catharsis, page 7

hey! we finally move out of felix's place of work. i opened with izzi here because the beginning of this scene will nod toward more elaboration on the plot to come -- or, core components of the plot: izzi, and felix's drastic reactivity to perceived peer pressure.

i really wanted to change the first panel to something a little more comprehensible, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth the amount of time it would take... i've had, not a lot of free time since i got settled into the new place. the first panel isn't supposed to give everything away anyway...

this comic starts around mid-october. i drew the first 10 pages while experiencing october's extreme transition from fall to "looks exactly like winter," and it reminded me of a lot of the little cues. the eggnog, i included to help set the time frame a little; although most people associate it with december, it does hit the shelves in october.
i made some assumptions that weren't really correct about california, though... when i looked up the temperature in mid-october, it was in the mid-70s or 80s. i thought the trees would definitely be triggered by temperature, and wouldn't have their fall colors yet, but from what i could read, they still shed leaves at the same time anyway.
i had to edit that after finishing the page. on the plus side, it forced me to wonder if felix's bonsai tree would change with the seasons, too, and i learned some more stuff about bonsais that it would have been embarrassing to get wrong.
felix is wearing a sweater here because he has to hide his work shirt, by the way. it's definitely still at least 75 degrees in this scene. i decided to make it halloween-themed, due to its proximity to halloween. izzi's steak shirt, i just used a random noun generator for, and boy what a horrible mistake that was. the shirt is memorable, but my hand ached so bad, and it was so time-consuming.
i also had to go back and edit the nog to specify that it's non-alcoholic, lmfao.

loved the color scheme for this scene. shame it's sunset, so it changes as the scene progresses! i wanted to go from sharp, rich yellow highlights to deep dusky blues at the end of it, so it isn't unintentional -- sunset is fairly early in october, so that was another contributing factor for the choice.