Hello everyone! Here’s a rare public post, but we’re so excited to share!
Today, myself and Jam ( https://www.patreon.com/jam ) are pleased to announce our new creative collaboration: The Order Pastel.
It’s a thing! It’s us! Surprise!!
What is it? The Order Pastel is a space where we’ll be creating collaborative stationary, stickers, and organizational ephemera. Jam and I have been collaborating together on comics and zines for a couple years, and along the way we’ve developed a lot of tools and techniques to help track our work, keep on top of deadlines, and delegate projects, and we want to start sharing what we’ve made!
The Order Pastel is currently a small seed, but we plan to grow and expand it to include multiple talents, brands, and mediums, by creating things like notebooks, zines, self care, washi, sticker sets, and generally useful items to help us get through this together.
We’ll be sharing more in the coming months, but for now you can follow The Order Pastel’s upcoming pieces on instagram:
These days it’s not okay, but… you're gonna be okay. We’re in this together, and we hope you’re here with us, too. We're excited to share what we can make when we work as a team.
So here's the short of the long of it: every time I make an update I get at least two fake pledges (usually at a pretty high tier). I'm at the point where I'm losing an it's-not-funny-anymore amount of money to scammy fake accounts and at a glance I honestly can't tell who's real and who's a bot, so to mitigate this I'm going to be changing my Patreon to the new charging-when-you-subscribe option that Patreon is rolling out.
If you're already subscribed to my Patreon this will not change anything for you! I just wanted to make a public statement/post about it, and I'm sorry it had to come to this. Bots and scammers, y'know? What can ya do.
I loved working out the logistics of selkie magic and how taking the seal-skin works in the Eth's Skin world. The next few pages of the selkie explaining the "rules" (and her impatience and distaste for how bullshit the situation is) were some of my favourite to write and I'm excited to share them.
Early update of Eth's Skin- wherein the plot THICKENS.
Much like Eth, the selkie originally had a much more fae-inspired design (Eth's Skin trivia: Eth was drawn with pointy elf ears up until page 12 of chapter 1. When I realised how few nonbinary human characters there are and how it was much more important it is to have Eth be human I changed and redrew things). The selkie's design became more human during the design stage- before I started drawing the comic- the only thing inhuman about them that made it into the finished pages are her pointy little seal teeth.
I'm so glad to be back doing early updates for Eth's Skin. I inevitably make a bunch of tweaks to each page at the eleventh hour before they go live to the public, so the early update is a little glimpse into an almost-but-not-quite alternate reality version of Eth's Skin.
The saga of "u hecked up, Eth" begins.
Eth's Skin picks up again this very week! I was going to switch to updating on Mondays, but after a little talk it looks like it doesn't matter so much to people one way or another, so I'm going to stick with Wednesday because then I don't have to change my routine.
This also means that early updates are back! Here is PAGE 1. Picking up right where we left off- the moment of the Big Heck Up.
Eth.
Eth no.
(fun Eth's Skin trivia: the three panels of Eth grabbing the selkie's skin at the bottom of the page were the very first visuals I came up with for this story. Eth's Skin came into existence basically as an excuse to draw that one moment.)
Two pages left of the first chapter of Eth's Skin- I can't believe it!
Things are heating up (because there is a fire in this page) ((also because something is about to happen that the entire comic has been leading up to, at this point)).
We're down to the last few pages of chapter one of Eth's Skin. These are some of my favourite pages- after all that talking... back in my comfort zone of silent pages full of silent panels in the old growth forests of British Columbia.
I'm kind of sad that's the last we'll see of Töby's mums for awhile, because I love drawing their masks. I'm glad for things to be back outside in the realm of stone beaches and high tide, though.
I'm going to be out of town next week so I don't know if there will be an early update of Eth's Skin or not. I'm dreaming a silly dream of leaving my laptop at home and being well and truly "on vacation" for five days- we'll see.
As much as I love the importance and personal and emotional significance of groups and families coming together to cook a meal and enjoy it together, I am so glad to no longer have "sitting around a table talking" pages to show.
I've been working hard on chapter 2 of Eth's Skin and I almost forgot to post this early update for chapter 1. Page 30! We're in the home stretch, now.
I really want to show off previews of the new pages I'm drawing, but literally every single panel is an enormous spoiler so I can't just yet. Soon, though. Soon.
In the meantime: page 30! I did a lot of research on mythical creatures and folklore in order to flesh out the world of Eth's Skin, and in my reading I learned about Fearsome Critters, and the Fearsome Creatures of the Lumberwoods- which were stories of alleged monsters that were found in North America, as told by the lumberjacks (usually to scare or haze greenhorns in the camps). Töby's mums are listing off a bunch of my favourites in this page- I'm determined to draw them into the story eventually (or if not: draw a fake guide book or creature consortium, because I can't go much longer without drawing a hugag or an axe-handle hound. I just can't.)
Early Eth's Skin!
There are some trivial details on this page- Eth is a pescetarian (which means they eat fish, but don't eat any other kind of meat) so they don't have any of the roast on their plate.
Now you have some knowledge that you can use to win Eth's Skin trivia one day.
Where did the weekend go? What happened to all that time I thought we had!? (Sorry the early update is a little late.)
I didn't plan for Eth's Skin to be a comic of food montages, but it turns out food and family and togetherness are a big deal to me? This is something I had no idea I valued until I drew this comic and noticed it's punctuated by "let's get together and make something to eat" scenes.
Comics: teaching you things you probably should have known about yourself all along.
Töby takes his mask off!
Beachewalkers wear their masks to hide themselves from the things that live in the old growth forests (monsters aren't that clever, and a mask [albeit a mask made of magic] is generally enough of a disguise to keep them from noticing you). However, inside their homes (which are also cloaked in various magics) beachwalkers can take their masks off.
I had a lot of fun designing beachwalker homes- the forests are dangerous and generally uninhabitable, so beachwalkers can only make their homes on the thin strips of stony beaches (thus their name). The land is saturated with magic and magical creatures, and even though the beaches are relatively "safe" a lot of non-hostile magicklings- sprites, fae, imps, sprigs, etc.- find their way into beachwalker homes. It's the beachwalker equivalent to having fruit flies, spiders, and mice. Just regular pests.
Two posts in one day! How 'bout that.
It's another early page of Eth's Skin!
One day I'll do a mini-montage side-story following Töby's misadventures with alienating himself from the ocean (and refusing to apologize). It will be called "Töby needs to learn to think before he speaks" with the subtitle "just say sorry, holy shit you live on a beach you can't avoid the ocean forever."
Töby is a moss-witch, which means he has a way with moss and lichen and standing stones (this doesn't sound enormously useful or exciting, but Töby is very proud of it- as well he should be). Unfortunately he has no tact when it comes to any other thing on earth. The fact that he has managed to make it into young-adulthood is more thanks to the dozens (if not hundreds) of protection and mollifying spells his mothers have cast for (and on) him than it is thanks to any skill or self-preservation instinct on his part.
What a doof.
My CAF shows are done! I can return to regular work without the pressure of two shows back-to-back breathing down on me.
We're (finally) delving deeper into the old growth forests and seeing what hangs out on land with the beachwalkers. The smell of cedar and a thick covering of moss on every surface is almost as important and integral to my idea of the west coast as the stone beaches and tide pools. The upcoming scene is one of my favourites.
An extra-early update of Eth's Skin (because I'll be at VanCAF all weekend and I know if I don't post it now then I will forget).
My most favourite part of Eth's Skin was reshaping the already might-as-well-be-riddled-with-magic west coast of British Columbia into its own distinct world. Making up rules for how magic and monsters work in the story kept me entertained and busy for days (in a nutshell: magic saturates the coast, but it can't stray out onto the water [thus the reason for people living on the townships]. Those who have decided to live on land [beachwalkers] have had to invent ways to disguise themselves so as not to draw the attention of the beasts that live in the forests [thus the huge masks]. It's a compromise: they do live with the constant threat of eldritch horrors stomping out of the old growth, but in exchange they themselves are incredibly adept at using magic, and are far more in-tune with the earth, etc. . Not a lifestyle I would choose [townships all the way], but power to them.)
If you're in Vancouver you should drop by VanCAF this weekend! I'll be there! Admission is free!
Another week(end) another early update page of Eth's Skin!
I guess the beachwalkers aren't bad after all. You don't give gift baskets to bad folks. Right? Right????
A big scene change in this week's page of Eth's Skin. Time to meet these beachwalkers we've all heard so much about.
I've said it all over the place, but Eth's Skin is (among many things) a love letter to the west coast of British Columbia where I was born and lived the majority of my life. The story is set in and around the area of the Discovery Islands and the Sunshine Coast, which I honestly feel is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I tried really hard to capture the feeling that's unique to that part of the world, where the old growth forests lean out over the waters encircling the islands, and the rain and fog cling to the moss and the branches, and even if you go there now- without outspoken mermaids and secretive selkies - it feels like there's some sort of magic at work.
This is another one of my favourite pages- about to set tentative feet on shore.
I'm excited about this page only because I'm even more excited for the next page (and the page after that). The next few pages of Eth's Skin are three of my favourites.
Enjoy the early update!
Hello- happy Saturday! Here's another early Eth's Skin update.
From the very beginning Eth's Skin was intended to be a giant love letter to the west coast of British Columbia, where I was born and where I grew up/spent most of my life. I wanted to tick as many cliche "west coast" tropes as I could, and orcas are such a huge part of British Columbian aesthetic. "Killer whale" would be considered a slur term in the townships and the beachwalker communities of Eth's Skin- even now in BC I know there are a lot of people making a concentrated effort to shift towards referring to them exclusively as orcas.
Amin's pod doesn't do much in the first chapter of the story, but it was important to have them drift by, and I can't wait to properly establish them a little later on in the story.
Some polarizing Thoughts and Opinions in today's Early Update page of Eth's Skin.
Also a glimpse of orcas, in case you forgot that this is a west coast comic set on the west coast full of west coast cliches of the west coast.
Oops- sorry about dropping the ball on the usual Saturday Early Eth's Skin update, I am still in Portland and completely lost track of time.
But here's page 15! More food montages and the return of Goblin.
Hello- happy Saturday- here's next week's page of Eth's Skin!
I didn't set out making Eth's Skin with this in mind, but a lot of scenes in the first chapter centre around preparing food and eating meals together with loved ones. I didn't realize it was something that my life was lacking, but getting to draw these Ghibli-esque cooking montages filled a hole in my comic-making heart that I didn't even know was there.
