Raven has been waiting for Thad to start asking questions since 1996. That’s six years – plenty of time for her to hone the pitch she’s unloading. Packed with peanuts, this synopsis really satisfies – her briefing pulls the official ETL perspective on key DCR flashback events into the here-and-now, which should give you some idea of the influence said happenings have on the current political landscape.
If you’re wondering why Raven waited for Thad to get interested, well… it’s a thing. One she doesn’t necessarily agree with, which is what got her into this mess in the first place. CHARACTER ARC!
Plot-wise I’m satisfied with the script. Art-wise I’m satisfied with the support images and some elements of the line art but overall I am not happy with how this page came out – photometric lights and cel shading don’t always get along and this is definitely one of those cases where the limits of the production technique are clearly visible. Or maybe not – I’m looking at the results in the context of the 3d reference models, of knowing how light behaves in the scene, and I’ve pointedly never posted reference renders to the web. Maybe the trouble panels look better than I think they do.
I think the layout of this page is cute, and you might too – it’s available to anyone who donates $5 or more a month on Patreon. In fact if you’re a $5 Patron of ATC you can see all of the layouts and high-quality versions of all of the pages of this scene and every scene after it, as pages are completed. Patrons have had access to this page for weeks!
Last week I implied I’d have some idea of the feasibility of a summer posting schedule by this week. I was wrong. This week I have a better idea of just how much work the next scene is going to be to get to renders and it’s rather a lot. I’ve blown the dust off of an eleven year old environment, gotten it re-lit, and this coming weekend I’ll be doing some renovations in support of the plot. Then further setup work, then probably a bit more modeling, then renders, then pages. The next scene is actually pretty light on line art, but it’s heavier on 2d graphics (read: digital paint and flailing at the Make Art Button) than ATC has been in awhile so I really have no idea how long it’s going to take. I just know that it’s going to be July before I’m drawing ATC again if I’m lucky. So there will definitely be a gap between the last full page of this scene and the last partial page of this scene, though the scene after it – the one that’s in production now – will flow smoothly once it’s into the line art stage. In the meantime there are a couple of progress posts on the Patreon page and I plan to keep posting periodic behind-the-scenes updates as the scene develops.
Next week: What’s Raven’s getting to? Stay tuned!
