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The Better to Find You With page 26 is up.

If you’d like to read the comic pages early click here! Right now page 30 is up.

So the opposite end of the main hall we have where the village leader sits. Behind them are some tapestries that show what is important to the village, the mountains, their religion, goats, and the river.

Inside the main hall I needed a big town meeting place that is for the public. The front door is on the second floor which is the case with even the smaller houses. But this public place has a big tall and open room. There is big heavy tables and benches for people to sit and some more benches are behind the railing. The railing will have the same lily and tree carvings as outside. There are over head lights that are melt bowls with some oil lighting in them. They are hanging from chains so they can be lowered of raised as needed. They are tied to/wrapped around another goat horn. Since the houses are built into the mountain no windows except in the front. Also, there is a fire pit to break up the visual and to give some dramatic lighting. I thought that the center fire pit would be a good idea cause again, being inside the mountain means a regular fire place would have hard to include. There is a platform in the village leaders can sit at while addressing everyone seated at the hall. I’ll post a good look at that tomorrow.

So for this book the chapter titles all come from what the qualities the knights of the round table are supposed to represent. Since this is about Elsie and Billy mostly and Elsie trying to make sure he’s okay, I figured Loyalty was a good fit.

page 1 – 7

I liked writing this scene because it’s basically Elsie deciding who to yell at. Also, I wanted to show how bad Billy is hurt even though he’s getting up and moving. Laughing hurts. Probably everything hurts. I also liked putting in all the tiny panels Elsie thinking things over.

Also, once Elsie tells Billy to the keep the necklace, I tried to keep Morgan seperate from them. Through out this whole book there are moments where Morgan feels more isolated but doesn’t say anything. And Billy and Elsie having sibling rough housing time like she’s not there is part of that.

page 8 – 13

I thought I’d forget the helmet if it was just on the table. Elsie wearing it is more fun. Also, Kimber doesn’t know Elsie before this story so while explaining stuff to her was a good time to spell it out that Elsie’s dad is dead.

I like how Elsie’s hands came out when she says “We still need to find Cu though.” Same with Elsie slumping over in defeat on page 10.

Also like in the scene before Elsie switches from attacking to defending once she gets a new info. I liked drawing everyone’s silent reactions to “she said she’d call.” I used that specifically because of Kimber’s crush on Rae.

Kimber is full of good ideas despite Rae pulling one over on her.

page 14 – 15

Elsie and Kimber are being the problem solvers. This scene I wanted them all to put a little bit of info together. Kimber’s got most of it. Morgan has her dream. And Elsie connects the two.

I wanted Kimber and Elsie to focused on Billy while Morgan has another tiny moment to think about what she doesn’t have. If you can’t read it the note from Kimber’s mom says her where she is, that she left Kimber money to order take out, and a reminder that Kimber needs to make a hair appointment. Kimber reading this note would probably find it annoying because of the hair bit and calling her Kimmy, but Morgan doesn’t know that Kimber and her mom always fight about those things. I made sure the most important detail was clear. The “Love Mom”

page 16 – 19

Billy falling unconscious before he changes is partly to show why he doesn’t remember anything. He just blacks out and wakes up in a different place.

Also, now that he’s helmet less I wanted a visual indicator of who was in control. Removing the pupils/irises was an easy one.

While they are putting things together, Kimber’s being more excited about the fantastical aspects should be clear. How she goes to enthusiastic to a little jealous when it comes to all this.

Elsie is the only one watching Billy/Arthur try to escape while Kimber and Morgan talk about Morgan’s dream. Since she has fallen out of her chair a bunch she knows he’s gonna fall over before he does.

Page 20 – 23

This is mostly an exposition dump and also some insight into Arthur’s motives since they are not Billy’s.  But Elsie and Arthur’s little “am not” “are too” is to show Billy is still in there somewhere.

Arthur’s motive is something I wanted to be kinda vague but still well intentioned. Each detail of what he thinks it wrong is also something that could be paired with each member of the team that is there. But I also left out Arthur’s plan to fix things because he doesn’t really have one. In old King Arthur stories Arthur doesn’t really have much of a plan either. He just replaces a several smaller fighting kings with himself. There wasn’t much of a game plan for after.

page 24 – 28

Elsie was paying the most attention to Arthur’s fidgeting so she’s the first to act. Also since Kimber’s yard is still wrecked, I wanted the characters to comment on it. Kimber definitely got a talking to after her parents saw the yard. Morgan and Elsie haven’t been too worried about property damage cause they never had these magic fights in their house.

The fights in this whole book were ones I tried to make not pretty. Know of these characters are trained to fight. So there is a lot of while pushing Elsie away Arthur’s fingers get in her mouth. Elsie hit Arthur where he’s hurt while gripping his wrist in a way that someone trains could get out of. I wanted it to feel like a dirty scramble rather than a movie fight.

Also, since we know Arthur is Billy now I wanted to show much much more invested Elsie is now. So she immediately chases after him.

page 29 – 31

I made it down poring to show visually that awhile as past. I also thought the next fight would work better in the rain. I maybe should have put a few more people on the street though. Ya know, to warrant burrito guy being at his corner.

The Morgan/Elsie phone exchange comes a little bit from real life. When I was in high school my mom used to call to make sure I got home okay at the exact same time everyday. Once I came home and had enough time to get frustrated with something before she called in the middle of me trying to fix it. I answered the phone with “What?” instead of hello and then got a lecture about how to answer the phone.

Morgan continues to be surprised by other people getting cared about. This is kinda another small point to the making her feel isolated list.

page 32 – 36

Here is one of two big scenes where I tried to push the not pretty fights. Also it raining and being slippery and muddy helps. I did some digging to find out how badly Elsie was gonna cut up her hands while playing tug of war with sword. You can hold a sword blade without cutting yourself if you are careful which Elsie never is.

I wanted to have both Elsie and Arthur bleeding by the end of the fight. Elsie doesn’t realize it but she accidentally helped the ritual by crashing through the tree with him. Arthur’s blood needed to be in the middle of the tree and their fight gets both of there blood there.

page 37 – 40

Elsie finishes her rescue of Billy. Morgan tries to help but isn’t needed really. While showing Elsie’s support or concern for Billy, I did also want to push Morgan away from Elsie and Billy. So we end things with Morgan alone in the rain.

Hey folks! Topatoco just revealed some pins I designed last October. They are for the Mortal Instrument series by Cassandra Claire. I thought I’d walk you all through how I made them.

If you aren’t familiar with the series there are 3 magical items used by a group of people who are part called Shadowhunters. Those items are a cup, a sword, and a mirror that is revealed to actually be a lake. I was supposed to make a pin based off each item.

Here’s my first sketches.

Firstly, I asked Topatoco how big they wanted the pins to be and was told about an inch. So I made a one inch by an inch and a half grid and sketch at size. This way I could see if the designs were clear at the actual size of the pin.

The Mortal Cup can make humans into Shadowhunters so I thought a figure with angel wings would be a good representation of that. It would also make the pin more interesting than just a cup.

The Soul Sword was a little tricker because it was easy for it to end up super tall and thin. You can see I did a regular sword design and shorter version of the sword that ended up looking more like a dagger. The Soul Sword is also held by these guys the Silent Brothers who judge crimes and take testimony from Shadowhunters who have commited crimes. I did a few designs of one of them holding the sword to give the pin more width. Eventually giving is a tarot card background seemed to also be worth trying out.

The last was Lake Lyn. I did a design to follow the tarot card shape I made for the sword. The other designs where me trying to make the lake look like an old fashion mirror with the forest being the frame. This is a case where drawing at size helped. This is a good idea in theory but at an inch by an inch and a half all those details were hard to convey.

Cassandra Clair’s assistant told me which design of each pin was like bested. I also got told they liked the tarot card idea across the board. So I added a tarot background to the Mortal Cup design. Then I cleaned them up and then need some color varients.

I also used grey for the line art so I would have a better Idea which colors would contrast with the metal best. Cassandra Clair’s assistant told me the colors that were liked best. High res versions of that went off to Topatoco.