catharsis, page 10

hi. i did a twitter poll about whether sketches were something people actually wanted in these posts or not, and it seems like people very much do want them, so i'll upload them, and the thumbs, when i have done them for a page.

this one was rough to draw out. i ended up redesigning felix's crutches after looking into HOW exactly one gets from sitting with only one leg. it's just never really something i've had to think about. so i looked it up, and that took a couple of attempts for the sake of pacing.
i first noticed that i just hadn't made a new reference for felix's crutches for the new style, so it came out like this:

as much as i love the chunky look, i could tell that the plastic seems heavy, and that bulkier plastic crutches like this tend to be closed cuff style only -- the closed cuff itself needs to be reinforced in a different way which requires more plastic...
so i decided to again alter his crutches before they had to be canonized to be sleeker open-cuff crutches. the handles only have slits necessary to link them when they're set aside. this is the end design:

these crutches are made of aluminum, which is a cheaper standard material than titanium or carbon fiber, but more durable and sanitary than wood. they weigh about 2 pounds each - like the weight of 2 water bottles in each hand.
back when i first made felix, he really seemed like the type who would decorate his crutches with stickers, which, now with my hand health known to me, sounds like a nightmare, so i'm not exactly averse to the change. it'll also reduce issues with tangents the crutches make with felix's wrists.

you can see a couple of other thumbs and a whole lined panel that didn't work out:

i think izzi has strong feelings for this chicken, who is an ex-girlfriend of hers. it's never really stated that the chicken is her ex, and the most you can intuit from how they're portrayed is that izzi feels pretty strongly for the chicken, and the chicken seems detached, but not surprised or uncomfortable by the subtle touches you don't usually share with friends.
if you get even more complicated: on this page, you see sandra ask if izzi is okay (the only person to express concern for her well-being), and izzi refers to her as "baby," so you can guess they're probably not Just Friends. later in the scene, you see charlotte, who dresses in a similar fashion to izzi's girlfriend, and she states she's izzi's ex-girlfriend. the chicken dresses like both of them. combined with the interaction here, other details can help paint a fuller picture.
i think i'd get pretty close to guessing their relationship if i was a reader, but i'm not a regular reader... if i was, i'd be amazing at guessing how these pages would land with the public.
regardless, for a particularly observant reader, these little incongruities with the interaction here are supposed to foster a sense of curiosity about why izzi has these exes because it doesn't seem to add up - this is relevant to the plot later on.

something to also be noted is that playing basketball is just not really viable for felix here; whether izzi decided to pivot to this on purpose, or just didn't think about it, is debatable, but she wasn't running to bring him back when he left.

if my hand was in top shape, i would definitely draw a background in the pink of that second-to-last panel... but there are plenty of fleshed out backgrounds in this scene.