unsounded

14_35

I loooove that middle panel. Puppy begging Big Dog to share its bone, all the Jet Boys singing an obscene and stupid song, Duane placidly slicing bread for his lads, teenage Darid (one of the Plats) too cool for all these idiots and reading in the wagon, Captain Claggart brooding in the shadows, Jon trying to play a duet with...

14_34

The Adeliers grew up in Durlyne which, if you remember Chapter 7, is where the Ssaelit Temple of Song is, and the centre of the faith. Lemuel and Duane spent their boyhoods admiring the glittering paladins of God and the less glittering ugly hides of their vliegeng transports. Lem's always wanted to either be a knight or a vl...

14_33

Duane is insufferable. And "Noa's Healing Spoon" is a very self-indulgent reference to one of my favourite video games, forgive me. In the comic it surely refers to an Aldish spellburn that closes up any Solidity gaps made in the surrounding terrain.

Lemuel loves vliegeng and has since he was about the size of a vliegen...

14_32

This is a good high-res page; lots of details in the second panel. Can you find the guy reading the glowing book? That'd be me if I were there.

Poor jumpy Lem. The chicks will dig that scar in a few years, kiddo, it's okay.

14_31

In the second panel I like Duane stooping over to let Magnus lead him by the hand but that was a surprisingly tricky pose to make readable with the cape in the way.

Vliegeng incoming at the end. That's why Lemuel's thrown into shadow. Privileged information for Patreon subscribers! ;)

14_30

They were right earlier! Will's drum grants inspiration. Saving their sweaty Spellmaster from blowing his blond ass up is motivating too. All is well.

14_29

I think the last panel is rather pretty, even if he is walking on a field of potential sloppy death.

14_28

Poor Lemuel sitting in the dirt, not an eye on him. Don't be too mad at Duane, he has seven other kids he has to mind, and Lem is always telling him how tough he is.

14_26&27

Two new pages today, find the second attached. Gore warning.

A lot of people ask Lemuel, when he's older, how he got the scar on his face. He has an assortment of grand stories he'll tell but only Duane knows the truth. And Duane never tells it when he's asked - he always tells them to go bother Lemuel for the tale.

14_25

Ooh, the first mention of the salt lizard in Duane's story. Meanwhile Ruffles' Nanna is gritting her teeth wondering when this blathering cadaver is finally going to get to the point.

Dramatic tension, nanna! Wait for it!

Gonna try to finish an extra page this weekend. If so, we'll do two pages on Monday.

14_24

Hit him again, Lemuel! Harder!

We believe you, we were there and saw Roger too :U

14_23

There is nothing in Ssaelism that says if you die in Ssael's service you get a free pass to hang out with Him - thankfully Brother Duane refrains from correcting the soldiers' battlefield beliefs.

14_22

I really like how clueless Duane is when interacting with the others. He doesn't know his own brother as well as they seem to, and it makes him very uncomfortable. But is he going to bring up Danila? Or the grisly business with the pig? No way, not directly. But he'll bring him his sword, tease him a little, pretend everythin...

14_21

In all of Kasslyne, Avelpit is one of the best preserved remnants of the First World. The exposed spines of mountain ogres stretch into the distance like waves, and their reaching hands form the banks of long, winding ridge-roads. Spoopy.

14_20

Everyone gets their porkchops after all. Thanks, Lem.

14_19

Little bit of sermonizing from Duane. I've always enjoyed the Ssaelit philosophy, even though they damage some of their credibility by turning around and calling Ssael himself "God." It makes a degree of sense - what better way to grant mankind ultimate agency than to apply the G-word to their champion - but it muddies the me...

14_18

Duane eavesdropping on the kids and smirking at their conversation is very on point for him. And Will tags along for the cremations because even the Spellmaster and his Plats are less scary than all the other soldiers D:

In the original script I had Duane saying a prayer over the bottom three panels: "Ssael, we defy thi...

14_17

Duane is the most wholesome sensei putting the welfare of his child soldiers so high in his priorities.

14-16

Little bandaged head baby is feeling pretty out of sorts. He only arrived yesterday and isn't up to date on what all this is about. He's a bit too young to be a good avatar character for us, but it's always handy to have someone in a scene to ask a question or three.

14-14&15

Two pages today, find the second one attached.

I tried something fancy with the hard cut between the boar charging and Lem being on the ground in the next panel - like he didn't see what hit him. Not sure how effective it was.

But there's Lord Roger Foi-Hellick on the next page, looking much healthier and more tog...

14_13

I'm about forty pages ahead of this one, and these old pages keep wigging me out because I keep thinking I've forgotten the cut Lem gets across his face between now and then.

You're generally not supposed to show a character looking directly into the "camera" - it kind of takes you out of the action and breaks the line ...

14_12

Danila's got a point, perhaps. It doesn't seem fair that Duane got to rocket up to officer just because he went to University; just because he's some fancy wright. Lemuel doesn't seem too sore about it at least.

Maybe because he understands that Duane's pompousness isn't who he really is?

14_11

Even boot leather-flavoured pig is probably better than the hardtack and dried goat stew they've been eating for weeks. That would be a gory mess to butcher though D:

For reasons he'll detail on the next page, Danila isn't a big fan of Duane. We're used to his pompousness and flair but it must really rub certain parties...

14_10

One of my favourite pages this chapter. I am not above occasional self-indulgence, and neither are the Adeliers~

You know, I first outlined this chapter like, ten years ago, and the boar here has been a constant throughout all the revisions. It's a fun twist of fate that I finally got to draw it during the Chinese Year ...

14_09

Imagine someone liquefying the tissues of your forearms so they all melt off your bones.

McYellFace is Captain Claggart, who will be our uptight Gold-hating Jet foil this chapter. He has good reasons to hate the Adeliers though. Lemuel is such a cheeky punk!

14_08

Someone on Tumblr asked if Duane was a reckless Spellmaster and... sort of, on this page. He's certainly not expected to be shoulder to shoulder with the butchers on the front line - he's too valuable - but he can't help babysitting his little brother. For better or for worse.

14_07

So for this chapter I wanted to try a speedier method of doing the art. Mostly that entailed not inking my lineart, and doing all the colour in greyscale with colour overlaid on top. In the end, this wound up saving me exactly no time at all??

I like how it looks though, so it was still worth the experiment.

14_06

The Plats!

There are six of them + Apprentice Jon. Don't stress over remembering them all; I specifically tried to depict them as a single entity so I wasn't introducing a glut of new characters for just one chapter.

They've been in Duane's keeping seven months and they are Good Boys except for Magnus who picks hi...

14_05

Jon there is Duane's apprentice and a keen lad, if a bit of a shrinking violet.

Thanks for the kindness last update. I was so nervous about doing those two prose pages but everyone was really supportive and put my mind at ease about them. I had figured they were okay since they were really just a bunch of dialogue ballo...

Ch14_2-4

Updating with three pages today, make sure you check the attachments for the other two.

I've had a lot of requests for a really detailed map of continent Kasslyne and while this is only Alderode, I did want to do something of that vein for this chapter. One day I'll do a really nice one of the entire world, wit...