The non-compliment that is “different” was actually what he wanted to hear in this case. And hey! A third different look for Nareth in as many chapters (and all three versions have been in the last two updates) am I confusing everyone yet? 🙂
So, I guess first thing’s first…I’m not happy with this page. I don’t know why I had such a block with it, but I just couldn’t get something I liked out of it. This is actually the 7th version of this page, at which point I went with it because it was the best I’d done, and this comic has deadlines to adhere to, but it’s not really how I wanted to introduce this new design. I’ll acknowledge that the new look is part of the problem – it makes him look younger, which is kind of weird – but it’s not the entire answer, since I like it just fine on following pages. It’s more the overall drawing that isn’t working, but the haircut isn’t helping – I did such a bad job of designing these characters in the first place that their hair is all that separates them, so changing his hair practically makes him a new character. My apologies to you guys. That is a problem I am working to fix going forward.
That said, I hope the design doesn’t throw anyone too much. This was actually planned from the beginning for story reasons, so it’s not something I’d decided to do on a whim. It WAS good timing, though. I was really getting tired of drawing the old version – the villain didn’t care about his appearance much, so it got sloppier and sloppier, but I thought it was getting away from me a bit at the end. As I said, I know it makes him look younger, but I don’t really mind that too much. Well, it is what it is…
Thanks for reading! See you next week!
I think it would be interesting to see the seven attempts – I wonder how you even got time for it with a tight schedule.
Also, I remember when we had an exchange about how we dislike doing backgrounds. Now all the details in the background in the second panel – wow!
Unfortunately, they don’t exist, so I couldn’t show them even if I wanted to. 🙁 They were pretty much all just slight (poorer) variations of this. Really, I just should’ve given up and changed the page entirely, gone at it from a new angle, but I didn’t realize when I started how hard a time I’d have with it (it’s really nothing special, I think it was just one of those days when my hand wasn’t cooperating) and I am very stubborn, haha.
I have days off built-in to my schedule though. This page made me lose them. 🙁
I like his new look, off with the ponytail of evilness, on with the smile of niceness! ^^
Indeed, time for a change. 🙂
He does look different. It’s difficult seeing him as human after being Tren-an for so long. But it is good to see him back to normal.
That was the thing I worried about the most about this story. I knew it’d be a bit of a sharp turn for people. It’s the Beauty and the Beast problem, you spend so long convincing readers to like a character one way, and then change it, it runs the risk of undoing all that work.
It’s as Agneris said earlier though, there are things he still needs to do and a boetheri can’t do them. Certain loose ends must be tied as a human.
The look on Nareth’s face in the last frame reminds me a great deal of the villain… a very… plotting bad things look…
Tex: I know plotting when I see it. That’s plotting.
Tucker: Maybe they’re scheming.
Tex: No scheming looks different. That’s definitely plotting.
I had nothing to add, really. When all else fails, quote RvB. 😀
Don’t be so hard on yourself, I knew that was Nareth. I totally understand the trouble of only seperating some characters by their hair style. XD It’s definitely a thing for us artists to work on. But I really don’t think this page looks bad, and even if you think so, one bad page won’t ruin the whole comic. =) Keep it up!
It’s mostly just disappointment that I know I can do better. The good part about such disappointment is that it encourages me to work harder next time. 🙂
I am glad he read okay to you, though. It was something I was unreasonably worried about when I posted this page, haha! I do think it looks better in the following pages, but future characters and future projects will have a lot more attention paid to the design phase to keep it from happening again. 😀