way this story evolved...



(image hosted on LJ, because my site's down for scheduled maintenance)

This is one of about four pages in chapter 1 where I break my rules for color. There are three color swatches in use here, instead of two - the brick-red, the aqua, and the turquoise. I'm really happy with the layer of color symbolism that popped in regarding the apple: as Absinthe leaves Wormwood, she eats and throws away an apple the same color as the caltropolis she so detests. And abandons it in the sky.

I was toying with the idea of putting some complex patterns on the blanket she picnics on via distortion meshes, but decided that would be too show-offy and technical for the moment. There's more than enough fiddliness going on with that shot of Wormwood in the first panel.

The other thing of note that happened today was receiving a package: the custom collar we'd ordered at the Fetish Flea. Sadly I can't show you a photo of it, as it's a new design they don't have on their site right now - but it's very pretty, with a few little faux gems, and green trim. It, ah... worked really well. Mmm. ♥ It needs to break in a little to be really comfortable, but it did some really interesting things to my head to put on a collar made specifically for me.

Comments

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

Very nice. Love the sense of motion.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[thphilster.livejournal.com]

This is really, really pretty indeed.

Gorgeous work!

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

It's taking forever but it's worth it. I think. I dunno if I'll ever do another comic like this again, but I'm committed to about 150 pages of this thing.

[tarathene.livejournal.com]

It seems worth it, from our end here. It's quite a different experience from yours, I know, but we thank you very much for the effort you're putting into it and the wonderfulness you're sharing with us. As much as I dislike dead tree copies of things usually, this certainly would make the short list of things I would buy immediately upon printing.

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

Ok. I wasn't expecting that kind of digital trickery in this comic. You tend to work with flat plains. Man, I LOVE that bluegreen/brown combo, though and I love how you use color to separate plains and levels of interest. I'm not sure if I like the fuzziness, though as it almost seems too meta, really drawing attention to the fact that -this part is done with a computer-. It's really well done, and I love the lumped city image on its own, it's just such a contrast to the sharp foreground. Dunno. I'm probably in the minority on this one. But yah. Just great stuff. You are going to stun, lady!

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm a little iffy on the blur on the receding city. Thing is, if I don't do that, then there's way too much contrast going on, and it becomes the focus of attention. I need there to be detail there, but it needs to not be interesting detail. I might try turning the blurs down, I dunno.

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

But...no boots?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

This is one of the few places in the entire comic where Absinthe's not wearing boots.

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

Awesome use of limited palette, among other things.