Low_Roads
4th Level Black Feather
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2004
- Messages
- 8,972
- Points
- 48
Grateful thanks, my good friend, for the bump up and for the warm-hearted words of encouragement! These chapter threads may not receive the biggest hit numbers, but commentary is always the most concise, thoughtful and gratifying imaginable! I wouldn't trade that for triple the score!
Thank you! I seldom post my lineart... it's too plain to be particularly impressive... but I was keen to do a promo this time and had hoped that small, incomplete hints would rouse curiosity in the finished presentation! For me, ink and color are completely separate parts of the process... more so than it seems to be for you, where the painting stage appears more intrinsic and holistically approached (if I were better trained, I'd likely be doing the same). As it stands, coloring the pages is an isolated operation which requires a distinctly separate mindset. I frequently find it bothersome to flip between these mental modes (lineart to gross coloring to detailed coloring), and would finish one stage completely before proceeding to the next if the marathon sessions didn't prove so fatiguing. I like to accumulate finished pages early on, too, so as to feel some confidence that progress is being made.
I couldn't be more pleased you feel I've done him justice! Thanks so much for okaying the extended cameo! Pastor Krank may not be as high-profile as Kitz or Tina Parsec, but I've always thought him an intriguingly fiery character! And he fits so wonderfully well into the current Low Roads crisis... a little rabid fanaticism (bringing the cross to heathens, across the skull when necessary) isn't such a bad thing in the face of looming arcane danger!
The Swillwell raid is indeed intended as a culmination point for the events in chapters 1-16! Subsequent chapters will delve more closely into Mercy and Angie's personal quests for growth (Angie, who's lately been relegated to background scenes, will assume a great deal of the story's focus hereafter); also, Mercy and Sephie's damaged relationship is due for intense examination. I'm very pleased you've come to sympathize with Sephie (or that, at least, she's captured your special interest)! She's likewise a most important character to me... though outwardly hidebound and authoritarian, she's been forced to sacrifice pleasures due to the early assumption of hard responsibilities. Carefree Mercy is allowed to alter her lackadaisical attitude gradually, without much painful stress; it's more difficult for Sephie to soften, as her duties grow ever more arduous as the crisis deepens. If Angie and Mercy have journeys ahead of them, so does she; the obstacles she'll encounter may prove thornier than theirs.
I'm very pleased to hear that! I had hoped for some empathy for Sid, despite his loathsomeness! This involved plot to liberate Bloody Head is essentially a generous act, unusual for the normally self-absorbed bogey mindset... in a more sympathetic character, it would be seen as entirely laudable. I'd hoped this would lend some complexity to a bounder who is otherwise pretty straightforward. It also, as you note, serves to escalate tensions in Tabor County, what with an extra bogey on the prowl! Needed development, as this crisis has only cleared its first act!
Most kind of you! Sid and his ilk are inward-looking (aka self-absorbed) by nature... altered bogeys are able express this tendency in a literal way as well. This will become an increasingly important theme as events progress... paradoxically, after swapping their souls for all the temporal world, they narrow their outlook to the most parochial level of concern. Unrestrained appetite doesn't broaden them... it limits them in the most restrictive way imaginable.
Glad you had fun with Sid's invasion of the shanty building and his brief spree with Sparrow! I wanted this scene to work as a madcap thrill... I'd have liked to explore it more fully (having folks rushing around through rooms, dodging each other and the tentacles in slapstick craziness), but the chapter was already too long to allow for such extended indulgence. If I ever finish this blamed series, I may try a whole story structured this way... haunted houses wallow in tickle potential!
Glad you like the new look of Mercy's armor! It took me quite awhile to arrive at a design I could live with... it'll need slight tweaking for special situations, but this will basically be its look from now on (fortunately, malleable Dreamtime material makes small changes seem intuitive!) And she will indeed begin to explore its offensive possibilities almost immediately! You're quite right... we'll see her build to ever more desperate combat situations as the story proceeds!
Perceptive of you, Scav! Sephie relationship to Mercy is more akin to mother than sister; an absent one at that, something for which she feels great guilt. Seeing her wee one grow toward true independence (not simply willfulness) is distressing to her in an "empty nest" way made all the more painful by her having missed most of Mercy's maturating process. She's sacrificed much domestic happiness for community good and can't help but feel cheated. It doesn't occur to her that any benefit can flow from the current situation... in this, she's likely to be surprised.
Boundless thanks, Scav! I deeply treasure your detailed comments and compliments! I know how busy you are, and it touches me deeply that you always reply so generously!
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