dupe
patreon
FaD strip: can't remember
🕑 Added 2022-05-22 06:51:59 +0000 UTCi've been working on this for. weeks, now. started it near the end of april -- just under a month. i don't plan on fully coloring this like the cage, but i would like to add some more details and maybe splashes of color -- mainly backgrounds in panels where they should be, speech/thought bubbles, a carabiner that i always carry around missing from the entire strip, and fixing up panels that are blurry due to resizing. i'll do that in my downtime if i feel like it though; for now i just want to say it's done.
ironically, a lot of this strip's content is related to events in a different strip which involved the removal of dupe's wings and featured contra that i just never published because. it's p-biz. i looked at A LOT of past strips while working on this, and it was really interesting to see the continuity.
one part of the conversation -- the one where blue asks directly what contra did to dupe -- is melded from another, separate time, which was actually while i was working on this strip, and thought to ask. i knew i wouldn't have time to make an entire separate strip, and it was relevant enough to just blend it here. the relevance of the events alluded to in the injected dialogue was implicit in the original conversation regardless.
the only major thing cut was after dupe turns around at the end, but before they notice the pinwheels, they ask blue if he would switch places, mostly dissociating and not existing while dupe gets to experience life and reality. he doesn't answer, but it's an implicit "no, i wouldn't, i like existing too much" and both of them understand that. dupe comments that blue didn't protect her from contra (the unpublished strip in question featured gray as well, as they were interrupted by contra in the middle of talking to dupe; gray initially tries to assert authority over contra when she's clearly hostile towards dupe, but quickly cowers and quietly watches the events transpire instead).
the statement that blue neglected to protect, while factual, had a myriad of implications. dupe has a tendency to make sudden deeply cutting jabs, then immediately wander to another subject, and it felt like a little too much emotional whiplash to leave in.
the strip here is very reminiscent of juno colors, but i was mainly looking for a mix of blue and green, without choosing electric blue and electric green again. it's one of my favorite colors, and dupe's color "territory" extends all the way out to teal, with juno's being mostly the lighter seafoam green/minty color, so i'm just going with it. i would love to throw some more pops of the deep blue in there while touching it up, though.
also, i realized retrospectively that i could have just looked up what pinwheels are called on my phone when drawing this...
