Escapades Issue 6 - Pages 27 and 28 - Sketches

And that's a wrap for sketches.

Long, rambling post ahead! The tl;dr is:

• Our heroines losing this battle was the only logical conclusion

• I'll be going back to make some slight amendments to make some sequences be clearer or flow better

• Issue 6 will be inked, coloured and released to the public by the end of 2025. Until then, you may want to drop down a tier if seeing inks/flats/etc of these pages doesn't interest you

• I'll be opening for commissions soon, with Patrons of all three tiers being eligible

• Sorry it's been a slow month. Working on an OC fanart piece at the moment which will go in Jan's Dropbox, and then Karlach

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Long version:

I wanted to wait until both of these pages were ready to post together, to help get a kind of symmetry going. Not visually, but in terms of how our two 'teams' have ended the night pretty much in the same state as each other - tired and frustrated with how their plans got thwarted, but ultimately heading forward with a newfound determination and ambitious plans for the future. Lotta dialogue too, but I think it's all important so it's gotta go somewhere, and I'm also pretty happy with the bondage-to-plot ratio of this issue anyway.

It's been really tough trying to find a balance between "this is the one where our protagonists lose the fight and have a really bad time", and "it's still gotta be fun for the readers, and there's got to be a narrative point and some kind of potential for growth rather than just being cruel to the characters for the sake of it".

There are various phrases that all lead to the same point -- "Fail to prepare, prepare to fail", and "Hope is not a course of action". A funny one I heard recently is "Hope in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills up first!". In Wossy and Aer's case: as proud as I am of the previous issues of Escapades, all of their victories have been due to hope/wishes/prayers being answered.

In Issue 3, Aer won by utilizing magic junk. Without even knowing its effects, she just hoped for the best and conveniently got exactly what she needed in that situation. What happens when that doesn't work out? Ineffective goop grenades.
In Issue 4, our girls survived because their opponent befriended them. What happens when that's not in the cards? Getting left tied up overnight.
In Issue 5, Jaz swooped in and saved the day. What happens when she's unavailable? Our heroines have to fend for themselves.
Take those three 'lifelines' away, and then split the pair up, and then pit one protagonist's 'desperate 10-minute improvisation' against two antagonists' 'ruthless 2-week planning'... and the only logical conclusion is that Aer fails miserably. So while some readers might be upset at this somewhat underwhelming ending, I would personally find it much more egregious if Aer had somehow managed to pull a decisive victory out of her nether regions! ^^;

That said, I have been chatting in the Discord server and there does seem to have been some lack of clarity over the final act's sequencing - for stuff like Aer's alarm gambit, I had been advised that the 'alarm countdown' was more realistic, but in practice the lack of actually seeing it go off had some people scratching their head over whether it ever triggered, or if Ana was talking about breaking the panel or the door (she meant the door). So, I'll go back to that part and see how it looks if the alarm instantly starts wailing.
There are some other minor things to address too, like the fact that I'd drawn Wossy's ankles taped to her chair for the overnight sequence to explain why she couldn't just waddle over to Aer and help with the ice cube, but there was never actually a panel showing Ana handling that extra taping between the fight ending and the overnight stay, so at the moment it just looks like a continuity error. Stuff like that will get sorted during inks.

Phew. So, anyway. As with previous issues, inking goes much faster than the initial sketches. Gone is the stress of trying to cram things onto the page with interesting poses and angles, now it's just smooth sailing, retracing my own work. This issue will be fully inked, coloured and released by the end of this year.
If you're not interested in seeing the progress of the inked/coloured pages, I recommend dropping down a tier as there's not much else going on in this top tier since Fanart Votes (and Character Submission rights for this tier) are still just a 'when I feel like it' thing.
Also, should I start another Fanart Vote in the coming months, I'll give an advance warning to all tiers in case you want to bump back up to submit a character (though I honestly wouldn't really recommend this too since the chance of winning is low and I wouldn't want you to feel like your tier upgrade was a 'lost gamble'!). For an alternate way of seeing me draw your favourite character, you may be happy to hear that I plan to start taking commissions next month, with Patrons of all three tiers being eligible. More details to come!

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Okay, what else... I've got a fun pic in the works of an OC from an artist that you definitely know and love - that should be done before the end of the month, and I'll put it into Jan's Dropbox either way. Karlach's gäg bust will be very soon too, and that'll be going into Dec's.

Sorry this month has been so empty - I'd been really struggling with getting solid compositions for these final two pages, and that Aer on the bed pinup took waaaaay longer than I'd planned, so it's all a bit of a scramble to get some other stuff done now. I'll always give you my best, but sometimes the quantity may be less than either of us hope for... ;_; So as always, please feel free to jump between tiers or even outright cancel anytime a month's offerings seem lacking. If you choose to stick around, I really appreciate the support! But the pics/links/etc don't get cycled out or removed etc, so you could just as well take a break for a few months, then come back and not have missed a thing.

Whatever you choose to do, if anything, thanks for being here to see this!