raspberryrain

Late yesterday I decided that my artwork this hot summer needed a preponderance of swimsuits. Also redheads for some reason. And hey, look, Ellery’s mother is conveniently redheaded!

I feel like there’s both relatively little happening in this strip, and a lot below the surface, both for the characters and for me as a writer.

Well, either we’ll later see more of whatever Staci wants to talk about, or we won’t. So, let’s talk about words, I guess.

I have surprisingly mixed feelings about one bit of dialogue here. On the one hand, I think Staci is of a generation & background where she’d more likely say “swimsuit,” but I wanted her to say “bathin’ suit” because it makes me laugh for some reason.

I can hear both in my head!

If I were still rushing to get this posted before midnight, I’d just pick one. But when I was already running out of time, I set the “sun” light to raytrace by mistake! Because I was in a hurry, I meant to use deep shadow maps. So, that ran long, and I posted a filler image for yesterday. So now, I have lots of time to second-guess myself.

I decided I should stop wasting time and post it as “bathing suit,” since I first saved the comic strip image with Staci using that terminology. Then I thought again and changed it anyway. I like that little bit of “Yankee” in Staci’s speech.

Oh, and I have Ellery calling her mother “Ma.” If you’d asked me before today, I might have said she calls her mother “Mom.” Well, maybe I would have gone with “Ma,” anyway, actually.

None of this actually matters.

At least taking my time meant I took more time on the (2D) background. If I ever actually build a set where Ellery’s house (if that’s what that is) has an actual exterior, it’s going to feel strange.

Oh, and these two have swapped typefaces from the previous strip Ellery's mother appeared in, back in 2014: "Ellery needs air." A minor touch only I care about, but there it is.