Morning People

I’m just saying that some people manage waking up early better than others. And I think here you can see how the band does it. Some are better than others at it. But you can't really blame them, after all it's extra hard when you're going around in a van during the day and doing concerts at night.

And that's pretty much the idea behind this piece. I wanted to see the band stopping to get some breakfast and it became a road piece while I was making it. See who in the band are morning people and who isn't. For example Tony and RJ are managing it well while Davo is having a hard time being awake and Zara pretty much gave up on that.

One thing that was kind of fun doing this is deciding on the food they'd have in front of them. On one level it is only a highway dinner so I wanted to limit my options so I stuck to the continental breakfast. Nothing too specialized like Salmon for RJ or whatever. On the other hand I knew that Davo, Tony and Zara would not eat meat as they're birds and a rabbit. So Zara and Tony are eating pancakes because I went the easy route and I gave bread to the birds, while with Davo I had him order the grilled cheese and fries because the idea of him being the type of guy that orders from the kids menu is funny to me.

I ended up doing a little bit of world building with this. I usually manage this kind of thing with the "don't think too much about it" strategy but I guess I've decided on this rule for their world. Herbivores are vegetarian, not vegan because that's very limiting at the end of the day, you wanna be flexible when it is about the default, Davo can have some cheese and Diana can eat a salad. (Unfortunately for my argument, she's not eating salad here) I guess that being vegan is still a choice you can make in their world unlike being vegetarian Which is a lot more common for them.

As for the other three, Lil the cat is having the Tuna Sandwich, that one was obvious and Diana and RJ's eggs and meat are maybe the less inspired choices but that obeys the point of them being just in a regular dinner.

Which takes me to another question about the world they live in. Where does the meat come from, and my answer is one I had decided long ago. I never really focus on this point but I've referenced it from time to time. In their world there's animal people and animals. It's like humans and monkeys but on a bigger scale I guess. The culture around it has to be different at some level, but it's basically just like ours. That's the only way their world makes sense.

Just don't think too much about it…

About references, the place they're eating at isn't inspired by any specific place. I originally wanted to set it on a corner booth with a round table a restaurant in my town had before it was remodeled but I couldn't make the composition work in a way I liked so I ended up going with something a little more generic.

The road behind them is heavily based on the Tepetlixpa - Atlatlahucan highway and the Mexico - Veracruz highway. I used some photos I had for reference. There's other highways that look like this but these are the ones I used.

And for the Van parked outside I once again used the 3d model of a Toyota Hiace that I bought from 3d artist vav206g.

I later revisited this concept so that one is coming soon.