Forest Tails Page 166 in HD

Oh yeah ...

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So it's back to just the two of them and with that returns a sense of privacy, albeit a very fleeting one, given what Marvin said about eyes in the forest, but even so ...

This page came together surprisingly quickly and I'm making decent headway on the next one too, so while I didn't really finish earlier this month as I had hoped, I still might get to produce just a tiny bit more backlog to bolster the next couple' uploads - here's hoping :3

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As has become customary by now, you get a little more background stuff on these patreon posts than the regular uploads do.

I mentioned above that this page came together faster than previous ones. While this remains true, I feel I may have cut one too many corners achieving this, or rather, I noticed I was having a hard time keeping things congruent towards the end, as far as the style and general quality was concerned.

I tried out some new brush combinations and also wanted to see whether I could carve out decent backgrounds a little faster with them, instead of copy/pasting the plants in from my prefabs, which I've also found limit me rather strictly in terms of what sort of angles I can draw. Not that I vary those very often to begin with, but I'll obviously be more free to change them up as I see fit, if I can do them by hand. The experiments in that direction cielded mixed results.

To be more specific, I'm very satisfied with the look of panel 2, especially with the background and the experimental elements I used in it coming together, but I'm highly dissatisfied with Tobur in panel 5. He looks incomplete compared to the previous two renders, and nothing I did really improved anything about that fact - mind you, the important aspects are completed, so his smug expression is there and all, but there's just something that bugs me about it.

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Surprisingly enough I was not listening to music this time around, but instead I listened to the musings of some commentators on various topics concerning race and politics. Now, while they don't necessarily touch me personally (as I'm about the whitest white you can get, short of bleaching, and I live in central europe) I suppose, given the current climate, it was inevitable that I would have to at least fringe wise graple with the subjects a little bit.

Now, I generally try to avoid making my art truly political, though I suppose infusing a story with at least marginal opinions as an artist is impossible, as personal ethics and morality weigh into your process whether you want them to or not - even omiting them is technically already betraying them, when you think about it.

Having said that, please, no matter your personal opinion, if you want a political debate, take it to PM's. The constant bombardment by (social) media is tiring enough. I don't want to have to moderate any large scale discussions. I only included this because I usually tell you guys what I listen to while I work and it felt weird not to, just because it happened to not be music this time around.

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Something I will be political about:

I know many countries have begun to loosen their lockdowns. While this is nice, it is also, I feel, premature. Given that China reported a new, more resiliently mutated strain just the other week, with a new rise in infections, and there are several new hot spots forming in countries whose' numbers were previously on the decline, as well as several occasions of blatant disregard for safety regulations, despite the severity of the situation (looking towards germany and their slaughter house scandal here), I feel it would be wiser to brace for a second wave.

Now, I've become a little disillusioned with the operational efficiency of the (inter)national community and how fast they will react to a given crisis, even if it is staring them in the face - or whether they're willing to acknowledge it at all, so I feel it is instead up to us as individuals to remain alert and treat the situation responsibly and sensibly. So keep washing your hands after coming home from outside, keep your masks on, keep people at a reasonable distance, and perhaps we can avoid this thing crashing into our lives too hard outside of having to be home for another couple' months, if the governments do decide on further lockdowns.

 Stay Home! Stay Safe! Stay Healthy! Stay Awesome!