davebarrack
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Grrl Power #1179 - Fantababble
🕑 Added 2023-08-14 10:00:08 +0000 UTCThank you for the support! You guys are awesome!
Magic in and of itself doesn't have an ethical preference in the Grrl-verse, but it is a force of nature which is also a tool, in that sapients and even some sentients can manipulate it. This also includes vast, incomprehensible entities of ambiguous... evolence. (You know, ben/mal.) Usually, the vaster the entity, the less direct effect it has on The Weave, or at least, the less focused its effects are, while at the same time tending to be far more widespread. This is especially true for the more incomprehensible entities, almost by definition. After all, if you can detect their direct meddling, it's far easier to figure out their end game, and they are necessarily more comprehensible.
Deus's other point is basically "There's no such thing as that one thing because if that thing is like another thing then we call it another thing." Except that it kind of means that there is such a thing as that thing we call another thing, so maybe instead of a thing, we build another thing?" So... Kat had a good idea maybe?
I'm still working on the vote incentive. Spend all Sunday on it. I honestly don't know why they take me so long. I think shifting between simplified comic art and the more painterly stuff is part of it? I'll keep at it and try to have it ready by the Thursday comic, and I'll start on the next one right after. I think I know what I want to draw for that one, just have to figure out who to put in it.
Comments
Woodrobin
As much as pains me to agree with Deus, it does make sense that benevolent mana coalescences wouldn't really attract very much attention to themselves. Maybe a verdant forest in a desert -- but that could just be a particularly old and well-irrigated oasis unless you're really skilled at detecting mana levels. A particularly well-producing old family farm? Just great-grandpappies secret compostin' techniques, ah reckon'. And everybody knows oil wells tap into pockets of long-compressed organic matter from millions of years ago, and not seepage from ancient, dark, necromantic mana coalescenses, right. Right?
Dave Barrack
I appreciate the concern. I've always been a slow artist, and balancing the level of detail work with the number of panels I tend to include on a page has always been a struggle. As far as the vote incentives go, they do take a while to get painted, but one of the biggest struggles I have with them is deciding what to actually do for the picture. I don't think my art is conspicuously good enough to exist in a vacuum, like those artist whose Patreons are just pinup art like Sakimichan or NerArtCore or thirty others I could name, so I always want to integrate some story or humor into the pictures. When I get the urge to just draw someone in the shower or something simple like that, I get hung up on the fact that there's no way to do a clothed version of that picture (I mean I guess I could do a wet t-shirt or soap bubble version) but my point here is that for every finished piece you guys see, there are usually 1-4 half-penciled versions that I abandon halfway through because I decide the picture isn't good enough to be sexy on it's own merits or there's some technical issue with it. Like I have one picture with Maxima doing weighted situps (like holding a chain linked to a shipping container dangling beneath her) but I kind of screwed up the perspective so the container looks like it's the size of a smart car, and more importantly, drawing shiny, reflective abs mid-flex that look sexy and not like crumpled gold foil or like Max has 0% bodyfat is surprisingly difficult. So about half the time I have to work on incentives winds up not going to a finished product. I hope to improve that ratio obviously, and at some point I'll probably revisit failed pieces and see if they can be salvaged, so hopefully my efficiency will eventually improve. But the simplified art this week was just because I was sick and I was spending 2/3 of my time just zoning out in front of the screen. I don't think any amount of adderall could have combated that. :)
Darla Donahue
I kind of see the simplified art and undue stress to complete vote incentives as symptoms of you being under too much pressure. You get ill and try to keep all your commitments anyways but you need time / energy to recover. If you just push harder when you don't have the effort available, I worry you'll burn out. Get better and don't stress yourself too much, your audience (speaking for myself at least) will still be here.
