Grrl Power #1356 – Afterglow
Yes, I’m calling my “it’s basically D&D” world Gygaxia. I’m that subtle.
It’d be nice if all women came with conspicuous visual indicators to reflect the sum of one’s efforts like that. And guys too, I guess, but guys seem a lot simpler to figure out, both sexually and… asexually? Platonically? Whatever. Of course, if that was the case, and a ladies ears glowed every time you gave them an appropriate gift or whatever, there’d probably be a lot of effort made to conceal those tell-tale signs. First-date earmuffs or whatever. Actually, I think there’d be two schools of thought on the matter. One, make them work really hard for it. Two, roadmap to pound town.
I will resist lamenting my own art for this page, as I’m fairly pleased with backlit glowy stripes Dabbler, but man, that overlook of the city in panel 1 really could have been more intricate. Like, instead of looking like an oddly planned out concentric apartment complex, I was really envisioning something that was a cross of Blade Runner, Gotham, and Miscellaneous Sci-Fi Spires and what have you. The worst part about the city-scape that’s on the page is that it still took hours to draw, partially because I didn’t plan it well, and it just doesn’t look like it. I genuinely don’t understand how artists known for their backgrounds do it. Do they spend 40 hours on a hero shot for a splash page and then deploy a bunch of tricks to wrangle out some more economical backgrounds in other panels? I’m not talking about the manga guys. I know that most of the big titles have a team of guys doing all the “secondary” art, and a lot of that is often done in 3D programs. Actually a lot of manhwa I’ve seen look like all the backgrounds come straight out of a Sketchup render.
The other thing that bugs me about that background is where are the other tall buildings? Or are Dabbler and Hoss are on the 80th floor of the FükTowr hourly hotel, which is the only tall building on that entire side of Fracture Station? Yeah, I know, there could be a huge “downtown” area on the other side of the building from their room, but still.
But as I said, no lamenting.
So are Dabbler’s stripes indicative of her power level? Generally no, especially in direct sunlight. But a proper surge of power does take a little while to properly “digest.” And they do occasionally change color depending on certain criteria. I would link this happening previously, but honestly, I can’t remember specific pages without going back and browsing through the archive, and if I do that now, I’ll spend like 3 hours just reading the comic.
Oh look! The vote incentive has an update!
It’s not quite where I wanted it for this update. I kind of skipped over posting just the flats and started shading Heatwave, but hadn’t gotten as far as J-Watt. But I figured I’d post what I had.
I’ll hopefully have more progress soon as things here are kind of slowing down. Still putting the house together after the move, but there’s still plenty to do. The Patreon version is updated as well.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Yep, technology can be hidden anywhere.
Haha! I did the same for a dnd themed crew in Star Trek Online. Planet Gy-Gax in the Tul’Ken system. I blamed a group of marooned ren-fair types from Lower Decks for the naming.
So the technometal is very likely going to draw adventurers and goddesses to him because it will be the only such on the planet? Doesn’t sound very protective, sounds more like the cursed armor that’s a monster magnet… ;3
It can be two things.
One thing, an exp generator.
Ultronium weapons and armor?
They’re probably not all that much better than some of the cheese that a D&D world would have already. Force spells? Adamantine?
For that matter, depending on how closely Gygaxia follows Gygax’s campaign, there may be a crashed starship or two there already. Although I may be confusing it with Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor.
An interesting fact in D&D 3, 3.5 , and pathfinder the Mithral is akin to the irl Titanium alloys strong as steel , lightweight corrosion resistant .
Mithral is stated as having about half the density of steel – half weight for a Mithral armor – and the density of steel is about 8 and titanium is 4.5.
An irl titanium armor could pass for a mithral armor and a rifled musket with percussion cap is doable with a good craftsman and an alchemy lab , you could with the know how, go to the Springfield Model 1861 with percussion cap and Minié ball … and a Colt Model 1848 Percussion Army Revolver if you have aces to good steel.
Black powder weapons but much more deadly than an arquebus.
“Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim.”
– Gandalf, LotR
Might be a bit more like the Arduin RPG series by David Hargrave. It was an early rival to D&D before even AD&D came out.
Very much suited to power gaming (for both players and DM).
Another amusing fact is D&D is about 15th century tech level and the first major European battle won through the extensive use of field artillery, is the battle of Castillon ( 17 July 1453 in Gascony near the town of Castillon-sur-Dordogne (later Castillon-la-Bataille) , last battle of the Hundred Years’ War ).
The D&D underdog Warhammer RPG, a former UK RPG, fantasy setting is in the empire a fantasy version of the holy roman empire with a 16th century technology , Schwarze Reiter are a carrer -Pistolier – and firearms are pretty widespread.
to add to that at the end of the warhammer storyline, the empire was actively going through the early stages of the industrial revolution, standardizing and mass producing ammo and gear, had it gone one for like another edition i would not have been suprised to see early factories spring up, but unfortunatley the end times
Is the character’s name Dynotaku?
That’s one hell of an afterglow.
So “Hoss” figured out some way to tap into the Superion field. The question is how, and what are the consequences for Earth and its populace of doing so.
My guess? Deus. He knows the most about the Superion field, and he’s hinted he knows how to make supers. I’m more concerned about how far from Earth that “bespoke” field extends. Dynotaku may discover his newfound ‘edge’ fades after a while. Hopefully not while he’s dueling an ancient dragon for the heart (heh) of a sexiled goddess…
Still, that might be why Deus gave BigD powers – to test their range.
Half expecting that Hoss is actually Deus and adopted the disguise upon arriving.
He DOES have the Deus grin…
This is a flashback and Dabbler hasn’t been to earth yet. I suppose Deus “could” have coincidentally powered up some random visiting alien, more likely the “edge” Boss is referring to is Dabbler herself, is what I got from the way he is gripping her face.
Appears to be a field that permeates the entire universe of Sydney’s reality. Their super powers worked just fine on Alari Prime, many light years away from Earth. And by assuming that Sydney’s orbs also draw on the S-Field for their power source, they seem to work everywhere she’s been (i.e. fracture station and in-between).
Glory Dabbler would make an excellent bonus wallpaper subject.
Also a hilarious “emergency flashlight ”
Sydney- “Dammit powers out an we need to see these rules to save the puppy orphanage ”
Dabbled “Give me 15 minutes and (insert 3rd person here) to help and I’ll have it covered”
15 minutes later
Sydney- “Sweet I can see the runes! Whoa you’re glowing! How – OG COME ON REALLY?”
“It’s really dark in here… Dabbler, get undressed.”
“And so he left for Gygaxia, and I never saw him again. But before he left, he told me where he’d gotten his ‘new edge’: it was on an obscure body in the S-K System. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet… ‘Earth.'”
I understood that reference… :)
I spent more of my youth in Staffordania
And Petersenland
Bare cheeks on the first panel, huh?
Also, that guy looks like a hentai super villain.
Aka SmugD :P
Well, I mean, he kinda IS…
I mean, women do have visual indicators. Smiling, laughing at jokes, touching a hand, making prolonged eye contact. So to be fair, they are there even if they aren’t glow-in-the-dark level of obvious.
As DaveB mentioned, these behaviors are easily (and commonly) concealed or faked. So, not a strong indicator.
Exactly, they learned about it and fake it to the point the line blurs.
You’re gonna be able to tell someone you know but not someone you are getting to know.
… sorry for noting a possible flaw, but it looks like Dabbler’s reflection in the first panel isn’t reflecting.
Yes it is, but she’s really close to the glass and the POV is almost directly in line. Look just under her arms and between her legs (ha). The real issue with the reflection is that the POV is from someone shorter than Dabbler (her arm reflections are below her arms), but the only other person present is “Hoss” who is much taller. He would see the arm reflections above her actual arms.
He could be sitting on the edge of the bed, about to get up
Possible solution to the ‘no other tall buildings in the area’ problem:
Based on how high up that window seems to be in Panel 1, & that the first image we saw of Fracture looked more like an outer shell around a massive artificial space station/colony, could it be that they’re in a starship in low orbit of the Station?
This makes way more sense than a really tall building on the outside of the FS “shell”. Considering how much of the curve is visible, they’d have to be miles (or kms) above the surface.
I had the same thought regarding a low-orbit ship, given the view they’ve got
Follow up question to my theoretical solution to the ‘tall building’ dilemma.
Hoss looks familiar. Like, I’ve seen an old Furry-themed comic where the primary male character was a unicorn with a nearly-identical look & the exact same look on his face when he smirks mischieviously.
The old comic was in black-&-white, & I *THINK* the male unicorn had zebra stripes, but the near-identical designs & facial expressions is damn-hard for me to ignore.
Not the Unicorn Gore from the Aniverse, certainly? You’d be really into the old comics if you knew that one :)
Earmuffs? Nah.
They would just apply make up to their ears to look like they have the glow 24/7 so when it happens we wouldn’t know.
Just like rouge is supposed to simulate the blush of sexual excitement
There was a city in panel 1?
Dave, I’m no artist, but I like art. Have you watched the Spider-verse movies? There are some amazing city-scapes in those movies (even aside from The Leap of Faith), and lots of videos studying their art process. Might be something to glean from those.
“The other thing that bugs me about that background is where are the other tall buildings? Or are Dabbler and Hoss are on the 80th floor of the FükTowr hourly hotel, which is the only tall building on that entire side of Fracture Station?”
I’d assume even the most modest underground hotel room has a high tech “window” which can display any part of the actual cityscape. Or generate an artificial cityscape.
That’d be some very rudimentary technology and would cost a hotel a hell of a lot less than actually having to build the tallest building in the place.
Along those lines, future airliners may have to forego windows for the passengers as they are weak spots/failure points in the pressurized cabin. TV screens instead.
The webcomic that repeatedly amazes me with its detail is Unsounded. Ashley Cope has never mentioned in the About on the website or in her comments, nor is it mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Unsounded, that she has anybody else working on the comic but her. Yet new pages are posted each M-W-F most weeks. How she creates those complex, detailed pages in just 2 days time without any additional help is, as I said, amazing. If there’s additional people working with her they need to be acknowledged.
Girl Genius also puts out great art 3 days a week but they acknowledge there’s multiple people working on it.
Ashley is open about taking breaks from time to time to build up her buffer. Still an insane work ethic, but quite as mad as you imagine it to be.
It seems obvious that anyplace called the “FükTowr Hourly Hotel” needs to proudly stick up above the surrounding terrain.
So, this is after Dabbles lost her tail? So some time after Were World (where she first heard about Dirt)?
There is a city in panel one? I didn’t notice. I must have been distracted by something…
—I hope this leads in to mentioning her crossover. If she came to give Steve(?) patents his information and the knowledge that he can’t leave the planet to go home, I’d respect that. I think Maxima would too . . .
Names of worlds with themes don’t need to be too subtle, although sharing a name with something else. I am still livid the name I called one of my worlds now shows up in searches for some game I never heard of prior, nor really hear people talk about, but shouldn’t be surprised someone say the “tales of” series and decided to add a random sound like I did…granted my reason for calling a planet Aesperia, was after “espers” as the premise was a magic world with ancient tech colonized by mutated super humans from yet another universe, and put an A at the start as I also had another world in mind called Espara (a world where a theocratic government controlled by angels has an iron fist on the magic that the humans would naturally have without the angels and demons putting seals on the population that are inherited and then enforced by a cultivated culture of control),
couldn’t tell you where I got the names for some other worlds though like why I call a world with old school fairy tale type monsters and magic “Peres”. I am sure I named it after something or someone in a fairy tale.
Is it possible to get a version of that first frame without the text? It’s so pretty!
That cityscape looks very space 1999.
“Or are Dabbler and Hoss are on the 80th floor of the FükTowr hourly hotel, which is the only tall building on that entire side of Fracture Station? Yeah, I know, there could be a huge “downtown” area on the other side of the building from their room, but still.”
I mean if there is such a building, it is probably shaped like a giant penis. That towers over the landscape.
And Dabbler has a flat rate access.