Saturday, June 18, 2011

Avatar Story: Winter's End (Part 1)


Seeing as it's already June, I really should shed those winter clothes, shouldn't I? But to do that, I need to finish telling the Winter story, so let's get this show on the road.

Avatar Story – Winter's End Part 1: Gift Horse

This was supposed to go up on the day of the Epiphany (January 6)

A snow-covered forest. The trees are young and skinny. At their base, something small and brown is moving, leaving a trail in the snow. Upon closer inspection, it’s obviously a mouse with long, ruffled fur, wearing a bulky jacket.



“Oof!” breathes Frank-the-mouse, as he limps through the snow on all fours – well, threes since he's having to keep his right leg out of the snow. Not looking where he’s going, he bumps his head against someone else.
Looking up he realizes it’s… “Jane! Who… how… what are you doing here?”

“I brought you a present,” she says, pulling out a box from underneath the red shawl she’s wearing.
Frank gets up, still keeping his right leg out of the snow, and takes the box. “Thanks,” he tells her, “but Christmas was ages ago.”
“Well,” she adds slyly as Frank unwraps the box, “I’m not the one drawing these, am I?”
Frank begins to dig into the box in silence, but stops himself, suddenly, and turns to Jane, but doesn't say anything. Jane only smiles adorably.

See as a single image

Artist's note

January 6 is a gift-giving day in many Spanish-speaking countries, which is why the “Christmas was ages ago” was supposed to be funny, originally. Of course, the fact that I kept this as the place to restart worries me a little.

This didn't exactly come out as I planned it. Originally, there was going to be three "throwaway" gags and fifteen panels. I'm hoping to do the other 7 next week, as part 2.

Incidentally, the full, uncropped picture for each panel is huge. Here is Panel 2, for example:
I like to think of the making of the full picture as doing the blocking and the cropping as fixing the camera angle. Somehow, I didn't think it would work so well if you saw who he was going to bump into before he actually bumped into her.

The disclaimer that will be published with "part 2" also applies to this post.

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