Page 137 – 139
I tried to make Rae entering the shed look a little ominous. All these pages I wanted to be slow and quiet as Rae checks everything. This way you can understand why she is confident her plan will work. All the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.
page 140 – 142
In this entire opening to the fight Cu is bigger or positioned higher than Rae. I wanted him to feel threatening before the fight broke out. I particularly like how his snarling teeth came out on page 142. I don’t always get Cu’s expressions right because I try not to make them too human. I also like how him jumping over Rae came out and how that startles her.
page 143 – 149
Rae tripping and fumbling the nail gun is to make it clear she won’t get out of this fight unscathed. Her stutter is to show her confidence shaking.
Sometimes sound effects are hard. I am still not completely satisfied with the noise Cu makes when shot or his whining noise after.
As the fight goes on I wanted to show more of Cu’s power. He doesn’t help the girls fight but he isn’t helpless. He is a very large dog and a fairy. I wanted him to have a less normal looking form to show the threat increasing as the fight continued and Rae lost her powers.
If you don’t know watch a Cu Sidhe is, legends about them say if you hear them bark 3 times you’ll die. So I thought Cu’s finishing move of sorts being a bark that damages Rae’s ear drum would be good.
And while things didn’t go completely as Rae planned, once she couldn’t rely on powers lent to her by Cu she does better. Even though it’s mostly because of frantic luck rather than her careful plan.
page 150 – 154
I played with the idea of Rae’s hearing being gone for the rest of the series but I decided only for the rest of the book and the beginning of the next book. There were moments in book 3 that got to complicated by her suddenly being partly deaf. Also her punishment from Cu was a little more poetic.
When Rae puts Cu in the cage I wanted it clear that the tiny cage is hurting him. She is busting out all the anti-magic anti-fairy stuff. Iron, ash wood, and then salt.
And because it comes up later and blood is important, I wanted to finish the chapter by showing both Rae’s injuries from Cu are bleeding.